We reported last month on the launch of the Justice at Spotify campaign by the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) in the US.
Now one of its prime movers, artist and author Damon Krukowski, has been talking to Vice about the campaign’s goals – including its demand that Spotify pay a minimum of a penny (one cent) per stream.
“A penny per stream is the driving force for me. Just the bottom line of they don’t pay us enough. It’s a classic labour struggle. Capital is keeping the money and not paying labour,” said Krukowski, who later elaborated on the demand.
“Even at a penny a stream, to make the equivalent of [a] $15-an-hour living wage, you still need 250,000 streams a month. Those numbers are per band member, and not counting a label’s cut or a manager’s cut,” he said. “While you’d need that many streams to make $2500, at least it’s not the absurd per-band member figure of around 660,000 to make that kind of money. It would be a huge improvement over what we got. My God, it would help an awful lot.”
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