An open letter to musicians
Dear Sonic Sculptors,
Please. For everything that is good and right in the world, stop agreeing to be stolen from. The biggest con in history (save organized religion) is the concept that musicians don't need or deserve to be paid. It's a tale as old as time and exacerbated by the digital age and late-stage capitalism. People want something from you. They also have no desire to pay you for said thing. The dance that ensues is one of gaslighting, lies, derision, and outright theft in order to place that thing in their possession and you out of their sight.
The World Thrives on Music
Make no mistake. The WorldTM needs music. The world wants music. Music has value. The root of the issue is that 'the world,' and currently modern society, don't want to pay for it. You can travel to any corner of the planet, and you will find music there. Music is an essential part of the human experience, and it has served to support and enrich our lives since its inception.What changed? The world changed. Society changed. The order of operations changed. We no longer existed as small community living off of land and local resources, taking care of the group as a whole. We became individuals. We built cities. We created "jobs." And through all of it, music has been right there. Whether lamenting a lost love, bringing a celebration to the "next level," or fanning political flames, music has been one of the few constants throughout human history and I believe it always will be.
However The WorldTM as it exists within modern society, also created a way for music to earn compensation. It's only logical. Money exists as a medium to offset the order of a trade or barter system. It's not entirely useful for a plumber to work for trade. The plumber may only need one house for himself and his family so, no matter how many new houses he installs plumbing in. That service has limited value to him in trade. However, if he plumbs 20 new homes and is paid with cash, he can purchase the home he needs along with furniture, clothes, and food to eat. We aren't here to vilify the need to earn a living. Instead, we are here to challenge one of the strongest tenets of capitalism: Extract as much work as possible for as little pay as possible.
Music, unfortunately, has been hit hard by the ravages of capitalism. Music, by way of musicians, requires labor, skill, training (in most cases), expertise, and most importantly, money. The world cannot and should not expect the rest of society to operate one way to support its existence, yet toss musicians to the winds of chance and disdain from those who consider them "lesser-than," are envious of particular talents or abilities, or seek to disenfranchise them for their own enrichment. No one asks a dentist to do it for "the love." You don't expect to arrive at a movie theater and walk in for free to "give the filmmaker exposure." You are receiving something tangible and valuable from musicians.
Why Should You Get Anything?
We've all heard it before. "You get to play around with music." "Music is free to make anyway." "You should be grateful for the exposure." "Maybe you should go get a 'real job.'" And so on.
The life of a musician has no shortage of non-musicians telling you why you shouldn't expect to be paid, why your product is "that valuable," or why you should be out there doing "real jobs." The idea that work isn't "work" or has less value because it isn't difficult or miserable isn't new. Capitalists and those under their spell constantly spend time going around attempting to place value on the labor of others. This labor, or value, becomes synonymous with your worth in society. It's the very reason these same folks will argue that minimum wage jobs are "no skill" or "for kids." Minimum wage was instituted to outline the minimum a company is allowed to pay you for your time and labor. However, the capitalist crowd views those jobs based on worth or value. To them, minimum wage means you or your labor isn't worth more than that. They've assigned personal value to the wage you receive and treat you accordingly. Those individuals often can't answer why fast food jobs are "for kids" but expect those same fast food restaurants to be open at 1PM on a Tuesday when kids are in school. You don't "deserve" to be able to live off your salary because what you do isn't worth enough.
Extending this to music means that those same people look at musicians and think, "music is fun and enjoyable" therefore, it must be easy, stress free, and cost very little. Again, the work doesn't appear to them to be difficult or stressful enough to be "real work." You're not crawling under houses or putting out fires like a "real job." Being a "rock star" is easy! It's just one huge party with music, scantily clad fans, and being celebrated everywhere you go. How hard could it be? Riiiiight. So, naturally, because your life is "fun and easy," you've already got everything you "deserve" from life. Why are you now asking for money? We'll perhaps address the disdain of those who are jealous of musicians' talents another day, but they too often land in the "get a real job" chorus. The bottom line is: There's a long line of people eager to tell you that you don't deserve money.
When Turntables Turned the Tables
In my view, the fuel that kicked money in music into high gear was the proliferation of mass produced music in the early 20th century (particularly in the U.S.). Now, music was a literal product. It was ready to be made and sold to the masses, and this would generate a lot of money almost immediately. And almost just as fast came the practice of those in positions of power and money swindling the artist they found playing songs along a dirt road, in a blues shack in the deep south, or riding a wave of public popularity.
Many years passed where musicians made almost nothing while "labels" and producers walked away with large sums of cash generated from the work, talent, and music of creative people for every "bad contract" there were just as many handshake deals that saw the all of the profits of a musician's labor flow into the pockets of someone wearing a suit, sitting in an office, and "explaining the business to ya, kid."
Fast forward to the digital age and despite some gains legally, the music industry is still a large game of "hide the money"—especially when it comes time to pay the artists. Cassette tapes and compact discs were quickly replaced with MP3 that could be downloaded across the internet. The "wild west" of digital music during the early days of companies like "Napster" and "Limewire" led to a virtual free-for-all where listeners scooped up as much music as they could without paying a dime. Again, we arrive at musicians surrendering their work without compensation. However, what happened next also did not work out in favor of musicians. Record labels and parent companies of all types came to the table with lawsuits and punitive damages to completely disrupt the world of free music. Unfortunately, that put the labels in control of the proliferation of digital music, where they were set to receive the lion's share of return. To no one's surprise, this still did not largely benefit creators as we were right back to the early days of "this guy has all the money, but is telling you there's no money."
To continue with the most abridged version of digital music history ever written, we pull up to today where music streaming companies have slowly but surely eroded the means of musicians to make nearly any money from their labor and artistic work by becoming the mean through which listeners can, once again, ingest as much music as their heart desires for less than $20 a month—a price far too many are willing to pay for access to nearly all recorded music ever made. All the while, they're paying the creators that make the one product they are selling $0.003 per stream while raking in billions of dollars in revenue. The deals cut with major labels ensure they get paid first and paid the most while the rest of us are told we need to have 1000 streams on every piece of music we deliver (in the case of Spotify) in order to receive any of the money we generated via our streams. To continue with Spotify, the company was able to secure the Joe Rogan podcast (not music by the way) for a massive $250 million dollars while simultaneously offering new podcast creators to the platform and insanely generous percentage on their podcast's financial income. So you're telling me there's that much money available to secure an individual on your music platform that doesn't make music, but as an independent musician, I have to have 1000 streams across my catalog in order to receive the $3 check you were going to send me? Got it.
Over time the terms and conditions of streaming providers and digital music distributors has become less and less favorable to musicians until now, we are faced with these companies giving unilateral permission to 3rd parties to allow for the remixes and distribution of our product without our consent, and more importantly, without compensating us. A line in the sand must be drawn.
Stop Opening the Door
Most of the factors I've mentioned, along with some unmentioned ones, have put us as musicians in a position where we are being told in endless ways that everyone else in the music world deserves to be except us. The label's got to be paid, the distributor needs to be paid, the instrument makers need to be paid, the software makers are to be paid, the cover artist, the engineer, the studio, the live venue, the promoter, the merch companies, and on and on. Everyone gets paid for their work, but suddenly, as an artist, there's no money left. And you should be grateful for that.
Please.
Extracting our artistic input, expertise, years of training, hours of long work writing, recording, composing, and singing only to pay us nothing while spreading our music around the world is one thing: Theft.
As musicians, we must stop accepting the valuation of others as it pertains to our work. Yes. It is work. You don't get to go to the doctor and tell them what they can charge. You don't show up at a restaurant and tell them they should be happy you're even eating in there. Would you tell your barber or hair dresser they need to get on social media and start making content if they want to "get big?" No. You pay them. And now is the time where you must decide that people who want your labor and product will pay you.
Or they will go without.
You can't eat exposure. You can't feed your family and pay your rent by "getting discovered." You put time, effort, and money into your work, and you will be paid for it.
I know some of you will be worried that you will lose listeners or not "be heard" if you are not on streaming services or putting your music out for next to nothing. Hell, at this point, if you're small enough to generate fewer than 1000 streams on Spotify you are losing money. You are quite literally paying to have your labor stolen from you on a daily basis while being lied to about your "reach." With all of this "reach" or "exposure" you're getting on streaming services, is it resulting in you making enough money to continue making music? No? I didn't think so. As a musician, the happiness, joy, and emotional connection or release you provide for the audience is your job. Yes, job. Humans play their favorite music at home, in the car, at the job, during the sporting event, in the background of your favorite TV shows and movies. Music is everywhere. If you're not being paid currently for the supposed exposure, how much money do you think you're going to lose by withholding your labor until you are compensated for it?
You guessed it! None.
Don't take my word for it. Read through the terms of service on your distributor's website. Take a gander at all the ways they claim they can not pay you. Take a look at Spotify's actions and statements about how they will operate their service and note all the ways it can result in money not being distributed to you—the person providing the product they are selling. Stop allowing those who's aim it is to take your labor and product from you to do it with no resistance. Streaming services' entire product base is the music we make. They have nothing to sell without us giving it to them for next to nothing. This will not change until we decide, en masse, that we will no longer be stolen from and gaslit into believe we should be grateful for the theft. Enough is enough.
The technologically gifted among you—because I know you have a second job—will have the ability to create their own online shops to sell their music. Others will take advantage of a more musician centered platform like Bandcamp. Still others will take their skills to the far reaches of the Fediverse by putting their music up on Bandwagon.fm. Still others would prefer to take their music over to Payhip and build their own digital download store while taking full advantage of their incredibly low 5% cut of sales.
The point is, there are options. This isn't about bringing CDs back, forcing the music world back to vinyl, or finding some way to go on expensive ass tours when you know your audience would fit in your old high school auditorium. This is about choosing to no longer be a victim of your own making. This is about refusing to allow the thieves in the music industry open access to your vaults while they tell you to feel lucky they even came to rob you.
Know what you are worth. Accept no less.
Sincerely, A musician lacking "exposure"
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