In the article “Will Streaming Music Kill Songwriting”, by John Searbook, a lot of detail about streaming music on music platforms like Pandora and Spotify. The article starts with this female songwriter named Michelle Lewis. Her song “Wings” that she co-wrote with Kay Hanley received almost three million streams on the platform Spotify. It was exciting for them at first but they soon realized that having a plethora of streams did not guarantee them a lot of money in the music industry.
The Copyright laws have changed a lot over a period of time. In 1790, the copyright law only protected books, maps, and charts. It did not yet protect songs and/or songwriters. In 1909, however, the Copyright law gave composers the publishing rights to their songs. It wasn’t until the year of 1976 that the Copyright law gave songwriters more exclusive rights with their work. This did not go in effect until the year of 1978.
These exclusive rights include the right to reproduce a song or album, the right to adapt a song or album, the right to distribute your own music, the right to perform a song publicly and the right to display a song or album.
The article goes into further details about PRO’s or performing rights organizations that include ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. These organizations collect money for the songwriters and/or music publishers in the field of the music industry.
Now with all the streaming and piracy going on all around the internet, it makes it harder for songwriters to make money it today’s streaming world. It also makes it very hard to pinpoint who is pirating what in this industry, since it is so lucrative and there is no real monopoly on the music industry.
Social media sites like facebook, youtube, and twitter are just as bad because once an artist receives a certain amount of views on youtube or like on facebook and/or twitter, they are still not guaranteed a lot of money from said social media platforms and their sponsors. The artists are ultimately cheated out of money and robbed of their good and hard-earned talent that made them so popular.
I believe that Congress should be harsher on social media and music streaming sites so that artists all over the globe get their fair share of money and do not feel cheated out of their talent. It’s already hard enough that artists have to make a great leap across to make it to the big time. It’s harder when they have to maintain their reputation as artists trying to polish their image.