A New Union of Musicians Is Taking on Spotify
Over the last decade, streaming services like Spotify have become increasingly dominant, sucking up all the profits at the expense of the musicians who make the work. Now, the newly formed Union for Musicians and Allied Workers is mobilizing to ensure musicians receive the royalties they’re owed.
Union of Musicians and Allied Workers protesting at Spotify’s corporate headquarters in San Francisco. (Patrick Perkins / Unsplash)
There was a time when Los Angeles’ Arts District was actually an arts district. The 1960s and ’70s saw plenty of broke artists in search of affordable space move into the area’s abandoned warehouses. In a few short years the misused industrial area was completely transformed. Cheap bars and coffee houses hosted DIY art exhibitions and gigs. Many a well-known street artist honed their craft here. Bands like the Residents, the Fall, and Sonic Youth played some of their earliest LA shows in the Arts District. The neighborhood became such a phenomenon that in 1980 the city passed the Artist-In-Residence bill, rezoning the area and making it easier for artists to comfortably live there.
Those days are long gone. The affordable artist housing is few and far between. Most of the old bars and coffee shops have shuttered, replaced with upscale restaurants and hoity-toity art galleries. “Disrupters” like WeWork, Soylent, and Honey hold offices in the repurposed warehouses. So does Spotify, though you would not know that from the sidewalk. Its neon sign can only be viewed by entering a courtyard at the corner of Mateo and Palmetto Streets. One wonders why, in a city that has had such a massive impact on popular music, the streaming giant feels the need to hide its face.
Justice at Spotify
On March 15, a crowd of musicians gathered at this intersection. It wasn’t large — perhaps forty people — but it was certainly noisy. Trumpets, sleigh bells, and harmonicas could be seen (and heard). Most in attendance were members or supporters of the recently founded Union of Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW). In October, UMAW launched its Justice at Spotify campaign, demanding that the company pay artists a penny per stream (up from what is currently about a fourth of a cent), provide a more transparent business model, user-centric streaming, and to appropriately credit all those who worked on a recording. March 15 was the first national day of action for both the union and the campaign, with rallies held at Spotify offices around the country, aiming to deliver UMAW’s demands.
This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.