Musicians, it’s time we started demanding just compensation for our life’s work!

Another case of “musicians  being asked to play for exposure” has come to my attention. Ex Cop, a punk duo featuring Amalie Bruun and Brian Harding, was asked by the McDonalds corporation to play at their SXSW show for the exposure only, no compensation whatsoever. McD’s is a mega corporation with a net worth of $97 billion with a B, and they can’t scrap together just compensation for artists. This arrogance blows my mind. When did it become OK to rip of musicians?

It’s not the first time this has happened. Bruno Mars wasn’t paid a dime when he performed at the 2014 Super Bowl. In fact, the NFL floated the idea of having him pay them to play in order to cover their cost for the multimillion dollar broadcast extravaganza. They suggested he compensate them in a number of creative and self serving ways including sharing a percentage of his record sales and/or tour receipts.

Musicians, we must unite through social media to call out corporations, bars, club owners and venues who attempt to take advantage of us. We can use the power of social media and the power of the purse to make a difference. Let’s take a page from the LGBTQ community and boycott businesses who treat musicians unfairly.

I, for one, will not patronize McDonalds until they make a change. We are not powerless to demand to be treated fairly. The power of the purse will make a difference!

Let’s also stop racing to the bottom with streaming services who pay fractions of a cent and rip off artists at every turn. Check out their compensation model below and click to view details. Please put your music on services that compensate you fairly.

Let’s wise up and claim our power to make a difference!

Let’s start a hashtag campaign to call attention to abuses in the industry.

Tweet #fairpay4music if you agree.