Musicians’ groups have been fighting for fairer pay, and this month, Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Jamaal Bowman of New York, both Democrats, introduced a bill intended to increase artists’ streaming payouts.

In the 1990s, as the musician and indie label founder Jenny Toomey wrote recently in Fast Company, a band could sell 10,000 copies of an album and bring in about $50,000 in revenue. To earn the same amount in 2024, the band’s whole album would need to rack up a million streams — roughly enough to put each song among Spotify’s top 1 percent of... See more