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Songwriters Slam Unfair Streaming Payments in Sadly Hilarious New Video — but Will Anything Change?


Songwriters have been left behind in the music-streaming economy — a situation put into sadly ironic context in a new video from several hitmakers.

Major music companies are enjoying record profits, as are many superstar artists — but many others further down the income scale, and especially songwriters, have been left behind by the streaming payment model. The situation was put into bold, blunt relief in a minute-long video posted on Instagram Wednesday, coordinated by artist-songwriter Bonnie McKee (Katy Perry, Britney Spears) and featuring some of the most successful professional songwriters working today — including J Hart (Cher, Troye Sivan), Tayla Parx (Ariana Grande, Panic at the Disco), Authumn Rowe (who won a Grammy for her work with Jon Batiste), “American Idol” finalist Jax (Weezer, Big Freedia) Lauren Christy (Dua Lipa, Avril Lavigne), Jesse Saint John (Lizzo, Camila Cabello), Michelle Lewis (Cher; head of the Songwriters of North America non-profit), and more. the outsized role that many songwriters play in the creation of a hit song, which can extend from bringing in other collaborators to the therapeutic process of coaxing a personal, emotional lyric out of an artist;

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