“Is this song on Spotify?” is a common question amongst teenagers these days. Most high school students are constantly listening to music and often walk around with headphones in their ears. The concept of a CD has nearly disappeared, thanks to the new music streaming services that have recently become popular. First, iTunes was created in 2001. The original iTunes charged $0.99 for popular songs, while lesser-known songs were only $0.69. Then people became aware of Pandora, a free music streaming service that allows you to select an artist, song, or genre that you enjoy and plays songs similar to whatever you chose. Now, it feels like there are hundreds of ways to listen to music: Spotify, iHeartRadio, Google Play, Beats Music, SoundCloud, Apple Music, Slacker, Rdio and Tidal, to name a few. These music streaming services benefit most artists and listeners; however, some artists have raised concern about these services and have even removed their music from these apps.
Spotify is perhaps the most popular service of them all. Although it is the most popular, it is also the most controversial. Artists have been raising concern regarding the value of music streaming for both the artists and the music industry. Streaming music on Spotify hits new artists especially hard because Spotify only makes deals with the big labels that have big catalogues, so that they can intake a bigger profit. The per-play value of a download to an artist is $0.033 compared to $0.005 for streaming. Therefore, downloads are 5.5 times more valuable to artists than streams. This is why up-and-coming artists are hit so hard by the rise of streaming.
Most recently, Taylor Swift increased the controversy around this argument when she removed her music from Spotify. Swift asked the company to create two condition–if listening for free, listeners must be outside the U.S., and if listeners are based in America, they must be paying subscribers. Spotify refused, which is why Swift and her label decided to remove all of her music. Although Swift received the most attention of artists choosing to remove their music from Spotify, artists such as The Beatles, Coldplay, Prine, Adele and Jason Aldean have also removed some of their music from Spotify, especially if they have recent albums. All these artists are popular and likely have more than enough money already, so why would they remove their music?
When Swift was asked to explain why she decided to remove her music, she told The Wall Street Journal that, “In [her] opinion, the value of an album is, and will continue to be, based on the amount of heart and soul an artist has bled into a body of work, and the financial value that artists [and their labels] place on their music when it goes out into the marketplace. Piracy, file sharing, and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically, and every artist has handled this blow differently.” Artists want to preserve the creativity and hard work they put into making their records, and they seem to believe the value of music is being diminished when people are able to stream music so freely. While these artists may have a valid point, Spotify doesn’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon.
Logan Bee-Latty, ’19, listens to her music on Spotify. She uses Spotify Premium, a $10 per month subscription that gets rid of commercials and enables you to download music that you can listen to when cell phone service is unavailable. Bee-Latty believes that artists such as Taylor Swift take their music off Spotify “because they want people to pay for their music. I think it’s dumb that major, well-known, and successful artists, such as Taylor Swift, want their own fans to spend money on each individual song they produce. I understand that she’s trying to make a point and take a stand for other, possibly struggling artists. She wants working musicians to earn money for their work, and I completely understand that. Maybe dumb wasn’t a great choice of words, but for an artist like Taylor Swift to refuse an easy and convenient type of music application like Spotify because she wants her work to be paid for makes her look cocky and self-absorbed.” Bee-Latty is not a lone Spotify-listener that feels this way, so it would seem this tension will continue.
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