Punk protest icon Billy Bragg has weighted into the recent debate about the impact that Spotify is having on music, with a recent post on Facebook. As Bragg notes (via NME), artists should be blaming record labels, not Spotify, for low payments. You can read the post in full below:

"I've long felt that artists railing against Spotify is about as helpful to their cause as campaigning against the Sony Walkman would have been in the early '80s. Music fans are increasingly streaming their music and, as artists, we have to adapt ourselves to their behaviour, rather than try to hold the line on a particular mode of listening to music.

"The problem with the business model for streaming is that most artists still have contracts from the analog age, when record companies did all the heavy lifting of physical production and distribution, so only paid artists 8%-15% royalties on average.

"Those rates, carried over to the digital age, explain why artists are getting such paltry sums from Spotify. If the rates were really so bad, the rights holders - the major record companies - would be complaining. The fact that they're continuing to sign up means they must be making good money.

"Here in Sweden - where I'm doing a show tonight in Malmo - artists have identified that the problem lies with the major record labels rather the streaming service and are taking action to get royalty rates that better reflect the costs involved in digital production and distribution. UK artists would be smart to follow suit."

Bragg’s statement follows comments from the likes of Thom Yorke and David Byrne, who have recently made high-profile criticisms of the streaming service in the press.