The Musicians Gig Economy and Equity

Click here for a must-read for Musicians! It’s time for solidarity around equity and fairness for Jazz musicians and artists. The present void in live music and our cultural reliance on electronic digital music streams evinces the need for empowering musicians as the valuable commodities they are.

The article is insightful and casts a revealing light on inequities in the American Jazz “gig economy” especially. But it should also address that most lucrative financial stream that exploits Jazz musicians and independent artists more than any corporate entity: the “Plantation Industry,” which has evolved in online media distribution. The art of musicians is by far the greatest source of corporate media entertainment revenue to Universal, Warner, Capitol, Apple, CD Baby. These mega music publishers reap billions while the music and content producers receive a pittance. I

Industry and corporate leaders point to recent revisions within the Digital Rights Management legislation enacted by Congress, yet the DRMA laws do not provide adequate oversight or enforcement to ensure that artists collect accurate and adequate royalty payments for online music and video stream platforms that distribute music worldwide. Each music stream yields a fraction of a percentage of a music aggregator’s gross royalty revenues, leaving the performer/creator of the music with only a nominal share of the economic dividend yield in a multi-billion dollar industry.