Save Music, Save the Archive!

Over 600 musicians are speaking out to demand that major labels drop a lawsuit aimed to destroy the Internet Archive—and for their industry to take concrete actions to realign their actions with the interests of working artists. Sign their open letter now to show your support.

Musicians for Fairness & Preservation Open Letter

It’s time for the music industry to support the artistic legacies and futures of working musicians—not shareholder profits. 

We, the undersigned musicians, wholeheartedly oppose major record labels’ unjust lawsuit targeting the Internet Archive, a crucial non profit cultural institution. We don’t believe that the Internet Archive should be destroyed in our name. The biggest players of our industry clearly need better ideas for supporting us, the artists, and in this letter we are offering them.

By 2031, music industry revenues will exceed 100 billion dollars, yet the average musician is struggling to survive. We’re priced out of touring by LiveNation’s abusive monopolies, and screwed over on royalties as big labels profit from Spotify’s unfair streaming revenue model. 

Music is demonetized and censored by DSPs, sued off the Internet Archive by major labels, and physical archives have gone up in flames because of corporate profiteering. It’s no surprise that mental health is a crisis among musicians—we’re sick with worry wondering if anything will be left of our life’s work.

The music industry is not struggling anymore. Only musicians are. We demand a course-correction now, focused on the legacies and futures of working musicians. We call on all record labels, streaming platforms, ticketing outlets, and venues to immediately align on the following goals: 

1. Protect our diverse music legacy.

The music industry has a moral imperative to keep its history archived, but we can’t trust it to do so. Old records are falling to pieces, and without proper digital preservation, they’ll be gone for good. The masters of big money-making recordings are going up in flames, and lesser-known musicians are even more vulnerable to erasure. 

Incredible music and culture is getting lost forever, even though we have the technology to preserve it. Thanks to the nonprofit Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, almost half a million MTV News articles were spared permanent deletion. But when their Great 78 Project rescued over 400,000 recordings, major labels responded with a lawsuit against the Internet Archive for research library streams of old vinyl records. Going back to the opening of the library in 2006, the suit seeks $621,300,000 in damages. In Spotify bucks, $621,300,000 is 261 billion streams—wildly higher than the “millions” of research library streams alleged in the lawsuit. When songs streamed 10 million times would only pay out $23,800, we have to wonder how much our music is really worth. 

Artists and labels alike should partner with valuable cultural stewards like the Internet Archive—not sue them. It’s time to support nonprofit music preservation to ensure that our music and our stories aren’t lost to history.

2. Invest in living, working musicians–not back catalogs or monopolies.

In 2022, music rights was a 40 billion dollar business. But a disproportionate cut of those billions are made by private equity exploiting the back catalogs of legacy musicians, many of whom are no longer living. Working artists took home as little as 12% of music industry revenue, even before COVID decimated touring. Meanwhile CEOs hire lawyers, publicists, and lobbyists to convince the public that music is essentially worthless. 

At the same time, we’re shut out of sharing in today’s historic highs in live concert revenue. Musicians, including big-name artists like Lorde and Animal Collective, shouldn’t lose money self-funding tours that cost 40% more post-pandemic. This exploitation comes at the hands of monopolies double-dipping into both ticketing and venue income, and gravely harms the workers and independent live music spaces that also comprise the touring ecosystem. 

Venues and ticketing retailers must set a precedent to ensure that artists get a fairer deal, including keeping 100% of merchandise sales, as suggested by the Featured Artist Coalition & United Musicians and Allied Workers’ #MyMerch campaign. We need transparent ticketing practices that prioritize income for artists and clarity for fans, so that live music work can actually make artists a living.

3. Make streaming services pay fair compensation. 

The music industry must put musicians before big tech. Lobbyist organizations should redirect their power into making the government appropriately tax streaming platforms to fund artists, rather than side with monopolistic corporate players. 

Recently, representatives Rashida Tlaib and Jamaal Bowman introduced the Living Wage for Musicians Act in partnership with United Musicians and Allied Workers to fight for fair pay in streaming. 30,000 working musicians and counting also signed onto UMAW’s #JusticeatSpotify campaign, demanding similar goals of fair compensation from DSPs. Artists have clearly voiced concern that the numbers aren’t adding up in our favor. 

Major labels must put forth a public plan with a concrete timeline to end their vertical investment in platforms like Spotify, whose CEO Daniel Ek profits more in one year than Taylor Swift has in her lifetime. The music we make today is valuable, and it’s time for the industry to treat it that way and invest in working musicians by paying fair royalties for streams. 

We demand that the music industry stop treating the history and future of musicians as expendable. Thanks to many self-organized groups and collectives, music workers are better organized now than at any other point in history. The inequity that permeates the lives of working artists, in all media, will end. Through the collective power of artists and those that love our work, we will build a sustainable future where our wellbeing and dignity come first. 

The music industry cannot survive without musicians. The only way it can continue is with immediate and sustained action to protect artists’ futures, and the long-term preservation of their works. We implore our labels, our agents, our publishers, and our venues to stand with us in demanding fairness for the artists on which this industry is built. 

Sincerely,

• Tegan and Sara Quin
• Amanda Palmer
• Beats Antique
• Billie Marten
• Brian Aubert (Silversun Pickups)
• CAMP COPE
• Caroline Rose
• Carsie Blanton
• diiv
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• Mercedes R. Lackey
• Merrill Garbus (Tune-Yards)
• MICHAEL TRAVIS (The String Cheese Incident)
• Open Mike Eagle
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• Adult Mom
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• Allie Goertz
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• Franz Nicolay (the Hold Steady)
• Gabriel Kahane
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• James Holden
• Jeffrey Lewis
• Jim Cosgrove
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• Julia Holter
• Kathleen Hanna
• Kay Hanley (Letters to Cleo)
• Kimya Dawson
• Kindness
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