How Musicians are Navigating Streaming Algorithms, AI and Automation

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2023

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When music streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music recommend a song or an album, it can be a make-or-break moment for lesser-known artists. But it still doesn’t pay the bills: musicians earn on average less than half of a cent per stream unless they’re among a platform’s top artists. Streaming fraud and copycat tracks can also cut into their pay — types of theft that could be made even easier with generative artificial intelligence. We’ll talk about how automation and technology are changing how we consume music, how that music sounds and what artists are paid. Guests: Nastia Voynovskaya, associate editor, KQED Arts & Culture Zack Nestel-Patt, bassist and composer; organizer, Union of Musicians and Allied Workers Marc Hogan, senior staff writer, Pitchfork LaRussell, artist; founder, Good Compenny - an organization that promotes rising Bay Area artists Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for KQWED Podcasts comes from Landmark College, holding their annual summer
0:04.9	Institute for educators from June 24 through 26th. More information at landmark.edu slash LCSI.
0:13.8	Greetings, Boomtown. The Xfinity Wi-Fi is booming! Exfinity combines the power of internet and mobile.
0:20.7	So we've all got lightning fast speeds at home and on the go!
0:24.0	Learn more at Xfinity.com.
0:26.1	Restrictions apply.
0:26.8	Xfinity, Internet required.
0:27.9	Actual speeds vary.
0:30.1	From KQED.
0:31.2	Thank you. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Rachel Myro in for Mina Kim.
0:51.7	Coming up on form, it is hard for musical artists to make a living from their
0:56.3	art these days. Most get a small fraction of a set each time one of their songs is streamed
1:02.0	on a major platform. We're talking coffee money unless you're in the top 15% or so. And even if you
1:09.0	are, well, there's a good chance scammers are eating into your earnings with copycat tracks, not to mention AI-generated rip-offs of celebrity voices like Drake's.
1:19.3	That's just the latest insult in a world where discovery algorithms are make or break.
1:24.1	The Future of Music and the Artists artists who make it next after this news.
1:34.6	This is Forum. I'm Rachel Myro in for Mina Kim. The way we listen to music and support the musicians who make it or don't changes dramatically based on the technology.
1:47.1	Now, well, we're well into the digital streaming age. So real talk. How many of us launch a playlist
1:54.5	in a genre we like and go host a party, drive a car up the coast, hang out at a park,
2:00.6	while the music streams in the background
2:03.1	and shifts eventually from stuff we know to stuff we don't really. The backstory, how money
2:10.1	changes hands based on what we play, is clear as mud, not just to listeners like you and me,
	...

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