Entertainment attorney Henderson Cole has a simple, maybe-not-crazy idea to make the music industry more hospitable to working musicians: A government-funded streaming service. RSFutureOfMusic
Cole’s bold plan is called the American Music Library. The— that the federal government invest in a streaming service, free for all users and funded by taxes on wealthy Americans — is as simple as it’s ambitious. Its most radical element is a completely reworked royalty system that delivers payments directly to musicians.
The idea may have seemed far-fetched when Cole first started pitching the idea in 2019, publishing itin the music newsletter Penny Fractions. But over the last year, a number of factors have led to a growing sense that the structure of the contemporary music industry — with profit-hungry tech companies serving as its backbone — is increasingly unsustainable.
Cole has a kind, unassuming demeanor for someone intent on restructuring the entire underpinning of a $20+ billion industry. Wearing a Joyce Manor t-shirt in a recent Zoom interview, the attorney — who represents indie acts like Bartees Strange and Dogleg — has a talent for outlining his concept in digestible, friendly terms: He sees the A.M.L. as a natural extension, in a sense, of recently proposed legislation like Biden’s $2 trillion transportation proposal.
We believe such a system would address the issues we are currently campaigning against in Spotify and other streaming services.”
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