“Before musicians and their advocates can move to enact a fairer system of pay”, Bryne wrote, “we need to know exactly what’s going on”.
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Writing in the New York Times, Byrne claimed that “about 70% of the money a listener pays to Spotify (which, to its credit, has tried to illuminate the opaque payment system) goes to the rights holders, usually the labels, which play the largest role in determining how much artists are paid”. Even as the musical audience has grown, ways have been found to siphon off a greater percentage than ever of the money that customers and music fans pay for recorded music.
So here’s the problem according to David Byrne. “This might make sense if streaming music included manufacturing, breakage and other physical costs for the label to recoup, but it does not,” Byrne continues. And if you don’t wonder, I’m sure Apple and the big three major labels are silently thanking you for your complacency. Is it because they were offered a better deal than the smaller, independent labels?
What’s more, Byrne suggests labels are withholding revenue from other areas, too, including “advances from streaming services, catalog service payments for old songs and equity in the streaming services themselves”. That means Apple could launch a Beats 2 station headquartered in Australia or Asia, allowing it to provide live radio around the clock (Beats 1 is only live 12 hours a day). For example, I asked YouTube how ad revenue from videos that contain music is shared (which should be an incredibly basic question).
One industry source told me that the major labels assigned the income they got from streaming services on a seemingly arbitrary basis to the artists in their catalogue. “There is a rising tide of dissatisfaction, but we can work together to make fundamental changes that will be good for all”.
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Read David Byrne’s opinion piece, “Open the Music Industry’s Black Box” here, and listen to “Who” – from his collaborative “Love This Giant” album with St Vincent’ – below.
