Taylor Swift pulls songs off Spotify

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And looking at mtv cribs, these artist make huge amount of money (3 ferarris, gold plated toilet seats, 20 bedroom houses, in house swimming pools).. so don't tell me they are not making it...

You do realize that of the millions of artists only a fraction of a fraction make it big? Some of the artists on streaming sites still have day jobs while they make music in their part time.

1 making it big, while 100 scrape through doesn't make piracy ok.

 

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That's basically bullsh*t. The music labels, with rare exceptions, have always existed to exploit the musicians. They were a basic necessity though because they provided a distribution network, something musicians could not easily do on their own. They also fronted the money for recording and pressing the music. In exchange for access to their network and the initial loan they took a huge cut of the income plus repayment of the capital they put up. Today though they serve less and less purpose, so it is difficult to continue justifying their cut.

Record labels also provide marketing.