Some quick thoughts on streaming becoming the dominant way that society consumes music.
11th June 20241) Nobody owns music anymore – you just rent it.
2) Nobody leaves their kids their record collections anymore – all those life lessons and pearls of wisdom captured in some medium – they can just look forward to you leaving them a playlist.
3) 3 Major record companies own and control the majority of the copyrights that form the folk identity of Western culture.
4) A streaming royalty is practically nil to the creator – so major saving there
5) No manufacturing costs – massive savings there
6) No logistical costs – Humungous savings there
7) Every single copyright ever made drip by drip fills the coffers as you all listen for £9.99 a month
8)Those record companies are small subsidiaries of enormous multinationals that control many aspects of things that you consume and shape your day to day life.
9) Some artists that are owned by these companies will come to dominate the streaming platforms that you use and will soak up the majority of payments as payments are worked out on a pro-rata basis – everyone else will get practically nil.
10) Grassroots acts won’t make enough money in order to develop their art. They won’t be able to progress any further unless they are “selected” by the music industry for investment.
11) Streaming will kill the fledgling DIY music industry 2.0 and reassert the old music industry as the tastemakers that control which artists reach an audience.
12) The music industry will come full circle to the 70s when an artist needed a label because the costs of making records were so cripplingly huge that it was impossible to do without support. In the future it will be a perversion of that idea in that an artist will need Industry support because the payouts are so cripplingly small.
13) Unlucky for some.
