Argumentative Essay on Musicians Should Be Free to Sign Their Songs Off to Companies

Imagine this, you are a musician struggling to find admirers and you can find a company that will put your song into an advertisement. Should you allow the company to use your song? Musicians should be free to sign their songs off to companies. Musicians give their consent for their songs to be used, corporations boost the musician’s popularity, and finding ways to boost popularity without the help of corporations can be difficult. 

Firstly, to why musicians should be free to sign their songs off to companies, musicians give their consent for their songs to be used. The article Selling Out Not Worth the Risk by Darrius Johnson states that “as soon as the musician signs on the dotted line of a corporate partnership, he or she has a responsibility to represent the company". This gives an example of how the musician made a decision allowing their song to be used and has agreed to the terms and conditions the company has given. When a musician agrees to a contract it also means that the musician was willing to take the risk of giving a company permission to use their song.

Secondly, corporations boost the musician’s popularity. Darrius Johnson also shows that “Corporations help bring musicians to a bigger audience”. With the bigger audiences that corporations bring in the musician’s popularity is boosted. Though a boosted popularity could expose a musician in a way they would not like to be exposed, their music is still being spread out to larger audiences that they could not attract on their own.

Lastly, finding ways to boost popularity without the help of corporations can be difficult. In the article The New Necessity in the Music Business by Stacia Coates, she explains that the “loss in album sales can be offset by touring and selling merchandise. But with rising costs and other factors even that is not enough”. This shows that finding ways to boost your popularity without help from corporations can be expensive. Coates also states, “bands may even end up losing more money than it makes”, meaning that after trying to make money as a musician without help the person will not have any more cash in their pockets than they started with.