Preview

Argumentative Essay: Do Musicians Make Money?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
443 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Argumentative Essay: Do Musicians Make Money?
For years, musicians have relied on people buying physical records of theirs; however, as times change, artists have to find new ways of expanding their musical careers. In recent times, streaming and downloading songs has been the audience's main way of listening to tunes, but that isn't creating much revenue for the artist. Touring and manufacturing licensed merchandise is expensive, so the question is: how will musicians make money? Showcasing music in advertising is a newly accepted form of making money that benefits the artist in a multitude of ways.

It is difficult for artists to make money these days. CD's, records, and cassettes are older, and practically archaic, ways of observing media; the newest ways of listening to music almost always require the Internet. Streaming with advertisements is one of the ways newer artists can get "a chance for their music to get heard by a wider artist" (Carter). This causes a problem: artists do not get much money from this; in fact, over 4000000 YouTube streams are required to make minimum wage, as said by David McCandless. Coates states that touring can make less than 100 dollars, and it can even get into the negatives. Musicians can turn to advertising their music, and they make tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars by making corporate deals.
…show more content…
This helps smaller artists massively by letting them be heard and giving them a decent income, something that would be impossible to do on their own.The Black Eyed Peas, an extremely well-known band, continues to make deals with corporations because it helps the band excessively. The agreements they made helped people become aware of their music

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In this article Josh Sanburn is exploring the evolution and merging of commercials and popular music. Commercial music made $2.5 billion last year and aired during the most popular shows on television. This is much different than when commercials started as short, informative jingles. There was no way to mistake a commercial jingle for any song on the radio. In the 50’s and 60’s jingles morphed into full songs that became imbedded in pop culture, but were still very distinct from radio music. This held true until the 80’s and the rise of popularity of MTV. Companies wanted to capitalize on MTV and began to making commercials that sounded very similar to the popular music of the time. The commercials sounded so much like the songs on the radio that it actually led to several high level lawsuits from major artists. These very expensive lawsuits led to companies actually creating a career for musicologist. A musicologist sole purpose was to listen to commercials and make sure it didn’t sound too much like any protected song. To avoid these lawsuits all together, companies began trying to license music from the artist themselves. This practice was met with much negativity from artists as many considered it “selling out”. In 1999 Moby and his album Play broke down the wall between popular music and advertising. Moby successfully licensed all 18 tracks on the album and in turn was able to sell 10 million copies worldwide. The creation of Napster and mp3s also helped convince artists to start licensing their music, as these things drastically began to cut into musicians’ profits. Licensing music was still looked down on by larger artists until Apple changed the landscape of advertising. Apple was able to license music from acts U2 and Eminem for the launch of their iPod. The popularity of these ads changed the minds other big name artists to begin licensing their music…

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    MUSI 1002 Notes

    • 2546 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Musicians seem more willing to have their music used for commercial purposes (being a part of a brand/commercial…

    • 2546 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Wxnf and Boston Radio Wars

    • 1754 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Radio as an advertising channel provides unique and attractive benefits. As a result, stations in metropolitan areas such as Boston complete to generate profits through advertising sales, gain ratings and market share, reach new listener demographics and implement marketing strategies to expand awareness and popularity among both listener and artist/record label target segments. They also face the challenges of cultural shifts, as genres move in and out of mainstream popularity.…

    • 1754 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Small bands or artists are just coming into the music business and no one knows them yet. In the article "The Changing Landscape of the Music Business," advertising offers smaller artists a chance for their music to get heard by a wider audience.Artists have different opinions on this topic and two that support it are Zoë Keating and Brian Message. Zoë believes this is a better way to get musicians music out there to the world. Brian sees musicians songs on a streaming app as a way to interact with fans.…

    • 173 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The music recording industry is in trouble. For several years now, sales of new and popular music have steadily declined and show no sign of changing. The record companies are quick to blame the growing popularity of the Internet; music is being traded in a digital form online, often anonymously, with the use of file-sharing programs such as Morpheus, KaZaA, and Imesh, to name a few. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) succeeded in disbanding the pioneer Internet file-sharing program, Napster, but is facing confrontation with similar programs that are escaping American copyright laws. While there is an obvious connection between declining popular music sales and increasing file sharing, there is more going on than the RIAA wants to admit. I will show that the recording companies are overpricing their products, and not sufficiently using the Internet as an opportunity to market and sell their products. I shall begin by describing in greater detail the problem that the recording companies are facing, as well as the growing epidemic of online music trading. From there, I will show the correlation between the two and describe the other factors affecting record sales, and how these trends could be turned around to help the industry.…

    • 5602 Words
    • 23 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Up on Downloading

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Elaine McArdle said, “The music industry is struggling with a full blown crisis”. What could possibly be pushing the music industry into a crisis one might ask, illegally downloading free music. In the essay, Up on Downloading, three Harvard Law School professors are trying to come up with different solutions to this problem that is occurring. Now that our technology has become so advanced, many people are figuring out ways to cheat the system, and when people are not paying for the music they have downloaded, the artist is not getting paid. Artists are not the only one losing money but everyone involved producing the music is losing money as well. There is also less and less people going out and buying CD’s. I could probably not even remember the last time I purchased a CD. So how are the artists and producers suppose to make money when we are stealing from them? Zittrain, Nesson, and Fisher believe they could possibly have the solution to save the music industry.…

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Many artists have lost millions of dollars due to people streaming their music and not paying for it. At the same time streaming loses a lot of money it can also be a potential gain. Small artists use this "streaming" for getting recognized by listeners. Streaming may be illegal but for some people it's easy to get away with so they do not have to worry about getting caught. Many musicians don't like that people can stream music because…

    • 303 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    An example of when the music industry declined in record sales was during the great depression when free radio broadcast was introduced. (Taintor, “Chronology: Technology”) Last year, there was a 9% decline in album sales (e.g. CD’s) ,a 12% decline in downloads, but a whopping 54% increase in revenue for streaming services. (Hari, “Can the Music”)The music industry is a 7 billion dollar industry where streaming services has changed the way artists make a living. (Cash, “Can the Music”) A streaming service is subscription based and every time the song of an artist is listened to, the artist is paid less than half a dollar because its divided between the record company, songwriters, publishers, and performers. An example of how an artist is making money in the streaming service world is given by Hari Srinivasan when he interviews Rosanne Cash, daughter of the famous Johnny Cash, and she says that for an 18 month period she had 600,000 streams and she was paid $104. (Cash and Srinivasan, “Can the Music” ) Another example is that Aloe Blacc, a famous artist, wrote that it takes about one million songs played on Pandora, a popular streaming service, for a songwriter to earn just $90. These examples show that artists are making pennies from their songs. Because of this, artists are depending on big tours for big pay other artists of course don’t mind and just want to play the songs. (Knopper, “The New Economics”). This…

    • 571 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The evolution of music throughout the years has been quite transformative, yet a quiet and undetected process. Not only has the type of music changed, but the way listeners experience it has morphed as well. Online streaming services are great for avid music enthusiasts, but fans should take note of ways to actually financially support their favorite artist’s before it’s too…

    • 546 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gatekeeping Night Spaces

    • 668 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Holt first outlines the historical change in the economy of music and goes on to discuss the four components of the new economy of live music in connection with digital media. The first two elements discussed were live music as an economic driver and the categorical price change in concert ticket pricing. Public performances are largely marketing events and are emphasized as vital locations in finding, evaluating, and promoting popular music artists. This idea has directly impacted the new economy of music and for many artists they earn most of their money from these live events rather than recordings. Companies like AEG and Live Nation are the biggest concert promoters and they have created a monopoly, which exploits the consumer, as seen from the major increase of concert ticket prices since 1996. The third and fourth components are the new and renewed event genres and live experience in the digital information society. The arenas and festival locations development in ‘gentrification’ increased the interest to modern day audiences by broadening their appeal. The boom in media technologies had a huge impact on the economy of live music as it enhances communication. Digital media allows for flexible communication ‘in terms of the temporal and spatial dimensions’. While the atmosphere of live performances draw people in there is a limited form of communication physically. All four of these elements have largely influenced the new economy of live music and has been demonstrated from cultural and performance study…

    • 668 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Music Publishing

    • 2088 Words
    • 9 Pages

    In order for these places to play this music they must pay a blanket license fee to the Performing Rights Organization. This allows them to use whatever music they want without having to account to each individual songwriter. The fee is based on the size of the broadcast reach. For an example, a small clothing boutique’s blanket license fee would be much smaller than that of a large commercial radio station. So now the question is… How do these Performing Rights Organizations keep track of exactly what songs are being played? This is learned by finger printing technology, viewing radio stations playlists, television shows cue sheets and by taking polls from restaurants etc. They then pay royalties to writers based on the number of times an affiliated songwriter’s music is used.…

    • 2088 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    while allowing the music industry to make a profit as well. People love to get bargins or…

    • 798 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Businessmen are taking advantage of easily persuadable students and using them to make a profit. Many of these businessmen work for Pay a Profit. Pay a Profit completes online classes and essays for their their clients, guaranteeing them “academic success” (). Their company shares the most common viewpoint of education today, that academic success is measured by the letter grade that the student receives. They use this perspective to persuade the students that their program is morally sound, and that cheating as an easy way to gain more free time. Removing morals makes Pay a Profit the ideal solution. For an online English Literature class at Columbia University, the whole course could be completed for as low as 1,225.15 dollars. This money…

    • 230 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Pandora

    • 1540 Words
    • 6 Pages

    . Pandora pays royalties for every song played: membership and listening hours increases, royalty expenses increase at a linear rate. Until last year, Pandora was not yet profitable, the biggest concern of investors. But what’s worth considering is that Pandora seems to have addressed the biggest concern of investors – whether or not it can create a profitable business. And the business seems sustainable as the company expects to continue generating profits for the full-year 2014, despite expecting some loss in the first quarter.…

    • 1540 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    UnME

    • 564 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Due to company’s new marketing effort on social media advertising, we are going to cut last year budget in radio advertising. Although it is considerably economical to advertise in radio, we believe that targeting company’s target audience is challenging through this channel. First, the company is selling unique and fashion-forward jeans. Thus to make an influence in our customers’ minds, we believe that visual contact with company’s products and style is necessity. Second, other platforms for listening music are becoming increasingly more popular. For example Youtube is growing at a fast pace and gives an opportunity for the customers to listen their specific favorite songs without advertisements. Third, we are unsure about the radio media spend time among company’s customers. Although radio media spend time among household is relatively high (20%), we do not really know who in the households actually listens to radio. For example statistics can be distorted due to the fact that radio is often listened while driving and the audience is not our target group then. In summary, we are unsure about radio marketing ROI effects and that is why we want to allocate radio marketing budget elsewhere.…

    • 564 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays