Streaming Isn’t Killing Music Distribution

Some people think streaming music is killing music, period. They argue that music distribution as we know it will collapse unless streaming music services get their collective act(s) together and start paying higher royalty rates to artists.

We wouldn’t go that far.

While some artists certainly struggle to make a living from the paltry royalties that many streaming services pay out to artists, this isn’t new. There have always been musicians, particularly in genres with less mass appeal, who have needed to keep their day jobs. This doesn’t mean that these artists are in any way less talented—in fact, sometimes ‘undiscovered’ artists are some of the most talented people out there! They’re just not always the luckiest, as lame as that sounds.

What’s cool is that soon, luck may not matter as much.

That’s the upside to these streaming services: even though they don’t always pay exorbitant royalties, they do make it easier than ever for more people to listen to more music, which helps emerging artists get their tracks out there. That’s not so bad, is it?

Basically, the question comes down to this: Are streaming services like radio, or are they like CD’s? Will people listen to songs on a streaming service on a sort of ‘trial basis’ and then purchase them outright? Or will people consider streaming a song as often as they want just as good as owning a copy, so there’ll be no need to purchase the song itself? Only time will tell.

If people end up using streaming services like they do radio, then artists have nothing to worry about. Musicians will still get paid much larger royalties when people purchase their songs on iTunes—the streaming services, then, are basically free advertising.

One advantage of iTunes over the streaming services is that it not only pays royalties that’re exponentially larger, but it also pays every artist the same royalties. Streaming services, on the other hand, pay out different rates to different artists, depending on those artists’ popularity. We don’t think that’s very fair; everyone could stand to take a page from iTunes’ book when it comes to treating artists equally.

Whew! The future of music distribution always provokes some heavy debate around here, but that’s our take! Feel free to get in touch and let us know how you feel!