As a music fan, understanding how the music industry works has always interested me. This article from the Globe and Mail discusses the affects of online music streaming on the revenues of artists.

Though technology has allowed for a greater distribution of an artist’s music around the world, it has also brought many issues as well such as illegal downloading and file sharing. For an artist, this is a huge problem if consumers have free access to their music. Online streaming sites such as Pandora, Rhapsody, Spotify, and Rdio have appeared in response as a way for customers to listen to music without actually purchasing it. For each stream, artists receive small amounts of royalties paid directly to them. However, just this week Pandora is lobbying for the “Internet Radio Fairness Act” to be passed, which would cut artist royalties by 85%. For many struggling artists, this is a significant drop in revenue.

In this digital age, more and more people have been turning to online streaming as a legal alternative to purchasing music. Even so, online streaming has not been a fool proof solution as the music industry is still losing out on an incredible amount of money from the millions of people who continue to obtain their music illegally.

Article: In online streaming, artists see their revenue trickle