If you are a music lover, the number of albums releasing every year belonging to different genre and different artists will not be alien to you. So, you are a music lover and all you are expected to do is buy the discs or rather “legally and ethically” download songs from iTunes or Play Store or make an in-app purchase from your favorite website, pay online and you are done with. But have you ever wondered how does the music industry address its expenses or how YouTube viewing even for the smallest duration makes the industry tick? Almost half of 2017 has already passed by and let us find out if what experts had predicted about the trends of the music industry were at all true or otherwise. At the end of the day, it is business after all!
- More payment for music creators
According to experts, especially the ones that fix the pricing for right owners and YouTube views have done a commendable job. According to them the amount earned by right owners and rate creators is nothing as compared to what artists are paid. And in order to earn a good amount, the number of views a video will earn has to be millions or more so that the income from that can be even worth mentioning. As such, the music creators ought to be paid higher so that the amount they receive will at least help them make a living.
- Copyright law and cyber license
The copyright law was introduced in the year 1976. At that point of time, there was no internet. So, the question of internet being a platform for circulating and distributing music was unheard of. However, over the years (ever since internet and listening to music over the internet) became popular, there has been no law that govern that the creators of any music be compensated adequately for the same or to secure the copyright for the works that were created at the time when there was no virtual world. As such, better methods to deal with infringement online are also on the cards in the year 2017. As far as dealing with online infringement is concerned, they are addressed through a different law that too requires reforms and an update. However, there is good news too. Content owners on YouTube are allowed to share revenues from videos that are being infringed, which is controlled via the Content Management System. Nevertheless, the amount is too small even to be mentioned as an amount. As such, the need of the hour is increase in the amount of money that is being paid as revenue for infringed videos to content owners.
- Support from consumers
Consumers can play an instrumental role in doing justice to the creators of music and works of art. For instance, it is a well known fact that aside from the music lovers that value music and art, majority of the people prefer to own music for free by downloading from free websites. However, by doing so, they don’t; realize that they are not doing justice to the art. But the creators of music are at loss because the amount they receive from the sale of their art/music, the majority of the share goes to the company that promotes their music. At the end of the day, the music creators are left with share of the sale money that is equal to peanuts.
The fact that careers offered in the music industry are not worthwhile will be wrong to say because it is quite relative. The same scenario is not applicable for all artists. However, you will also come across many such artists in the music industry that are counted among the millionaires and billionaires. Most importantly, music is an art and although at the end of the day, you cannot separate art from business, but what matters is the passion that is associated with music that ought to be valued.