Recent news revealed that Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek has been investing heavily in military tech companies, which adds another ethical layer to a platform already criticized for how little it pays musicians !
Spotify only pays artists about $3–5 per 1,000 streams, using a pro-rata model that directs most money toward major stars… By contrast, Qobuz (≈$18–20 per 1,000 streams) and Tidal (≈$12–13) pay far more fairly!
However Tidal is far from ethical. Most of its revenue is controlled by private investors and founders and small artists still earn very little…
More fair-minded platforms like Bandcamp, Resonate, Ampled, or SoundCloud’s fan-powered royalties prioritize musicians over investors.
With these more ethical alternatives available, why do we keep using Spotify?
Please understand, I am saying the Intellectual Property regime should be ABOLISHED, I don’t recognizes ANYONE’s right to limit the propagation of human expression in any form. I find this heinous enclosure of culture absolutely intolerable, I think it corrupts art, creates monetary incentive to create art which are always impure and a defilement of the sanctity of art.
I’m not proposing an alternative, I’m not giving you any kind of solution either.
Artists are not “entitled to wages”, the artists should be paid for in advance, in fact all humans should have the essentials of life provided at no cost. I find it obscene that distributors finance and profit art like they do. The financialization of art has been its downfall. This is why our intellectual world is filled with garish slop, pumped full of “integrated artvertising”.
I’m sorry this demolishes the “business model of art” in this corrupt economic system.
But I want you to you, I hate it, I HATE IT ALL !!!