TL;DR: Using a streaming service such as Spotify is less beneficial to the artist than if their song is pirated.

Not everything done on the Internet is legal. The most committed crime one that seems to be less obvious than others. It is Internet piracy. Most people have some sort of experience with Internet piracy. Carson Quigley, a Computer Science and English double major at Allegheny College, has a strong opinion on this issue. He has friends who have downloaded approximately 1.3 terabytes of software. At least to him, illegal acquisition of media is a touchy subject. Society does not agree on the validity of the following statement: artists make less money because of people who pirate their content. Instead of approaching from the side of the pirated media, streaming services should also be investigated. They pay the artists little to no money which in turn cuts into the other revenue from the artist and is an inconvenience for the listener.

In any industry, the creators make money. When this good is music, there are many different ways that revenue is generated. This is anything from CD purchases, to song streaming, to live performances. Many people every day pirate music instead of using these products. Do artists make more money from this? According to successful singer and songwriter Derek Webb, the user receiving the product for free brings in more revenue. It is shown that per stream, an artist makes approximately $0.00029. This is a very small amount of money and the artist receives no more. Occasionally when pirating, a person needs to enter their zip-code and/or e-mail. Concerts can then be scheduled in an area where many songs of the same artist are downloaded generates a large amount of money for the creator. Not only is admission a source of revenue, but the amount of other merchandise that the average concert goer will purchase adds to that total. Even though artists are able to make more money in the long run than the short run, some people don’t agree with this.

One such person is Carson. When asked about whether he agreed that long run profits from piracy were more beneficial to the artist than a song played on Spotify, he replied that the streaming service is more beneficial because it isn’t illegal and if the artists wanted more money, they could come together and demand it. Even though this seems like a valid solution, there is such a large amount of artists on Spotify that thousands of successful songwriters and performers would have to get together to make this happen. In addition, these types of software are a legal substitute and, as stated above, does not give any more revenue than pirating. Because streaming does not add to profit, it is only a substitute that is just as detrimental to the artist as pirating. It is impracticable for content creators to earn money from this. Streaming is not only a hindrance to artists but to listeners as well.

How do artists make money from Youtube? For those that do not know the answer, it is advertisement revenue. For about one million views, the creator makes about one thousand, four hundred dollars. This may sound like a lot but that is $0.001375 per view. This only for the average Youtube video let alone musicians. If they are signed, they only see about forty percent of that money which cuts into their revenue. And this money is all the expense of the viewer. for the content creator to make money from these advertisements, the audience must watch the entirety of the advertisement. This means that if a user skips an add, the content creator loses a certain amount of possible income. If a user believes that they will buy Youtube Red to rid themselves of the inconvenience and hopefully give the channel that they watch a cut of that monthly payment, he or she would not get what they wish for. Yes, the user would not have to watch advertisements anymore but the amount of money that a certain channel receives is calculated in a much different way than people would think. Youtube collects all of the money for a certain month of Youtube Red and pools it together. It then divides that pool based on the total percent of time that people have watched your videos. This is biased towards those that have longer songs which means that this is not an easy way for a musician to get money either. Streaming services are not what musicians need to make money. In reality, they only cut into the possible revenue that could be made by the artist.

The services offered by companies such as Spotify hurt artists in both the long and short run. Receiving little money per stream does not aid the career of the artist. Neither does it help the listener because they do not own the music. In addition to these, it cuts into the potential money that could be made by the artist from other sources. Streaming may seem like a great idea in theory but it helps no one. It only helps the company itself and it is for this reason that people should view this industry differently than they do currently. To save the artists, one simply needs to support the artist personally by donating money or going to a concert where artists receive a lot of the revenue. Society does not realize that to getting an artist’s songs into the world generates more money than using a streaming service.

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