The Culture Journalist Inside the bill that could (finally) regulate Big Streaming
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Today, we’re diving into The Living Wage for Musicians Act, a new bill circulating through Congress aimed at increasing the amount of money musicians make when fans stream their music online. Introduced in March by reps Rashida Tlaib and Jamaal Bowman and created in partnership with the United Musicians and Allied Workers, it proposes the creation of a new streaming royalty just for musicians, separate from what streamers are already paying out to labels and other rights holders. All of which is to say, the streaming industry, with its long-broken and winner-take-all system of compensation for artists, may finally be getting regulated.
Among those leading the charge is UMAW organizer and former Galaxie 500 drummer Damon Krukowski, who you may know as one half of the psych-folk duo Damon & Naomi as well as the creator of the excellent Dada Drummer Almanach Substack. Damon joins us to give us a crash course in the history of digital music royalties, and why the current system makes it so incredibly difficult for most artists to see any meaningful revenue from their recorded music. We also get into what challenges the bill currently faces, its radical mechanism for redistributing wealth from the most popular streaming artists to their less-streamed counterparts, and whether we’re headed for a future where some independent musicians may choose to opt out of streaming altogether — Cindy Lee style.
The song featured in today’s episode is “$$$” by Vundabar. Support them on Bandcamp.
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