John,

Imagine a group of street musicians playing their hearts out to a small but appreciative crowd. Twenty people stop, listen, applaud, and drop money into the hat. But when the band counts it up afterward, they find seven pennies to split amongst themselves. Absurd as it sounds, that’s how much Spotify compensates musicians for 20 streams of a song.

Scale that up and the picture hardly improves. Spotify’s claim to give “a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art” collapses into sheer hypocrisy, considering that at roughly one-third of a penny per play, an artist needs 263 streams to earn a single dollar, and more than 2,500 streams just to afford a set of guitar strings.

The Union of Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) is organizing to change all this, through the Living Wage for Musicians Act. This bill would require streaming services to pay a fair royalty directly to human creators -- establishing a minimum of one cent per stream, and cutting out labels, executives, and AI-driven intermediaries that further cut into artists’ livelihoods.

Musicians add immense value to our lives and culture, but the enormous wealth created by musicians on streaming platforms nearly all goes to executives and major record labels, while the people who create the music get a pittance. There is no minimum wage for streaming, no meaningful regulation, and no realistic path for most artists to “live off” their work.

The hypocrisy is especially stark when set against the fortunes amassed at the top. According to Forbes, Spotify’s founder, Daniel Ek, is worth $8.7 billion, wealth derived almost entirely from musicians’ labor, while the artists themselves struggle to cover basic tools of their trade. That imbalance is not an accident; it is the business model.

Spotify may say it is building a platform where artists can thrive, but its payment structure tells a different story -- one where even 100,000 listens brings in only about $380. Congress must act to ensure musicians are paid a living wage for the cultural value they create every day.

Tell Congress, musicians deserve fair payment for streaming! Pass the Living Wage for Musicians Act now.

Thank you for your support of musicians -- and of musicianship itself.

– DFA AF Team