The internet changed music, but we still don’t know how

Spotify, Pandora, and other streaming music services might destroy the music business, forcing artists to trade the reliable margins of album sales for a few pennies of royalties. Or they might save it, appealing to a new generation that’s not interested in owning music at all. Or, most likely, we won’t have any idea what’s really going on until years later. At The New Yorker, Sasha Frere-Jones speaks with Gang of Four’s Dave Allen and other members of the music industry about how (and if) musicians should make a living from their work online. Unlike many other discussions, it doesn’t treat artists as one group, nor does it simply focus on the economics of streaming. Instead, Frere-Jones and his interviewees discuss how to consider “the internet” as a complex and unpredictable factor that affects artists and listeners across the world, instead of reducing it to American users of iTunes, Pandora, and The Pirate Bay.