The Music Industry Is Taking Advantage of You. Here’s How To Stop It.

You love being a musician, right?

Yeah, me too. 

But because we’re passionate about music, people are exploiting us. 

And they may not be doing it on purpose.

It’s called passion exploitation, and musicians face it all the time. 

Fortunately, there are ways you can keep people from taking advantage of you. 

What Is Passion Exploitation?

People are more likely to take advantage of you if you love your work. 

Bosses (or clients) are more likely to pay you less for your work if you’re super passionate about it. 

Science says so.

In a study from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, researchers found that people think it’s okay to…

“…Make passionate employees leave family to work on a weekend, work unpaid, and handle unrelated tasks that were not in the job description.”

(It works the other way around too — people see someone who is being exploited and think they must be passionate about their job).

The researchers call it “passion exploitation.”

But why do people think passion exploitation is okay?

Two reasons…

People believe that:

1. The work is its own reward
2. The worker would have volunteered to do the work anyway

And humans tend to believe the best about a situation.

“We want to see the world as fair and just,” said Professor Aaron Kay, the leader of the study.

“When we are confronted with injustice, rather than fix it, sometimes our minds tend to compensate instead. We rationalize the situation in a way that seems fair, and assume the victims of injustice must benefit in some other way.”

And passion exploitation is rampant in the music industry. 

We’re All Guilty of Passion Exploitation

Here’s the problem…

Both of the beliefs I mentioned above are true and accurate. 

Making music is rewarding in and of itself. And you would do it for no pay (that may be your current situation).

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get paid for your hard work. 

Tech startups begin with someone seeing a problem and fixing it because it needs to be fixed. But they get paid well.

People who work at pet shops love animals. Yet they get a fair paycheck.

You do things because you’re passionate about them. That’s how humans tick. 

And that’s exactly why people should pay you fairly. 

We need passionate people to create great art, technology, and to impact the world in positive ways. 

“Our research is not anti-passion,” said Jae Kim, Fuqua Ph.D. student and lead author of the study.

“There is excellent evidence that passionate workers benefit in many ways. It’s simply a warning that we should not let the current cultural emphasis on finding passion in our work be co-opted by the human tendency to legitimize or ignore exploitation.”

And here’s the thing…

We’re all guilty of passion exploitation, both musicians and those who pay musicians. 

Music venues, sync licensing companies, and others often don’t pay musicians fairly. 

But when musicians accept unfair pay, we’re encouraging passion exploitation. We’re conditioning the music industry to exploit us.

And I include myself in this. 

I’ve taken terribly paid gigs. 

I’ve been okay with underpaid production jobs. 

And even though I’ve removed some of my songs from a sync licensing library that doesn’t pay fairly, I still have a few songs with them. 

But no more. 

I’m done being paid unfairly for all the hard work, hours, and vulnerability I’ve poured into my music. 

Hopefully, you’re with me on this.

So what can you and I do? How do we avoid getting exploited for our work just because we’re passionate about it?

How To Make Sure People Don’t Exploit You

Professor Steven Shepherd of Oklahoma State University, one of the people who worked on the study, encourages you to stand up for yourself (and say something when you see it happening).

“We can all do more to be vigilant and prevent ourselves from slipping into exploiting passion in our employees, our friends, and even ourselves,” he said.

Hence, this blog post. 

So below are three things you can do to avoid others exploiting you as a musician.

Hell yes vs. hell no

Derek Sivers founded (and then later sold) CD Baby. He’s a successful entrepreneur, musician, and even a circus performer (I know, random). 

And he’s the one who coined the concept of “Hell yeah or no.”

He says it’s a good rule if you have too many ideas, you commit to too many projects, or you feel scattered. 

If you’re not saying “hell yeah!” to a project, you must say “no.”

And for this post, I want to highlight the last part of that idea. 

Saying “no.”

It’s so hard. I’m someone who takes on too many creative projects. 

Yeah, it can be a good idea to have multiple projects going at once.

But each of them should be a “Hell yeah.”

“When you say no to most things,” Sivers writes, “you leave room in your life to really throw yourself completely into that rare thing that makes you say ‘HELL YEAH!’”

Get comfortable saying “no,” especially if someone isn’t paying you fairly. 

Set your rates based on your results, not your time

Many jobs pay employees by the hour. And you may think you have to use that structure as a musician.

Nope.

Charge clients, venues, and sync licensing companies based on what you bring to the table — results.

In a Medium post about charging based on results instead of time, the author, Choncé Maddox, makes some compelling points in favor of it.

Like:

• Rich people do it
• Your income will be unlimited (for example, passive income)
• It’s much more sustainable
• You can work less for the same amount of pay (which is great news for you as a part-time musician)

So charge clients based on how good you are at what you do.

“If you’re just exchanging time for money, clients can easily drop your service and hire someone else,” writes Maddox. “If you are providing them with a ton of value and getting them results, it makes it harder for them to give up working with you.”

But how do you figure out what fair pay is?

Try using this formula:

Your hourly rate x total hours the project will take + 25% = your rate

Here’s an example:

1. How much you want to get paid per hour = $20
2. How many hours you estimate the project will take = 10
3. Add a buffer of 25%

So $20 x 10 hours = $200

$200 + 25% = $250

So you’d charge the client a flat $250, whether it takes you 7, 10, or 12 hours. 

Charging a flat rate not only makes it more convenient for the client but will also give you the motivation to focus on getting the project done on time.

And focus leads to better results.

Take The Perfect 30 Test

There are times when you may want to intentionally take a little less money than your normal rate. 

Musician and music educator Ari Herstand says you should take The Perfect 30 Test to see if a gig (or project) is worth taking, even if it’s less pay. 

Taking this test will help you avoid people taking advantage of you. 

Here’s how it works…

Look at three categories: payment, career-building potential, and enjoyment.

With The Perfect 30 Test, you give each category a rating between 1 and 10 (1 is worst, 10 is best).

Then, don’t take any job/gig/project that gets fewer than a combined 15 points.  

So let’s say a client asks you to produce a song for a film project. 

Their budget is only $50, but it sounds like a “Hell yeah!” project because you’d have fun, and the video may be viewed by thousands of people. 

Here’s what you might score this job with The Perfect 30 Test:

• Payment: 2
• Career building (exposure): 6
• Enjoyment: 8

That’s a combined score of 16, meaning you’d accept the job.

So even though the payment is low, the exposure and enjoyment make up for it. 

Now, the question you have to ask is, “Is 16 a ‘hell yeah’ score?”

Maybe you want to raise the bar to 20 points, or maybe 15 is good for you.

Regardless, this is a helpful tool to make sure a potential client or company doesn’t take advantage of you. 

Final Thoughts 

You and I love making music. That’s obvious. 

But just because we love music, doesn’t mean it’s wrong to make a decent income from it. 

You work hard creating it. You pour yourself into it. So demand to get paid fairly for it. 

Let’s be done with passion exploitation in the music industry.