Music is LaboR

 

Here’s The Short Story (the long story is further down)

Musicians are paid an average of $0.003 per stream. For those who hate fractions…that’s 3 THOUSANTHS of a Penny. Most musicians are not Drake, Taylor Swift, or Beyonce. Those people are outliers and can afford to negotiate with streaming services for a fair rate of pay. You need 1,380,000 streams to earn $4000/month! Today, only an estimated 11,000+ artists are making over $50k per year on Spotify. This is a status that is unattainable for most musicians.

In order to push back on this reality, we want musicians and music fans from all over to BOYCOTT their favorite streaming services on May 1st, 2025. The goal is to get the attention of streaming services, distributors, and politicians who can help musicians earn a living wage for their work. Expand below to see the plan!

  • We will begin by asking musicians and supporters from all corners to do these things:

    1. Sign Up for our Music Is Labor Mail List

    2. Join a Musicians Union or Share about them (Learn More Here)

    3. Host regular meet ups for those engaging in the work.

    Closing Date: January 1st, 2025

  • The goal at this point is to gather signatures and petition streaming services, distributors, and politicians to change policy, payment models, and data access in support of a fan-centric music economy.

    Closing Date: April 30th, 2025

  • Starting on May 1st, 2025 - We are asking for millions of musicians and music fans to end support of streaming services. That means musicians will not upload new music to streaming services and fans will only consume music via services like Bandcamp, Patreon, or the Artist’s website.

    Closing Date: When demands are met.

    • Penny per stream or congressional support for Living Wage for Musician’s Act.

    • or a User-Centric payment model - artists are paid for referring fans to the service AND are compensated from the user’s subscription. Learn more about a User-Centric Model

    • Built in payment split systems to compensate those who worked on the song behind the scenes beyond publishing royalties.

    • We want streaming services to provide a way for fans to opt-in and share their emails and user data.

    • Partner with Music Unions to develop an independent licensing agreement between the streaming companies and unsigned artists.

Here’s The Long Story

Everywhere we go there is a song that connects you to a moment. You can find music resonating throughout your environment on a daily basis. Creatives work hard to deliver songs to your favorite streaming service, to that movie scene you quote with friends, and over the intercom while you're picking up food for your family. 

Most streaming services pay the owners of a song by taking the total number of streams you receive that month and dividing it by the the total number of streams on the platform. This is called "Stream Share Royalty Pool" https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/article/royalties/ 

For example: 1000 (streams of your song) / 1,000,000,000 (streams total) = $0.000001 for a single stream

This proportion or ratio can change from month to month creating an unreliable revenue source for music rights owners and the individuals they collaborate with. Not to mention, services like Spotify are now making artists wait until they have 1000 streams in a year to pay them (more on that here)

Most importantly, major labels give a deceptive perception of how musicians, songwriters, and producers are compensated. We aren't all wealthy, we don't all get to request thousands to make an album, and we don't all have a mansion in Hollywood. Most of us work a job while pursuing music on the side or we work a job until we stop pursing music altogether. What's even worse is most major label artists never reap the benefits of being signed.

WordPlay T. Jay and Steven Everett (Numella App) are musicians and entreprenuers who have partnered to organize rights owners, musicians, songwriters, and indepenent label owners to push back against the current version of the industry. TJay and Steven are pro-union, pro-labor activist who believe the time is now for all musicians to reclaim the music business and secure a living wage for us all. With the help of creatives, fans, and anyone who loves music, we plan to push companies like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and others to compensate musicians fairly.