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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Paco Cathcart, Musician and Advocate, on Fair Pay for Musicians from Streaming Services
1:27:07
·
3 min
Paco Cathcart, a New York-born musician, testifies about the challenges musicians face in earning a living wage from streaming services. He argues that despite having thousands of listeners, musicians receive only pennies from streaming platforms, making it difficult to cover basic living expenses.
- Cathcart compares musicians to chefs, emphasizing that music is essential to communal life and questioning whether artists are being fairly compensated for their contributions to culture.
- He highlights the issue of having to work side jobs despite being a full-time musician and argues against the notion that musicians should simply avoid streaming platforms if they disagree with the compensation model.
- Cathcart criticizes the current music industry paradigm, describing it as dominated by "predatory monopolizing tech companies" that prioritize customer convenience over artists' livelihoods.
Paco Cathcart
1:27:07
Hello.
1:27:08
Good morning my fellow New Yorkers.
1:27:11
My name is Paco Cathcart.
1:27:13
I was born in Saint Vincent's Hospital on Seventh Ave, but I grew up in the part of Williamsburg, Brooklyn called Los Suros, Southside.
1:27:22
My story is the story of countless musicians laboring in this city and elsewhere.
1:27:27
Thousands and thousands of listeners use my product every month via streaming services and it adds up to pennies in the bank account.
1:27:35
If there are literally thousands of people using your product, should you not be able to comfortably pay your rent?
1:27:42
Should you have to worry at the end of the month about covering the bills that keep going up and up?
1:27:46
Shouldn't you be able to save even a little money?
1:27:49
If a popular chef making healthy and delicious food that people eat thousands of times a month receives pennies for the labor of cooking that food, for their expertise, for their contribution to the culture, is that fair?
1:28:04
We're cooks here.
1:28:06
We cook the soul food that is music.
1:28:09
Everyone in this room knows what I'm talking about.
1:28:12
Music is a necessity of communal life.
1:28:15
Are we actually a great community here or do we only claim fleeting membership in community for political convenience?
1:28:24
I work full time on my craft.
1:28:26
That is at least forty hours a week.
1:28:29
On top of that of course I work side hustles, set building, landscaping.
1:28:33
I'm also a recording engineer but I forever worked at steeply discounted rates because musicians are broke.
1:28:40
A while back I was working in the shop with my good friend and long time set building boss Christian Dutrem and he told me Paco, you should not be working side jobs.
1:28:50
You should be making music all the time and living off of it.
1:28:53
You're too talented.
1:28:54
We know it.
1:28:55
We know it well.
1:28:57
We are not lazy people.
1:28:58
We're hard workers.
1:29:00
My roots are in Antiochia, Colombia, and the people there are called Pisa.
1:29:06
If you know about Pisa culture, you know that we are known for our borderline maniacal work ethic.
1:29:11
Can I finish?
1:29:12
Is that up?
Carmen de la Rosa
1:29:13
Sorry.
1:29:13
If you could just wrap it up.
Raul Rivera
1:29:14
Thank you
Paco Cathcart
1:29:14
so much.
1:29:15
I'll be quick.
1:29:17
I'm also a born and bred New Yorker and we New Yorkers are not exactly known for laziness either.
1:29:22
But we are at a point where having both talent and the willingness to work your ass off is just not enough to make even the semblance of a decent living.
1:29:32
We're the victims of a broken music industry where predatory monopolizing tech companies sell convenience to their customers at the price of artists' livelihood.
1:29:41
Their dominance of the industry obliterates any possibility of working outside of that paradigm.
1:29:46
Don't tell me to just keep your music off the streaming platforms if you think it's wrong.
1:29:51
That's like telling the miner in a single industry coal mining town who is struggling to organize for better working conditions, if you don't like the conditions at the mine, just go work somewhere else.
1:30:03
Every day.
1:30:04
Do we not burn the coal?
1:30:06
Every day.
1:30:06
Do we not eat the meal?
1:30:08
Every day.
1:30:09
Do we not listen to the music?
1:30:12
Thank you very much.