From what Courtney Love said, that's not really true. Well selling records can actually put the artist in debt. The best venue for artist to earn money are tours and merchandise.
I don't doubt it's a messed up industry in many ways, but even "messed up" beats "rip off 100% and give nothing back" every time.
For me as a fan of several groups, the key thing, economically speaking, is that the group is able to work on their music full time, thus maximizing their creative output and therefore, as someone who enjoys what they do, the benefits to me.
It's messed up, but the problem is Kit Dotcom steals, but at least he doesn't own any rights to music and you don't own him money once the dust settles. I could be wrong, but he is having making a Spotify clone, no?
If he is making a recording label, I'd avoid him more than the plague.
"... selling records can actually put the artist in debt."
Yes, of course. It's no different than startups - if you take on $500,000 debt to start your business (a.k.a. make an album, promote the album), you will be in debt until you sell enough product to pay off said debt.
The best venue for artist to earn money are tours and merchandise.
A good new year's resolution for us all is to "Stop talking about stuff you don't know about as though you have experience with it."
Hey another good new year's resolution is to "Don't talking condescending unless you have something valuable to contribute". I.e. give me data showing I'm wrong.
I'm not saying they make lots of lots of money of merchandising and tours, but from what I've gathered they make more of money on those, unless the studio contract takes part of that as well. Basically they earn more money on a merchandise they are on, or a product line they sell than on records.
Your metaphor is more like starting a startup to get famous enough to start another startup to pay the debts of the previous one.
The best ways for artists to earn money are not tours and merchandise. I don't know why that assertion keeps getting passed around as fact. No one ever seems to post data supporting it. For your basic indie musician tour (plus merchandise), you're doing really well if you are making enough money to pay for the food and lodging costs of the tour.
I missed that the parent thread was limited to RIAA signed artists, and reacted to the blanket statement of the parent implying it was a truth for all artists (including unsigned and indie).
Yes, it is true that big-label acts made most of their money from touring and merchandise. My point is that that fact does not translate to smaller-time indie artists.
A lot of people tend to improperly point to the RIAA practices (of capturing most of the licensing/royalty pie), and use it to make the case that indie musicians should also not expect any revenue from their product and instead focus on touring and merchandise. It's a self-serving argument from those that are in favor of "free" streaming music. In other words, there's a difference between claiming that RIAA has historically captured most of that pie, and claiming that the pie doesn't exist.
