Fix streaming now!

The major music corporations are making a killing from streaming while the artists themselves starve. Nigel Williamson thinks it’s high time for a change

- Nigel Williamson

When initially introduced, streaming made a really positive impact to such a degree that some artists suggested it saved the music industry. But today, is streaming still a force for good? And is the current revenue distribution structure fair?” Not my words, but those of Julian Knight, MP, chair of the House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, setting out the parameters of a Parliamentary enquiry into the business models operated by Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon and Google Play, which now account for more than 80 percent of music consumption in the UK.

Elbow’s Guy Garvey, Tom Gray of Gomez, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and the great Nile Rodgers are among those who have so far given evidence and what they have had to say has been salutary. Streaming is: “great for consumers, it’s incredible”, Gray told the MPs. But he also pointed out that unless you’re Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran, it has been almost universally disastrous for music creators. The revenues it generates are huge – yet as O’Brien put it: “not many artists are profiting from the spoils.”