Internet and Artistic Production: Streaming in Brazil

Live performances have been common for a long time as a way for artists to receive revenue for their works. When recording capabilities surfaced, along with the mass production of vynil, many artists stood against this new form of reproduction, pointing that their live public would be greatly reduced due to the home listening possibility and, thus, their income would also decrease. As time went on, that decrease didn’t actually happen, since the sales of vynil (and later CDs, DVDs and such) became a way to earn that money.
With the arrival of the internet, a new form to publicize content was found outside of the physical media. As MP3s were developed and uploaded to the web, people could just download songs and store them in their PCs, iPods or cell phones. This possibility revolutionized the music industry, making way for the growth of companies such as Apple, which began selling albums digitally. On the other hand, it also made way for the rise of illegal downloads.
All this evolution culminated on the development of another revolutionary form of access to digital media: the streaming platforms. This sort of technology provides users with music and video, either for free or paid for, with no need for the permanent download of such files. People get to listen to a song any number of times, without actually transfering it as a copy. That raises the question of who should pay for the use of such works, something that was obvious with physical media.
One of the biggest debates over streaming is the revenue of musicians on platforms such as Spotify, Deezer and Play Music. They argue that the income isn’t fair nor sufficient, since the payment is made according to the number of listens a song has, with values ranging from $0,006 e $0,0084 on Spotify. It becomes worrisome to think that small artists submit themselves to contracts with abusive clauses in order to provide their works through these streaming apps, even though they won’t get any visibility through the platform.
As streaming is cloud-based, and non proprietary, the ECAD (Brazilian’s Central Bureau of Tax Revenue and Distribution) argues that it consists of a public exhibition due to the possibility of public use, which implies on taxation for the institution. To the bureau, its acting would be justified by the non remuneration of artists adequatedly and would serve to oppose abusive contracts with musicians. However, such conjuncture would direct resources to the ECAD, which would raise the cost of the product to the final consumer and could potentially reduce user access, making it difficult for smaller artists to reach for bigger audiences.
Hence, the internet reveals itself as an alternative and cheap way of promotion, as it can provide free content. However, when a professional artist wishes to gain more space and to receive a fair revenue for the production of her songs, the current context of streaming isn’t ideal. Besides, it’s necessary to consider that the involvement of a public entity, such as ECAD, would add an intermediary between the streaming companies and artists, meaning another obstacle to what really matters: the production of culture.