Ethical issues with big streaming
by Jess Carey
Sylvan Esso, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Deerhoof and hundreds more artists recently removed their music from Spotify. This industry-wide trend represents a culmination of years of artist’s frustration with the company’s ethics. Many pointed to Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s recent $700 million investment in an AI powered weapons company as the tipping point in a long list of qualms.
“We don’t want our music killing people. We don’t want our successes tied to AI battle tech,” Deerhoof posted in a statement on their Instagram.
“Can we put pressure on these Dr. Evil tech bros to do better? Join us on another platform,” King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard said in a series of Instagram stories.
In addition to the company’s profits directly funding violence, Spotify has long been accused of taking advantage of artists and devaluing the role of the creator. Spotify has over 700 million subscribers and is the largest streaming platform in the world by a landslide, generating an annual profit of around $6 billion. Despite this, the company has the lowest average royalty payouts to artists out of all the major competing platforms — paying .003 to .005 cents per stream. In order for an artist to make one month of minimum wage for $15 at 40 hours a week, it would take 238,000 monthly streams.
Artists on major labels are often able to negotiate higher payouts than smaller artists. Spotify also allows labels to purchase algorithm boosts — meaning that the bands that are big can get bigger faster, as their songs are more likely to play. This preferential streaming also takes effect when you shuffle a playlist. The algorithm will play more popular songs first and is not a true shuffle.
Spotify has also been creating AI-generated artists, with music they cook up in-house, in a move that directs streams away from real artists to save even more money. They slip these tracks in with others on algorithm-generated playlists and radio genres such as jazz and ambient, which listeners sometimes keep to the background and might not notice. It’s easy to spot these artists once you become aware of their existence. Often they will have suspiciously AI-generated album art, no artist bio and suspiciously lifeless music.
The Union of Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) has long been bringing music industry professionals together to protest Spotify. Their campaign, “Justice at Spotify,” has led successful protests in many major cities. One of their key demands is one cent per stream for all artists. A “Death to Spotify” community event at a library sold out in Oakland, and new chapters are popping up all around the world as people and artists come together to dream up alternatives.
In September, Daniel Ek stepped down from CEO to a new role as executive chairman, seemingly in response to the controversial spotlight. Sonderstrom and Norstrom — a duo of middle-age bespeckled white men who look about as similar as their names sound — are replacing him as co-CEOs. This little show of a leadership shuffle is not as much of a solution as systemic change would be; a tech bro is still a tech bro.
Streaming music fundamentally changes the experience of music listening. When artists create albums, there is an intention behind the order of the songs, cover art and even the packaging of the album. This is all lost when our habits shift to letting Spotify’s algorithms take over as nameless songs shuffle into infinity in the background. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a good playlist and algorithms can certainly be helpful with discovering new music. But I find that the experience of wandering curiously through the record store is much more satisfying than scrolling through my Discover Weekly ever was.
In a world where widening wealth gaps and the growth of AI threatens everyone’s autonomy, as droves of bullshit content are constantly shoved down our throats, one wonders how to cultivate a more authentic experience of art consumption. Apple Music, YouTube Music and other streaming platforms all have similar ties to big tech. Streaming certainly has benefits, like connecting users to music from all over the world and throughout history easily. I don’t personally feel like I can or should get away from it completely, but I do want to remember that there are other ways to participate in music enjoyment that don’t directly fund violence and the growth of AI.
How do you listen to music? Personally, I have found a combination of Youtube, CDs, tapes, records and Bandcamp to be the ticket. I buy albums on Bandcamp from artists I follow when I can. I stream music on Youtube when I am looking to study new artists and genres, and I play my tapes and records at home and CDs in the car. I love the click of a cassette deck, being able to read all the tracks on a cd case and the hiss of a vinyl player. Physical media is fun and tangible — and has much higher audio quality. Buying music directly from artists you love is a much better way to support them as it becomes more and more difficult to survive as an artist.
We cannot allow our art consumption to become commodified and usurped for the benefit of big tech and for the proliferation of violence. Shining a light on ethical issues with streaming tech presents an opportunity to think critically and embrace music listening with a renewed intentionality and sense of responsibility.
Jess Carey loves writing about music, nature, and community! They are a senior, studying ecology with a journalism minor. Reach them by email at jc876@humboldt.edu with comments or story ideas!