We live in a time where music is so readily available for us listeners to stream online without directly buying the music due to the numerous cloud and streaming services. Kyle Hulett from the band That’s Outrageous has given us his view on the subject from the point of view of a working musician. Check out what he had to say below and let us know what you think about this matter as well in the comments below.
Imagine a world where downloading music is a thing of the past. Illegal torrent sites garner the same traffic as Myspace after the Facebook takeover and all digital media is streamed seamlessly through the air in a gigantic network called “the cloud”; accessible to anyone with a smartphone. Almost sounds like the Utopian workings of a Kurt Vonnegut book, right? But, as with many of Vonnegut’s novels, things are not always as great as they seem.
Cloud services are the way of the future. The ability to stream music anywhere, at any time without physically downloading a song is not only a concept out of The Jetsons, but a reality thanks to revolutionary services like Spotify, Pandora and even Vevo. The New York Times reports that by last year, Spotify had almost 33 million trial based users and a revenue increase to $236 million in 2011. This year the service plans to pay out over twice that to major rights holders alone. There are no doubts that with a margin like that, cloud services are here to stay. Buying music directly is soon to be a thing of the past.
Kids want everything accessible direct from their smartphones. It’s the dawn of a golden age in the mobile media. Spotify CEO, Daniel Ek says “It’s kind of like we get to start all over again” knowing that piracy isn’t as rampant on mobile devices. The Spotify ‘Cloud’ is available anywhere and virtually everywhere for one low monthly payment. A payment that provides a catalog including just about everything you’d find and pay for individually on sites like iTunes & Amazon. It’s also free to desktop users and quickly integrating as a tool for recording artists to help showcase their stuff while still earning income in a way they hadn’t seen before.
But what does this really mean for rights owners? No, not the major label execs making privately negotiated rates, but the independent artist responsible for spending numerous hours in the studio on their own dime. Or even independent label owners who can’t afford to haggle with big distributors. Spotify pays a small percent on the penny (per play) to private and independent rights owners. This makes it impossible for the little guy to make anywhere near their money back (directly relying on the service). YouTube only pays out to rights owners, and only if they place an ad on every single stream. Many artists have adapted to stream alternate versions to help combat file ripping. If universal cloud streaming continues to grow at this rate, downloading music will be obsolete in this decade. For anyone who isn’t a part time marketing genius, this realistically leaves concerts and merchandising as an artist’s only source of income. With live stream concerts on the rise, some could argue that even this aspect may be in jeopardy over the next decade. For many smaller full time touring artists much of this may already be the norm, depending on the details of their recording agreement, but Private Rights Owners should be asking themselves ‘what we can do?’. I believe that we should be fighting for our intellectual rights; before it’s too late.
Revolt! Throughout history, we’ve protested for our intellectual and physical rights time & time again. It sounds extreme but we’re in a real pickle here if nothing is done about it, now. ‘Music is what feelings sound like.’ Recorded Music often accompanies our weddings, our BBQ’s, graduations, road trips, daily commutes and more… Music is important to us. It’s human nature to fight for the things we find important. I believe it is time to assemble a prominent union for Privately Owned Music. With the power of a strong front we could finally have the voice to play with the big dogs. Demand higher royalty rates from Cloud Streaming Services and compensate for the loss in digital/physical sales or threaten to remove vast catalogs of Privately Owned Music from their service.
Cloud services are indeed the way of the future. There is no doubting or debating that. It goes without saying that this could already pan out to be the worst decade in history to be a musician. How we play our fields and strengths now will determine that. Countless generations and cultures have united by a common goal and understanding; so why not ours? We are a community that speaks with a universal tongue. As long as there is a will, there is a way.
