Comment Recorded music is a form of advertising (Score 4, Insightful) 305
Why do artists expect to be paid at all for recordings of their music? For a very brief period in history, making money off of recordings was made possible by a coincidental combination of technology and artificial scarcity caused by the cumbersome nature of physical media. Before the advent of physical recordings, musicians had to make money by performing. After the advent of digital recordings, musicians will once again have to make money by performing. Anything else will prove to have been historically anomalous.
Making and distributing recordings will still be in artists' interest, because they will serve as a way to generate demand for performances. That is, recordings will become a form of advertising, which will be distributed for all intents and purposes for free, or even at the expense of artists.
Can we quit wringing our hands about this now? Art will survive just fine.