The Death of the Artist
Inside/Out ©JR
“Why is YouTube able to get artists to accept such a low streaming rate? Why is Spotify able to get them to accept a better rate, but still an extremely low rate? It’s a protection racket. ‘We will help you make a little bit of money—much less than we should be giving you—because you have nowhere else to go. If you don’t deal with us, people will just be stealing your stuff.’”
William Deresiewicz
William Deresiewicz is an award-winning essayist and critic, and a sought-after speaker. He taught English at Yale and Columbia before becoming a full-time writer in 2008. He is the best-selling author of Excellent Sheep: The Mis-education of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life.
His new book, The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech, explodes the myth of the artist as a solitary individual ill-equipped to deal with the financial challenges of the market.
Not so, says the author who, after 140 interviews, describes artists as highly networked, scrappy, resilient, and increasingly market-savvy.
All of which, it turns out, is not enough. The market for creative content is dominated by tech platforms — YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and others — that are sucking billions of dollars away from the creators themselves.
Sound familiar?
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If you hear a spark of outrage listening to Deresiewicz, you’re not wrong. Things for artists and creatives really are that bad. The Death of the Artist — buy it, read it, pass it on — and support your local artist.
For more information, visit BillDeresiewicz.com, or follow @WDeresiewicz on Twitter.
Show Notes
● Patti Smith’s Dream
● Jonathan Taplin, Move Fast & Break Things
● Chris Anderson, Free: The Future of a Radical Price
● Musician Dan Barrett
● Clark University Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program