If you’ve seen friends changing their social icons to a red volume knob turned all the way down, and you’re an avid user of any music streaming service, then read on — because you need to know who Sharky Laguana is. (Yes, that’s his real name.) Laguana has been part of one punk community or another since the late 1980’s, eventually making a name for himself in the 90’s with San Francisco band Creeper Lagoon. After they broke up, he’s stayed deeply involved with the music community, operating a musician-centered van rental service, Bandago, which has been used by the likes of Dinosaur Jr., and Ke$ha.
More recently, he’s become a prominent critic of aspects of the leading on-demand streaming services and the way they calculate and distribute royalties. One recently-penned piece, “Streaming Music is Ripping You Off”, has been gaining some serious traction on the net. In it, Laguana explains the current ‘Big Pool’ method of royalty distribution used by services like Spotify and Apple Music and why he thinks a “subscriber share” method of accounting would be preferable. He also offers up a suggestion: a silent protest (streaming music 24/7 with the volume turned down) during the month of September, one that he hopes might convince these services to consider alternatives.
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