I am interested in this research question because the question itself is becoming more and more prevalent in today's world and media.  Certain large name artists have begun to refuse to allow their music to be streamed on applications like spotify, the most notorious of them being Taylor Swift.  This question also plays a role with my personal values.  I believe that an artist, or any person who performs their job or task, should be rightfully compensated for doing so.  However with that being said, I believe that if you allow your music to be shared through these outlets then it comes down to your ability to draw enough listeners to make a decent amount.  Music, like any other industry, is capitalist and therefore will continue to operate in that manner.  My personal experience regarding this is that I myself am a musician and have recorded music and allowed it to be streamed through these outlets.  I have seen first hand how the compensation process works and how small the amounts of money coming into small time artists are.  My prior work with music and recording, and also the fact that I myself am a well versed musician, being able to play seven instruments and playing in multiple acts, qualifies me to write on the subject and give a non-partial view to the subject matter.

The central claim of this article is presented as more of a question that the Appel then provides an answer to using other people's words.  He asks the question of whether or not we should change how record labels compensate their artists.  Using statistics and quotes he uses others words to argue that yes we should change the way we compensate.  The major interests of this article are that Appel wants to convince us that we should change the way in which we compensate artists.  However, he himself never really argues either way, he avoids the blame of saying the words.  This could be due to his ties to the publishing website, Billboard, and the ties they have to the music industry.  Rich Appel is very credible as an author in this article because he provides statistics rather than just his opinion.  However, he does present the clear bias that he believes musician compensation should be changed.

The claim of this article is that musicians are not being fairly compensated by their record labels.  The major evidence Masnick uses is two pie charts providing statistics on the percentages of streaming revenues that go to the record label and the percent going elsewhere.  The first pie chart included the taxes and it shows the labels receiving 45% of overall revenue.  Then the second removed taxes from the revenue and the label was receiving 75% of the revenue.  The major interests at stake for this article are the payments of the musicians.  They are arguing very strongly for one side and using very opinioned language.  The author presents himself as credible by his language and use of statistics in his argument, but when looking at his qualifications he loses credibility.  He isn't involved in the music industry and is a writer with no inside experience with the issues.

Its artists and why they pay them the way they do.  The author uses this article to provide the reader with information regarding the payment process, laying out all the information in graphs and charts.  The author also uses language that is just outside the realm of understandable to the common uneducated reader.  This article has a lot of reason to present its information its information in the way it does due to the fact that it is Spotify publishing the article as well as writing it.  The information provided by Spotify shows the full process in which the artists are paid from the stream all the way to individual musician pay.  These charts show little money going to the musician and they never address the huge proportions being kept by record labels.  The source is very credible because it is Spotify detailing their own policy when it comes to monetary reward to artists.  However, readers should also keep in mind the fact that they have an inherent interest to deceive, or present information that could paint a bad picture, in a manner that would mislead the reader.

This research question is arguable because it is a prevalent issue with two very well defined sides.  These sides include the record labels and companies streaming the music who have invested interest in compensating as little as they can in order to make their profits as large as possible.  The other side is the artists themselves who believe they deserve more compensation from these companies than they are currently receiving.  It becomes a matter of not only money, but also ethics and morality.  In the sources I have found arguments for the increase in compensation due to how it affects the livelihoods of the musicians involved.  The different perspectives of the sources have pushed my view more so towards the argument to compensate but I still remain very much so in the middle of both sides.  I may need to revise my research question in order to address the overall payment of musicians by record labels and venues, instead of just the issue of streaming sources compensating.
