Artist's Views On The Value Of Music

All the artists who's opinions I gathered had the same general ideas on the value of their music. They were all against the idea of their fans obtaining their music for free, although some more than others.  It seems all artists would agree that flat out taking someone's music without paying for it is wrong, and kind of insulting to the artist, but all musicians have different opinions on things like Pandora, or Spotify, sites that pay royalties but doesn't demand the customer buy the music to listen. Arjen Lucassen, a dutch singer/songwrighter said in an interview with Sound Shock, "as a musician, when your album isn’t even out and people are already downloading it for free, it hurts. It’s my only income and at a point like that, you’re thinking ‘something will have to be done.'" It's upsetting to him when people take his music without paying for it, when music is your only source of income it makes sense. Although he realizes that this dilema is nearly impossible to police, he hopes that his real fans will help him out by buying his music. Like many other  artists, he is concerned that some people trying to come into the music industry will either be turned away, or fail because they won't be able to support themselves on royalty fees from websites like Spotify and Pandora. Artists, especially ones just starting out need a solid income in order to keep producing music. The music industry is neither cheap nor easy to make it in, so musicians who are just starting out are finding it hard to keep going. It was hard enough to make it when people had to pay for music but now that people are able to obtain it for free, it is only getting harder and harder to "make it". In an interview with Calum Robson, Lucassen says that he would try to stop people from taking his music, but he knows that people won't like it, and in the end he may end up on the bottom, without fans.

Most musicians would agree that illegal downloading is wrong, but some like David Bryne go far enough to be against all music distribution sites, incuding ones like Pandora and Spotify. Even though both of these sites pay huge royalty fees, some feel cheated if they're not getting everything. Byrne feels that these high prices are going stop development in the music industry and therefor "suck all creative content out of the world". While Lucassen was hesitant with saying flat out that he was extremely against people taking his music, Byrne doesn't hold back, he seems to hate everything that lets people stream music, to me that seems greedy, especially when the sites that he's talking about (Spotify) pays 70% in royalty fees. In the beginning of his article he seems to be just against music sites like Pandora or spotify, but by the end he goes on to say that the internet as a whole is "sucking the creative content out of the world". So, to me it just seemed like Byrne liked to complain.

I was also able to speak with Marblehead's own Hayley Reardon who seemed to be more on Lucassen's page then on Byrne's.  She said that these sites can be really good for getting your music out to the public, but music has worth and she finds it dissapointing when her fans obtain her music without paying for it. Although, in Hayley's case, she makes the majority of her money from live performances anyway, so if her music being listened to for free is what's going to get people to come pay to listen to her live, it almost seems worth it to let your music be free.

From my research I found that every artist has a different opinion on things like Pandora or Spotify, but they all seem to agree that it shouldn't be okay for people to take music without paying for it. So, after reading and hearing the opinions of many different artists on this subject, from now on I will not be downloading music for free, but I don't think I'll ever stop using Pandora and Spotify.