In the past, those musicians got CD sales at local gigs. Does anyone buy CDs any more?
Before then it was cassettes. Same format though: you’d see them at a pub and buy a CD / tape if you liked their stuff.
The long tail of musicians have always been worse off though. Organisations like PRS would distribute subscriptions to the household names leaving smaller bands with next to nothing and the long tail with literally nothing.
The meme of a guitarist sleeping on their friends couch is as old as the internet is.
Fact is, most artists don’t make money. Just like most footballers don’t. And most sports car racers don’t. There isn’t ever going to be a way to pay every budding musician, painter, nor sports enthusiast for their time. However if one of these personalities do succeed enough to go professional, ie that being their primary income, they should at least be paid fairly.
>In the past, those musicians got CD sales at local gigs. Does anyone buy CDs any more?
Here in Japan, they do. Record shops like Tower Records are going strong, and used CD stores are fairly common. Disc Union in Tokyo is a big chain selling used CDs. There's also some little shops selling used vinyl.
Before then it was cassettes. Same format though: you’d see them at a pub and buy a CD / tape if you liked their stuff.
The long tail of musicians have always been worse off though. Organisations like PRS would distribute subscriptions to the household names leaving smaller bands with next to nothing and the long tail with literally nothing.
The meme of a guitarist sleeping on their friends couch is as old as the internet is.
Fact is, most artists don’t make money. Just like most footballers don’t. And most sports car racers don’t. There isn’t ever going to be a way to pay every budding musician, painter, nor sports enthusiast for their time. However if one of these personalities do succeed enough to go professional, ie that being their primary income, they should at least be paid fairly.