Responding to Jaida

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The controversy surrounding the pro rata model surprised me. My understanding is that under the pro-rata model, all streaming revenue from both streaming and ads is accumulated together. From there, the revenue is split based on the share of streams. The controversy comes from several things. One is that individual user subscription fees are not specifically allocated to the artists that they listen to. Another concern is that major label artists receive the most revenue. My interpretation is that this means even if you only listen to indie artists, your subscription fees are paid out mostly to major label artists because they generate the most volume of streaming, thus giving them a larger share of total streams. The controversy surrounding the pro rata model is not necessarily about the numbers but about who has control. This is where I think the ethical issues arise. Subscribers are not necessarily being deceived, but they are not explicitly informed about who their time and money support. This is unethical in regard to consumer transparency. Another ethical issue I see is that the model does not reward actual artist engagement or artist contribution, but strengthens the already wide gap between major label and indie income. Knowing what I know now, I do think I would still buy stock in publicly traded music-related companies because the business of making music is a relatively stable one. I would additionally be more drawn to companies or labels with long-standing, stable catalogs, and I would lean toward those under a user-centric model.