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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Tyler Burchfield, Musician and Advocate from United Musicians and Allied Workers
1:14:57
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127 sec
Tyler Burchfield, a musician and advocate from United Musicians and Allied Workers, testifies about the financial challenges faced by independent musicians, particularly regarding streaming platforms and the high costs associated with creating and producing music.
- Highlights the significant overhead costs for musicians, including studio time, photography, album art, and equipment.
- Mentions that a professional saxophone can cost at least $3,500, with expectations of rising prices due to inflation and tariffs.
- Criticizes Spotify CEO Daniel Ek for not understanding the difficulties and costs involved in producing albums.
Tyler Burchfield
1:14:57
Hello.
1:14:57
My name is Tyler Burchfield.
1:14:59
I am a resident of Bushwick in Brooklyn, New York, and I am in the jurisdiction of the council member Sandy Nurse.
1:15:10
I want to say thank you even though she's not here to Council Member Hanif for sponsoring this bill and to everyone else who is co sponsoring the bill and is in support of it.
1:15:26
I want to thank the previous two speakers for going over a lot of great points and something that is not always touched on when we talk about the issue of streaming technology platforms and pay issues is just how much the overhead is for independent musicians like myself and the others here to create musical content and create their albums or even create the live performances which is yet another area it's a struggle and where exploitation is real.
1:16:03
As an example, you know, to put out an album it can cost thousands of dollars in the studio.
1:16:09
It can cost hundreds or maybe thousands of dollars to do photography or to do album art.
1:16:15
The cost of equipment, you know, as a saxophonist, you know, a decent professional saxophone costs about at least $3,500 now.
1:16:26
I expect those costs to go up with inflation and tariffs and other things like that.
1:16:35
And I think that that's just another angle that would be nice for people to consider if they're not part of the industry is the overhead costs.
1:16:46
The CEO of Spotify, Daniel Ek, has made it clear that he doesn't understand kind of just how difficult and time consuming and costly it is to put out albums when you listen to his statements about anyway, thank you everyone for your time.