I am seeing a common theme this month. There was an article about the minimum wage – should artists be considered into this equation?  This morning:

The Whole Arts World Is Totally F*#!ed. And Everyone’s Talking About Arts Criticism?

This op-ed type piece goes into detail about artists not being paid what is due to them as well.  Furthermore, I had a client email me saying that they are having a challenging time selling their music and tickets due to the new streaming services that have changed the game for music sales.

Lastly, I saw an artist type a note in Craigslist letting the people that want to hire a musician for free with “good for publicity” know that artists have worked hard and deserve to be paid.

I have written in the past about how artists may be giving away too much, and it might be time to take a stand in some fashion to let people know that the arts are valuable.  It’s not the fact that people do not want the arts in their lives.  It is more the challenge that they want it to be free now that technology is giving it away for free.

However, we do need to look at how we contributed to this new way of the world.  We are letting it happen.  I am not seeing tons of musicians opt out of the streaming services.  I am not seeing artists setting up fees or percentages for the big time auctions. We as a group have not decided on common protocol for arts transactions so the world knows that we deserve to be paid.  Artists give in all the time for the promises of “publicity” citing the “pay to play” rule.

This is how the world is taking advantage of us.  It goes beyond the realm of artists, but I won’t digress to stick with the point.  It will take a collective voice to stop this madness.  It will take collective action agreed upon by our collective voice to show the world that artists are hard working people that deserve to be paid for what we create.

It isn’t a matter of complaining anymore. Our squeaky wheel isn’t squeaky enough to get the oil.  I believe it is time for us to supply our own terms to bring to this new game so the world will value the arts and not expect us to give it away for free. Many voices coming together can create change. Creating loyal audiences can also make a huge difference. For either solution to happen, it is up to us.

Thoughts?

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza
Chief Audience Builder, ADS

• #artsmyths on Twitter to @AudienceDevSpec or by commenting at the end of this post
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