| I am anti-copyright, but I think you're considering this through the lens of a computer scientist/rocket engineer instead of someone who's had to work a worthless desk job or wait tables or paint houses. As someone who recently (and probably unsustainably) got out of the cycle of worthless jobs and knows a handful of musicians, here's my perspective: Indie (and indie label) musicians can actually do fairly well with recorded music. No, they won't be rich. Middle class is at most the target, usually under. Live in a third-tier city and have few expenses. You don't need to sell very much for a baseline livable state. $10000 a month isn't an achievable target for most working artists. $800, on the other hand, is, even without touring. Sell a handful of Bandcamp copies, sell a few physical copies (cassettes are best for this in the current moment, being cheap to produce and having a fairly loyal audience), have your back catalog do well enough on streaming. $800 is enough to live on, if you're living with roommates. In many ways, living with $800/month and no unfulfilling 40hr job is much better than living with $1800 and an unfulfilling 40hr job. Even if you don't want to live with roommates, it cuts the amount of work for an employer you have to do by a great deal. Working low-skill work is soul-crushing. For authors, from what I understand, this baseline is even more achievable. If you have no hopes of getting rich, the current copyright system is fine. |
But there are multiple other avenues for revenue. One can sell merchandise, such as the ever-popular band t-shirt. And there are still many who will want to buy an official cassette rather than just download a song. There are also paid gigs - a live performance is not replaceable with a download. One can livestream a performance, and get paid for the ad placements.