How Net Neutrality Can Effect the Careers of Independent Musicians

  • 7 min read
  • Mar 4, 2024
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Net neutrality is a crucial policy issue that indie artists could face. Let's first get a clear idea of what net neutrality is. It denotes the idea of treating all connections on the web equally.


It sounds great when you can that you can pay your Internet Service Provider for different speed tiers. However, you must not forget that this is only the speed that you are buying and all those things you pull down to your browsers will use up as much of this speed as they can.

Internet Service Providers

While ISPs are advertising the faster lane internet, you might wonder if these fast lanes are a good option for consumers. Know that what ISPs are talking about as fast lanes are not meant for individual users, but only for corporations. The issue talked about by the ISP's are in regards to providing fast lanes for anyone at all. They are only expecting the corporations to pay more for accessing the speeds they are accessing right now. It will also mean that those that are not paying into a slow line will be put on an August beach day.

Musicians are now selling their music on their websites, on Bandcamp or on the other online avenues. iTunes is seen traveling so fast in that fast lane. This will make selling on Spotify and Bandcamp ineffective for the indie musicians.

The point we are trying to understand is this. Downloads from the sites of indie musicians are going to be dead slow and often discouraging for the buyers. Unless compressed to hell, the streaming music from the musician’s sites is going to hang and pause many times. At the same time, when the same person buys music from iTunes, it will feel very smooth like butter. This can frustrate the buyers to buy directly from the artists. Hence without Title II net neutrality, the musicians are going to be caught in between amidst the tough battle among the media Titans.

By Patrick Hill on June 25, 2018.