No it's not their freedom to be on Spotify. That's not how the music business works. The record labels own the master recordings. Spotify negotiates rights to stream the records labels catalog with the labels. The artists have no say. The exception to this are artists who have negotiated to retain ownership of their master(very rare) or they have acquired their masters back through a contractual clause called a reversion(also rare.) Taylor Swift, Prince and Metalica are examples of people who own their master recording and can dictate whether streaming services can license their catalogs and at what cost.
We all have the freedom to do whatever; the issue is the consequences.
The question I think is more about if as a society we think it’s important for musicians to be able to make a decent living at their work and if so do we want to use our collective tools of law or government (or if someone gets lucky and innovates a better business model) to help that happen?
And if Spotify’s current business model is good or bad for our culture, if we believe that having musicians being able to make a decent living is important for our culture.
> it’s important for musicians to be able to make a decent living at their work
I think this depends on a great many factors. Do you mean possible for some musicians, everyone who wants to do music in some capacity, or somewhere in between? How do you define a decent living?
I'm reminded of the "No farms, no food" bumper-stickers I would sometimes see. While obviously true as written, it's subtlety different in practice and politics. Food comes from farms. Farms are needed. Yet this may not the same as all farms being needed, important, or significant to keep functioning. The person with that bumper sticker may not agree with the distinction I've drawn.
Music is absolutely critical to our ongoing cultural life. No musicians, no music. Yet... to what extent should a society with limited resources devote them to the promotion and enablement of musicians, bearing in mind that there are other uses for those resources? Even with an abundance mindset and in today's world of plenty, this key question does not go away.
For sure. I agree with you. And I'd say maybe music education - kids learning how to play an instrument, etc - is one area of focus. However I don't think it's supporting the arts that's sticking point when it comes to America managing it's limited resources ; )
We, as a society, have already decided that musicians have to be "all in" and "exceptional" to make a good living... and if the rest want to make a living - then private events is the way.
We cannot support a million Beyonce's, a million Gaga's and millions of other musicians - we don't live in a Communist utopia.
Now as for Spotify - they are not a monopoly, in US they are neck and neck with Apple Music. So... Why should we intervene with heavy handed laws* - when there's still a fierce battle happening in the market?
Also - Let's not have the government decide how culture should progress.
* - laws are always conservative and change slowly