This is often repeated but I've never seen a link to the source. Are there statistics somewhere that show this is true?
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/print....
Reznor profit: 1,000,000 * .80 = 800,000
RIAA profit: 1,000,000 * 18.98 = 18,980,000
4% profit. Fucking chump change to them; and not to mention that _they_ own your music, _not_ you.
most unsigned artists would be lucky to make anything from live shows and many signed artists actually pay to go and support better known acts.
Whether or not production costs fall to zero, a musician still needs to eat food. The OP is complaining that in the presence of widespread filesharing the price inevitably falls to zero. This is not some kind of new technological reality that we must accept! It is a reality brought upon by the lack of respect for property rights! If Portobello Road market were not policed, and were known not to be policed, does anyone here seriously doubt that theft would become widespread? Sorry, but people have a tendency of being a bit cheeky if they know they can get away with it (though whats worse is when to the cheek, self-serving rightousness and finger-wagging [evil capitalist labels! evil evil labels!] is added).
People keep saying that the crux is that distribution is free in electronic form. That's true, but it's no more relevant that pointing out that the sun that allows an orange tree to grow is free --- it is far from being the only cost. Releasing an album is an expensive business -- it requires a concerted advertising and publicity campaign. These types of campaigns are not cheap. Widespread filesharing decimates potential profits because many of those that otherwise would have the album don't. So it doesn't matter if the filesharer personally "profits" -- he is still harming the artist, because some portion of his disposable income that should have gone to the artist (after all -- the consumer did listen to the music) didn't.
Widespread filesharing decimates potential profits because many of those that otherwise would have the album don't. That's the whole point of embracing file sharing as a method for releasing your music, so that people discover your music who otherwise would never have found it. And don't forget, the musicians don't get profits from CD sales anyway!
Err, no. I don't see how you make that deduction. I would agree that there have been many cases where musicians haven't gotten the best possible bargain, and there are indeed some particularly egregious cases. Still, there is plenty of law (e.g. undue influence) and precedent in place to protect musicians at least from egregiously unfair contracts.