> My point is that regardless of the cost, if we don't reward artists for making recordings, despite their great value to us, why should they bother with the effort to make them?
Lots of people have always started bands, and relatively few of them have made a living at it, never mind gotten rich. Sure some people pursue music because they want to be rich rock stars, but lots of people make music because they like making music.
In earlier days, it was easy to play live (and not make much money), but expensive to record anything, much less get that recording out to people. Nowadays, it's very affordable to record things as well, and trivial to upload to YouTube, SoundCloud, etc. Of course, the chance that more than a vanishingly small number of people will listen to your recording is still extremely low, but the barrier is notoriety, not the means of production and publishing.
And yeah, part of the rise of electronic music is because it has the lowest barrier to getting started and making your music -- just like the rise of guitar bands came partially because it was inexpensive to put together a small rock group relative to some other kinds of music, and the rise of hip hop came partially because even poor kids had access to two turntables and a microphone.
Lots of people have always started bands, and relatively few of them have made a living at it, never mind gotten rich. Sure some people pursue music because they want to be rich rock stars, but lots of people make music because they like making music.
In earlier days, it was easy to play live (and not make much money), but expensive to record anything, much less get that recording out to people. Nowadays, it's very affordable to record things as well, and trivial to upload to YouTube, SoundCloud, etc. Of course, the chance that more than a vanishingly small number of people will listen to your recording is still extremely low, but the barrier is notoriety, not the means of production and publishing.
And yeah, part of the rise of electronic music is because it has the lowest barrier to getting started and making your music -- just like the rise of guitar bands came partially because it was inexpensive to put together a small rock group relative to some other kinds of music, and the rise of hip hop came partially because even poor kids had access to two turntables and a microphone.