Publication Date
11-2023
Document Type
Bibliography
Organizational Units
College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Lamont School of Music, Musicology and Ethnomusicology
Keywords
Musicians, Labor, Wages, Royalties, Contracts
Abstract
The goal of this paper is to highlight the various ways in which musicians and their labor are exploited in today’s capitalist economy. Music can be labelled in different ways such as aesthetic labor or creative labor and is not typically seen through the same lens of labor as more traditional forms of work. Record labels will abuse the vagueness of artists contracts to unfairly pay them and streaming services such as Spotify will leverage their political power and capital power to keep royalty payments to artists as low as possible. Gig work is also an important aspect to the topic of exploited musicians since companies that run these gig work apps will directly benefit from the labor of the artists without having to pay them a wage or deal with royalties.
Copyright Date
11-15-2023
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Rights Holder
Kalen Meyer
Provenance
Received from author
File Format
application/pdf
Language
English (eng)
Extent
5 pgs
File Size
94.2 KB
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Recommended Citation
Meyer, Kalen, "Annotated Bibliography: How Is Musical Labor Exploited in the United States’ Economy?" (2023). Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship. 160.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/musicology_student/160