How Much Should We Pay For Music?

The debate over how much we should pay for music and also how much the artists should receive has reached fever pitch recently.

Specifically, Taylor Swift’s recent tangles with Apple Music and Spotify – defending her belief that artists should be paid higher royalties for music streaming services - have dominated industry news.

With the technology available today and the way we are advancing in previously unthinkable fields, a whole new load of obstacles for artists and consumers has been created.

Free downloading (which is illegal, I might I add) is becoming increasingly common and not only does it result in bad quality music for the consumer, it results in the hard-working artists not being rewarded as they should.

The process of making music is a long one, with many artists working on an album for well over a year, with the assistance of many other talented individuals and teams, from sound engineers to tour crew. These are their jobs, their careers, their dreams - yet somehow we feel it’s okay not to pay for their hard work, or complain about having to pay a measly two dollars for their months of effort?

Teachers receive pay for their work, as do doctors and accountants and all professionals. That is exactly what musicians are, so why should they receive no benefits from it simply because we are being selfish and don’t want to pay?

I personally play music and write my own, and although I’ve never recorded or released any of my songs, I put a lot of work into them.

Making music is an amazing, frustrating, exhilarating and exhausting process, with all its ups and downs. But when the work pays off and you end up with something you’re really happy with? That’s amazing.

Many argue that music is too expensive, which at times I can certainly agree with. Being a student with only a part time job yet so much music I want to listen to can often result in me getting extremely frustrated. Then I have to think, if I wrote a song as magnificent as “This Is Why” by Hey Violet or “Am I The Only One?” by Fun. would I be happy to receive nothing for it?

I would love to be able to say that I haven’t caved in and downloaded a track with an organisation that does not give benefits to the artists, but I would be lying (although after writing this article, I felt extremely bad and went and deleted them). And I can see why it’s appealing to not have to pay for music.

However, I also think it’s not very fair on anyone that put time and effort into that music.

I personally think music prices today are reasonable, and in the scheme of things, much cheaper than they were before. With iTunes, you are now able to buy just one track from an album unlike a decade ago when you had to buy the whole album for the one song. Music is also much easier to get a hold of nowadays, and in general is just a lot more convenient.

Just because an artist has already made "the big time" doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the money for their hard work, or any of the other excuses we come up with to make us feel okay about not paying. This is their life’s work that they are choosing to share with us, and we should thank them for that. Being asked to pay for music is not unreasonable or unfair. Asking them to make it for free? That’s unfair.

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