ed. From her blog.
Today, many artists around the world are holding demonstrations at Spotify offices to deliver their demands; a penny per stream, increased transparency, an end to lawsuits against artists, and more. unionofmusicians.org/justice-at-spotifyAs many of you know, I have run my own career and label since 1985. During this time, I have witnessed many changes in the music industry. When I first jumped in, cassettes and vinyl were the dominant formats. By 1989 I was starting to reproduce my music on CD. I had been alerted to the coming digital tsunami by an insider at Philips, who was interested in using my music as content for this new format. For reasons I do not recall, it was not an initiative I participated in.Throughout the 80’s and 90’s music was sold in stores and bootlegged on beaches around the world. The bootlegging was one of the origins of music piracy and the digital nature of CD’s made it easier than ever. Once the internet became commonplace, new models of commerce were being explored through companies like Apple, offering downloads which more closely resembled the business model of the physical formats, certainly in terms of what artists were paid — somewhere in the order of 25 cents per song.
Read the whole sorry mess at Source: Is the streaming experiment failing artists? – Loreena McKennitt