CEJ #1: Technology

As Music Streaming Grows, Royalties Slow to a Trickle

(Sisario, Ben)
“The New York Times”
1/28/13
Technology
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/business/media/streaming-shakes-up-music-industrys-model-for-royalties.html?ref=technology

    It is a well known fact that most people these days listen to their music through online streaming sites. Spotify and Pandora are some of the primary ones in America, but there are many others internationally. What the common person doesn’t realize, though, is how the free streaming sites affect the artists whose music is being played. For example, a song played once on Pandora only brings in a half to 0.7 of a cent to the artist who recorded it (nytimes.com). Major artists can make millions off of that system through one popular song, but a little known artist can barely scrape by. One artist, Zoe Keating, received about $1652.74 for a million and a half Pandora songs (nytimes.com). Many small artists can have those issues. However, the owners and other big people in the corporations say that the systems will begin to work better when more people join and are paying. They are comparing the new system to how CD’s used to be, saying “Artists didn’t make big money from CD’s when they were introduced, either... as it became mainstream, the royalties went up” (nytimes.com). When Donald Passman said that, he meant it, but for some artists, that could be hard to see. Many people have complete faith in the new way of doing things, but for now it is difficult for some of the everyday people involved.
    The news described in this article did not surprise me. When I looked over the article for bias, I could find none. It was purely meant to inform people about this problem, and I don’t think it specifically supported the artists or the people. I was interested to read about this because I use some of those sights, such as Pandora, fairly often, and I would want to know if what I was doing was negative in the long run. I am not a paying user, so I feel a bit bad knowing that my listening is not good for the artist in the long run. On the other hand, it is good publicity for the artists because if I really like a song on Pandora I am more inclined to get it from iTunes. I think that eventually music will change and there will be money in having your song played on a streaming site, but I don’t think that will be for a while. For now, I think this problem will stay with us. I enjoy streaming music, even though I feel bad that it is not completely positive for the artists.