“I believe streaming is particularly nefarious as a result of these destructive impacts are taking place so distant and in such an invisible approach,” says Joe Steinhardt, an assistant professor at Drexel College in Philadelphia who research the music trade and is the writer of the e book Why to Resist Streaming Music & How. He calls streaming music “a disposable pay attention” due to the way in which an app retains pulling information from the cloud and never storing it domestically.
Nonetheless, it’s exhausting to attract a definitive conclusion on whether or not streaming damages the setting greater than shopping for bodily copies; its precise carbon footprint will depend on many components. For instance, streaming a music or lyrics video on a TV consumes considerably extra electrical energy than utilizing an energy-efficient machine like a smartphone. However then smartphones current their very own issues; they’re very power intensive to fabricate, and folks typically abandon them after a short while.
Whereas the general local weather impression of streaming remains to be being studied, most of the issues it presents are undoubtedly exacerbated by the Okay-pop trade. The variety of instances a music is streamed is factored into music rating charts, televised competitions, and awards. Artists with the best streaming numbers are seen as extra profitable and consequently get extra sources and publicity from the recording firms, incentivizing followers to maintain streaming.
KPOP4PLANET
Because of this, many Okay-pop followers stream considerably greater than listeners of different genres. Within the streaming events, followers play newly launched songs for lengthy durations of time with the intention to present their help, enhance site visitors numbers, and hopefully appeal to extra followers to the songs. In 2022, Kpop4planet surveyed 1,097 followers (greater than 75% of whom have been in Korea) and located that almost all of them spent greater than 5 hours per day in streaming events. That’s nearly double the period of time a mean music shopper would spend listening to streamed songs, in keeping with the Worldwide Federation of the Phonographic Business (IFPI). In excessive circumstances, streaming events might push individuals to play the identical music on a number of gadgets directly—generally muting them, so the music shouldn’t be even being heard.
“Fandom at this degree, whether or not it is Okay-pop or any fandom, is an inherently wasteful idea. It’s based mostly on how a lot can I waste to indicate that I like you,” says Steinhardt. In any musical style, followers are used to expressing their love by means of extreme purchases as a result of it’s a monetary switch to the artists. Streaming launched new and cheaper methods to realize the identical aim, however they’re however wasteful.
The sensible answer, he says, might be to not ask followers to cease being so devoted. “I acknowledge there’s an actual worth in that,” says Steinhardt. “So the query is, is there a approach to try this that doesn’t contain overconsumption?”
Accountability for the streaming platforms
As an alternative of attempting to vary the person actions of followers, Lee believes, it’s extra essential to carry large firms liable for their habits. “We consider that the environmental issues that the Okay-pop followers are affected by are attributable to the firms,” she says. “They’ve the principle keys to fixing the local weather disaster, as they’re emitting a number of carbon emissions within the provide chain.”
So when Kpop4planet began its music-streaming marketing campaign in 2022, it set its eyes on one specific answer: demanding that streaming firms change to renewable power.
