Researcher

The person that I followed on Twitter who had researched the same topic as me was Nick Wells. He is a journalist from CNBC news who wrote a report regarding how Spotify has affected how artists release their music to the public. In this article, Wells goes over the different sides of the question of if music streaming hurts the revenue of the artists that release that music. His post mainly looks at the different perspectives of various artists in relation to making their music available to be streamed. According to Wells, there are some artists like Taylor Swift that refuse to put some or all of their music up for streaming over disputes on them getting paid for the use of their music. Then there are other artists, like Ed Sheeran in this case, that openly praise the music streaming business and how it has worked out for them and their careers. Wells goes on to give data from a study that shows approximately how much money is actually made from online downloads from places like iTunes and from online streaming sites like Spotify. The study that Wells included in his report claims that Spotify does not hurt revenue for songs that are doing well and if a song already isn't doing well then it isn't going to help it either. In the words of his report Spotify is "revenue neutral." Wells' report focuses on only a select few artists' opinions on the music streaming industry and only goes in depth on one of the most successful artists in regards to music streaming, Ed Sheeran's specific estimated revenue. He neglects to include how smaller or up and coming artists are affected by the already established music streaming business, a topic that I plan on including in my research paper.