How has the Music industry changed with digital media?

The music industry has changed significantly with digital media as most people don’t buy their music, but rather stream it. When it comes to buying a song for about 1.29 versus a $10 a month subscription with access to over 30 million songs, making such a switch is beneficial to most people today. Apple was the last of music services to offer streaming to its customers, its $3 billion acquisition of Beats Music helped them join the everyday person’s means of getting and enjoying their music. Also, the fact that Apple music is built right into iPhones gives them a chance to gain more subscribers that were once apart of other music streaming services. The popularity of music streaming led to the necessity of new licensing rules in 2015. In the article titled “Music streaming demands new wave of licensing rules” of the Chicago Tribune, one learns that the government-mandated compulsory music licensing system forces songwriters to let others use their works at very low, fixed rates. Artists make thousandths of a few cents per play as compared to when the music industry was mainly CD’s that were about $10-$15 for a copy. Songwriters do not have control of who copies and or what price to set for their music but instead Congress, the Copyright Office, and the Department of Justice, in conjunction with large performing rights organizations, set the prices for many types of music licenses. The rate of pay that musicians get due to the streaming platform is ridiculous and get back little to nothing, even with hit songs.