Philip Kaplan:
For about a hundred years (ending around 2005), artists were able to get rich off of duplications — records, tapes and CDs. We still even use the word “copies,” like when a platinum record sells a million copies.
Early musicians didn’t have that luxury.
Mozart didn’t sell one fucking copy.
Taylor Swift sold 110 million.
Not to mention other art forms. Painters wish they had an opportunity to get rich off copies. The Mona Lisa currently on your computer screen below, is not worth as much as the one in the Louvre.
Taylor Swift pulling her music from Spotify is a bizarre and selfish move. She seems to think that CDs and Spotify are perfect substitutes, but what she is really doing is pushing people back towards piracy.
Nowhere is it written that musicians deserve to be paid well for copies of their music forever. They have historically been paid for live performances and likely will be making the majority of their money again there in the future.