Responding to Farrell

Respond to following discussion post

After learning more about Apple Music, the controversy that surprised me the most was not as much one particular scandal, but the overall structural issue of unmatched mechanical royalties and how long songwriters can wait to be paid for work that is already generating revenue. Even though Apple Music is often shown as more “artist-friendly” than competitors, the fact that large sums of money can sit in limbo due to metadata errors highlighted how fragile songwriter compensation still is in the streaming ecosystem. This raised ethical concerns for me around transparency and accountability, especially for creators who lack publishing representation or the administrative knowledge to ensure their works are properly registered.

More broadly, streaming services raise ethical questions about value and sustainability. While platforms emphasize access, convenience, and discovery, the pro-rata payout model inherently favors dominant catalogs and high-volume hits. This creates a system where niche, independent, or emerging artists contribute cultural value but often receive disproportionately low financial returns. Even when a platform like Apple Music pays relatively higher average rates, the system still relies heavily on intermediaries (labels, publishers, and distributors) who ultimately shape what artists and songwriters earn.

Knowing what I know now, I would be cautious about buying stock in publicly traded music-related companies such as Spotify or even Apple pecifically for their music divisions. While streaming is clearly entrenched in consumer behavior, ongoing ethical debates, regulatory scrutiny, and creator dissatisfaction suggest long-term instability. From an ethical standpoint, I would be more inclined to support companies actively experimenting with fairer payout models or improved transparency rather than those benefiting primarily from scale and volume.