Straight Facts About Cost of Life in Music

Government interference in music will not make ends meet anywhere.

Blog entry written on 21 July, 2025, by Corinne Devin Sullivan, at the Archive Coffee & Bar located at102 Liberty Street NE, in Salem, Oregon.

Photography at the Archive Coffee & Bar by Corinne Devin Sullivan.

I’ve been blogging about the very, very bad scene in music today. This Call to Action is inspired by a flagrant abuse of American democracy. To ignore what’s going on would be pure madness.  

It was done in 2018. It’s called the Music Modernization Act. It’s an act of Congress, signed into law by President Donald J. Trump, that has created a compulsory license in music. This was done only to contribute to copyright abuse that profits on billions of revenues daily in music.

The Music Modernization Act has many facets of Bad.  It directs a government office to set prices for music sales which is totally un-American. The government has NO authority to set ANY prices in ANY industry. That’s what America is about. That’s what we fought for back in the 1700’s, folks.

We must act now to end this lest this one act can be used to inspire future Bad in other industries.

Over 100 years of abuse of the artists in music is the only reason the Music Modernization Act exists so don’t pretend it’s an act of God. It’s not.

Don’t despair. We can end the Music Modernization Act by informing the American public of exactly what’s at stake.

Ending the MMA COULD happen overnight.  

Taylor Swift was amazing in 2016 when she called out Apple for their announcement that they would start streaming the entire iTunes catalogue. They were essentially saying that all the songs artists had uploaded for sale were going to be given away. That’s something like billions of dollars they were tossing into the ocean that should have been going into the pockets of America’s Songwriters.

Why? Because they want to turn the tables on the artists. And this is pure stupidity because it’s only from the artists that Apple has a stake in music at all.

So now they want to make all the artists who have music for sale with Apple, and the teams who help them, appear helpless, or stupid, or even dead and wooden and lifeless.

The enemy who enacted the MMA is NOT SMART. And they ARE doing evil. They KNOW they are doing evil so why be friendly? I am asking this because the artists in the music industry must change. They can never be negligent of their responsibility for participating in our federal government and doing so with graciousness.

The straight facts about the cost of living should be analyzed by you, American Songwriter.

Check out your personal costs for these items in the past month:

1.     Safe shelter

2.     Your children

3.     Your partner or spouse

4.     Food

5.     Clean water

6.     Clean air

7.     Adequate clothing

8.     Health

9.     Beauty and hygiene

10.  Safe storage of your personal items

11.  Computer connections

12.  Transportation

13.  Phone costs

14.  Pets

15.  Keeping up your professional relationships

16.  Vacation time

17.  State taxes and fees

18.  IRS

That’s essential living costs over one month.

To look at the cost/expenditure balance concerning the Music Modernization Act, now add the real costs for a music profession:

19.  Instruments

20.  Equipment

21.  Playback system

22.  Venue

23.  Copyright protection of your work

24.  Band

25.  Website

26.  Concert promotion

27.  Ticket sales

28.  Security guards

29.  Venue personnel

30.  Sound engineer

31.  Lighting

32.  Costume

33.  Hair & make-up

34.  Assistants

35.  Recording engineer

36.  Music production

37.  Music arrangement

38.  Studio time

39.  Mixing recordings

40.  Mastering recordings

41.  CD production

42.  Vinyl record production

43.  Merchandise production

44.  Music and Merch sales people

45.  Music promotion

46.  Merch promotion

47.  Music video production

48.  Photographer

49.  Booking percentages

50.  Travel to and from shows

51.  Any additional people you will hire

52.  Social media promotion

53.  Media coordinator

54.  Accountant

55.  Legal advice

If your music is good enough to bring happiness to everyone, certain explosive costs are:

56.  Office and staff

57.  Television appearances

58.  Magazines

59.  Social media takeovers

60.  Live radio appearances

61.  Dancers

62.  Additional musicians

63.  Costumes

64.  Brand promotions on an international scale

65.  Production costs tied into brand promotions

66.  Security staff

67.  Security measures such as paying high costs for false starts to mislead stalkers

68.  Gifts and social events

69.  Stylish transportation costs

70.  Stylists

71.  Bankers

72.  A few more attorneys  

Add in these:

73.  Add one monthly bonus

74.  Do a new calculation for the taxes you will need to cover

Multiply one month’s costs by 3.

Actually, multiply by 5 if you want to feel very secure.

You will need a plan for three different sources of revenue to cover the entire amount you calculated because three sources might make it easier to deal with hardships, right?

Here’s the point: What can you, the artist, sell to cover all of these things?

Money is a result of exchanging a valuable commodity with others so what types of things are you exchanging.

Money from a contract comes from a single source. Hopefully, it comes from a patron of the arts who believes in the music company. Unfortunately, often it comes from a terrible habit of ripping off earlier artists and using that to fund the next new thing, or by the company lying to many investors who are disparaging music to being with—making the artists involved in that set-up often victims of strange hatreds and abuse they can’t ever pinpoint.

In the 1990’s and 2000’s we saw big change from all the earlier decades in music because the internet and digital music were far less expensive to create. We saw artists like Owl City and Sara Bareilles jumped to the top of the charts due to high sales they generated through their own hard work. Back then, digital songs on iTunes were about $1.29 a month.

With $1.29 earned on every song that went into your fanbase’s playback machine, you could cover all of your costs.

Back then, streaming was illegal. It was a copyright violation. There was a lot of good happening for artists. Sure, there were also abuses but nothing like the ultimate abuse when, in 2018, bad actors got an act passed in congress which now has prevented utterly good attorneys from pursuing copyright infringement claims against streaming corporations. With it, the public confidence in music was completely shattered so far as investments are concerned.

It's not easy to get investment into big music contracts today unless you are truly golden in your show. Labels and marketing corporations were asked bluntly, “Why invest in music now that streaming is the only way music is purchased.” Artist development budgets don’t exist. Big promotions and free giveaways like they did in the 2000’s are no longer economical.

What we are constantly seeing in music is “anything goes” to enable just a few companies to take the majority profits in the music industry. Without question, it runs routinely in the billions of dollars day by day. It’s more lucrative to be at the top of music than it is to work in oil or pharmaceuticals.

What type of things will be purchased such a large and unchecked cash flow? The answer is simply: corrupt government officials and the high costs of war.

The Music Modernization Act was not ONCE put to the people for a vote, at all. Most people on earth understanding completely that interference by “the government” isn’t ever going to solve basic community economics. What’s needed is to end the interference by officialdom and let the hard-working artists get on with their lives.

The answer to return American values everywhere lies in this:

Cancel the 2018 Music Modernization Act. Return fair copyright protection to music. This is the only way to honestly afford the costs of a career in music.