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Despite your condescending tone, I agree with the premise of your argument. But it's not like buying music from the distributors will help the artist, so the reasonable alternative is to get it from the source or not at all.

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You're correct in thinking that a publisher who gives an artist a big advance and ends up making a decent return form the finished work may not share a dime of that with the artist. But given this success, the publisher is also a lot more likely to underwrite new work, which is very much to the benefit of the artist.

Meanwhile, the artist is in a position to increase their demands related to this follow-up effort, so saying that the publisher's success has no bearing on the artist's isn't correct. Yes, the artist has to negotiate well and produce more to realize that benefit, but the absence of a clear path isn't the same as the absence of any path.

That's not the experience of the majority of the artists, only a select few. For all practical purposes, if you aren't buying direct from the artist, you aren't supporting them.

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