I’m not really worried about whether a label or corporation deems me to have the “right” to listen to their music. The only thing I’m concerned with outside of consuming the art is the artist who made it. I highly doubt any artist would genuinely care if someone pirated their music but still payed them through other means (like buying merch, tickets, etc).
I think the argument of who gets paid what when you buy merch is irrelevant when you consider the alternative being the artist gets virtually nothing. I would have to listen to an artist 200 times for them to maybe get a singular dollar from spotify. If whoever is handling their merch store is giving them less than that for each sale of a shirt then it’s the artists fault at that point for still working with them.
ubergeek@lemmy.today 5 weeks ago
Ask any artist: they make most of their money from merch and ticket sales (depending on venue).
Mihies@programming.dev 5 weeks ago
I assume that depends on the contract they have with their label, but usually it’s a way for them to earn more.
ubergeek@lemmy.today 5 weeks ago
Its standard across the industry. Artists get paid very little in per unit sales of media.
The bulk of money they earn comes from tours (which they cover the bill for, and cut some of the profits from), and merch (which they take the largest cut from).
Mihies@programming.dev 5 weeks ago
That’s the standard, yes. And the solution is to pirate their music instead? But seriously, why do they even bother with labels then? Don’t get me wrong, I’d like for them to be better paid and for streaming services to allocate bigger cut to them, however, piracy doesn’t help with this at all. Usually it’s just an average Joe excuse to not pay anything at all.
Powderhorn@beehaw.org 5 weeks ago
Are most artists still aligned with labels these days? I was under the impression that there’s been a massive shift to going independent.
Mihies@programming.dev 5 weeks ago
I have no idea, but if they aren’t, pirating their content is even worse based on criteria here.