But Also The Collaboration With Someone Who Appreciates What I Do And How I Do It - Blog Posts
Something I keep noticing about conversations I have with friends is that I never put any of my opinions in any elegant way that makes sense. And rather than just listing off reasons why I hate (music) streaming off the cuff, I'll explain where I would have put streaming service cash at the very least.
To some extent, this is a sister post to the audiophile one.
Bandcamp is an independent music platform that took a ~20% cut from any sale, leaving the rest for the musician. At the time, this was notable against iTunes *30%; with the rest having to be split between label and artist. Nowadays, it is very easy and affordable for musicians to get their music on any of the big platforms via Distrokid and like services. All of this to say that if an artist or album isn't on Bandcamp, or any other service that isn't iTunes, I'll still buy it off of iTunes since a single sale from one song makes an artist more money than paying $20 to Spotify.
As an aside; second hand CDs are a gray area purchase. I like owning my media; physical or otherwise. But I would be remiss to claim that buying a CD from a thrift store would be supporting an artist.
*I think they changed to match Bandcamp's split recently, but after they started doing music streaming.
Spotify and like music streaming services have been notorious for having bad payouts for their artists. Despite turning in positive revenue for the industry, the comical amount of artists who put their songs on Spotify means this split is literal pennies for multi-million streams on popular songs. Spotify is a platform that absolutely can be used to gain an audience or find new artists; but YouTube is (technically) free and Bandcamp lets people listen to whole songs before buying them.
Buying a single song at an artist's asking price on Bandcamp, fuck even iTunes, directly supports them. And it's nice to have high quality files to save onto my hard drive that I know won't be taken down due to *licensing or whatever.
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Awkwardly, I don't have a better segway into this next thought; more airing out my conflicting ideas about "owning media" and piracy.
I'm very aware that purchasing a game off of Steam and like services don't mean I "own" that game. I am licensing it from whoever is running that platform. GOG exists and lets customers download complete installers without any licensing or DRM. But most modern industry games are at most worth stealing on the bay since; the labor involved in its creation has already been paid for by the publisher, and only the publisher/producer gets the sales afterward. Paying for a game on steam or GOG really comes down to who is having a sale at any given moment.
Another aside; Itch.io is like a sister site to Bandcamp, except that they platform games and other digital media. Also, their split is theoretically 0% for independent game developers. Ethically speaking, it's better to spend the amount of cash that it would have taken to buy one new AAA game on a handful of short indie games. The cash stretches farther, and the money goes directly to the labor and talent responsible for it. That is to say:
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The concept of owning a purchase and owning a file is something I never think about explaining. A file, no matter how ephemeral, exists on storage somewhere. And I like to spend money to make sure that a copy of that file can exist on storage that I own and can access regardless of my connection to the internet. It doesn't matter how I get my hands on that file; ripped CDs, purchases off of any modern platform, or even piracy. I don't want to pay the cash for streaming, the cash never really touches the hands I'd want it too anyway. I never pirate games, since I never game enough to make it actually worth the risk involved in finding safe cracks.
To that, and I doubt it's the best example, I'm someone who "buys digital art commissions." Arguably, it's a digital file I spent $200+ on and will likely keep to myself after the fact. A vanity purchase of questionable value. But like vain nobility of eld, I spend the cash for the effort, labor, and skill of an artist because I don't like looking at my own art like supporting an artist I like the work of. Or personally know (@mintyfreshka). Owning the file at the end is somewhat secondary, but it's nice to have the project file to make my own edits, than an already baked JPEG.
I've yet to really meet an artist who doesn't like handing over their project file at request, or even with an additional cost. But I'd be cool if they want to keep it to themselves, since today's landscape is kinda dire for artists.