If Streaming Is the Future, You Can Kiss Jazz and Other Genres Goodbye

Marc Ribot is a guitarist and composer. He has released over 20 albums, exploring everything from free jazz to Cuban son and avant-garde rock. He is also president of the Content Creators Coalition (c3), which is conducting a study of the economic impact of Spotify and other streaming services on their artist members.

Updated November 7, 2014, 2:53 PM

If streaming represents the future of music, then my own future is looking grim.

In its first year of streaming on Spotify, my band Ceramic Dog earned 112.80 euros in Europe and $47.12 in the United States from our album "Your Turn." The album cost over $15,000 to make. By contrast, CD sales on earlier albums netted us between $4,000 and $9,000.

Now, maybe the market knows best, and the world is in fact better off without artists like me. I make no claims for my own work, but people need to understand what that means for the culture. Indie artists may only constitute 38 percent of market share, but they represent well over 90 percent of working musicians, and a great majority of works released.

Spotify likes to say that they are already paying 70 percent to rights holders. However, this does not mean that their model is sustainable for artists. If the type of music I make is no longer sustainable, you can kiss most jazz, classical, folk, experimental, and a whole lot of indie bands goodbye.