By: Justin McKnight
Does digital music have a significant impact on the music industry? Of course, since streaming music has been heating up the amount of CD sales have declined tremendously. According to CNN since the launch of the iTunes store in April of 2003, sale has significantly decreased from $11.8 billion to $7.1 billion. However music has been selling more than ever during this period. With the combination of iPods and iTunes digital music became a trend however, iTunes has made the cheap digital single, which caused the sales to plummet.
Currently the top streaming sites are Youtube, Google, Spotify, and Soundcloud. These streaming websites are extremely harmful to artist because they see little to no money from these sites. In fact it is suspected that Spotify is not holding true to their payout structure. Many artist have opted not to license spotify for this reason. Google, which is the most influential company in the music industry, is in know way attempting to reduce piracy.
The amounts of people that actually pay for the streaming service remain low. According to Digital Music News 99.9% of all music artists do not make enough money from their music to live off of. The artist average annual salary is $34,455. Most music artist makes their money from other sources such as: clothing lines, appearances, fragrances, partnerships with liquor companies, etc. Another risk that a music artist must face is the constant threat of their music being leaked. This strays people away from purchasing the album or singles because the music is already out there before being released.
Reference
Album sales are becoming irrelevant. We now count every 1500 streams as an album sale because of new technology. Due to the internet, anyone can have a platform for their music and artists no longer need the record label. Artists are now releasing albums with little to no promo and using their brand as their promo. An example can be seen through Beyonce and Drake's releases. Their albums broke records simply because their name. How do you feel artists can fight back against the fact that music is becoming less and less valuable due to technology? Do the artists play along with the wave of technology or do they fight back and create platforms that can allow them to retain their art and compensation?
ReplyDelete