The man I think of as “The Godfather of New Wave”, David Byrne, wrote a very interesting and thought-provoking op ed piece for The Guardian’s website that delved deep into the topic of the future of the music (and other creative) businesses in the era where everyone gets everything by streaming it over the Internet.

He makes a lot of good points about how the music business has once more figured out a way to keep most of the money themselves and stiff the artists by paying them a tiny fraction of the dough. A world where Daft Punk can have a massive hit with Get Lucky^[1] and only make around $26K from it from Spotify just plain does not make sense to most people. We inherently assume that Spotify made one hell of a lot more money than that from the song.

But the thing is, we don’t actually know that. With any subscription-based streaming service, whether it’s Netflix or Spotify or even satellite radio, it is impossible to determine exactly how much money the parent company is making off of any one piece of streaming media. They make their money by convincing people to subscribe. Certainly, having all the latest and greatest stuff helps with that. But did a lot of people sign up to Spotify solely to hear Get Lucky? Probably not, considering you could listen to it free on YouTube any time you like.

It’s kind of like a supermarket. Most of the time, people shop at a supermarket because it has everything they want, not because it has one product they really like.

So it’s impossible to know how much money Spotify made from Get Lucky, or any other song. The fact that they pay artists based on how many times the song is streamed is actually sort of a leap of faith on their part. They know that paying per stream is the only way to properly incentivize the artists. But from their point of view, their business is based on having everything, not any one thing.

As for the fact that a massive amount goes to the rights holders (otherwise known as the record labels), that was sadly inevitable. Copyright law being what it is today, the only way to have a legitimate business of any scale that had the music people wanted was to give the rights holders their cut. Otherwise, the big dogs would have crushed Spotify with lawsuits and nobody would be getting the service in the first place.

This will end soon, though. The new hotness of today does not need a record label for nearly anything. A brash young band can find an audience directly through the Internet, and as time goes by, the value of what the record companies own will diminish as new music replaces the old, and the majority of music will be solely in the hands of those who actually made it.

This leads me to my next point, which is that while being a struggling young band or artist pays, at best, no more than it always has, the costs of that band or artist have never been lower. What used to take the kind of money that only big record labels had is now virtually free. People record albums on their MacBook that sound as good or better than albums that required millions of dollars and an army of technicians. Merchandise that used to require a significant up front investment can now be made available for nothing or next to nothing via sites like Cafe Press. Promotion that used to required posters, media reps, massive ad buys, and fleets of Fleet street brown-nosers now can be had for the zero cost of putting up a Tumblr. And distribution? Well, that’s what services like Spotify are for.

So sure, no artist(s) will make a living off Spotify any time soon. But there are plenty of other ways to make money from your music, and while it may be that no one of them pays all that much, if you combine enough of them together, you are actually making a lot more than indie bands used to make, and with virtually no overhead and no need to even tour.

This leads me to my last point, which is : just exactly how important to art is it that people be able to make a living at it? Sure, we all dream of devoting our lives to our art and not having to subject ourselves to the rough and tumble callous world of dead end day jobs any more, but do we really think that if there was no money, there would be no art?

Of course not. Lots of wonderful art has been made by people who were working day jobs or even not working at all and just starving in a garret somewhere. These people had no idea if their art would ever pay them one red dime, and yet they kept making it because the making of art is something artists simply feel compelled to do.

The money comes later, if at all.

So even if the towering financial edifice of the music industry came tumbling down and it became nearly impossible to make a living as a musician, people would still make music and share it with others online and the art would, if anything, become a lot more pure because nobody would be compelled to turn out whatever commercial crap sells just to pay the bills.

If no art can pay the bills, then we are all free to do whatever the hell we want with out art.

I don’t think that is what is going to happen. I have faith that the combination of art and capitalism will prove creative enough to find ways to make money off of whatever it is people like and will be forced, eventually, to give artists a larger share of the action in the process.

After all, right now, someone could set up a competitor to Spotify that pays artists twice and much, and there would be a trong incentive to upload yourself there too.

So relax, folks. The music industry, as well as all other creative industries, might contract for now but there is no danger of them disappearing. The dinosaurs of the previous era know their time on Earth is limited and that is why they cling to the assets they have so fiercely. They know that their roles as gate-keepers and risk-takers will soon be written out of the script, and the future will belong to the smaller, fleeter, hardier mammals of the direct connection between art consumers and art producers.

I, personally, can’t wait.

That’s all from me for today, folks. I will talk to all you nice people again tomorrow.