> Thinking you could earn a living from music sales is like living in a dream land.

Ok great, that's where I live, I guess.

What type of music are you talking about there? Seems you have a very small range of musician in mind with those comments. Like, rock/pop music or whatever you call it. "merch"? Doesn't exist for most musicians, I guesstimate 99.999%

It seems in these music "pirating" discussions, for their mental image of a musician, a lot of people imagine millionaire rock/pop musicians, signed to huge record labels, and they feel fine about screwing them however they can. I suggest they are a tiny, numerically-insignificant minority of the musicians in the world. And it seems to me that when you say "As a musician you make your money" you are thinking of these people.

I buy most of my music on bandcamp when it's available there. The genres I'm buying range from indie-synthwave stuff to classic rock to death metal to jazz and folk. I love to give them my money if I enjoy the music enough, but honestly I consider it more of a symbolic gesture. The midnight had at some point a letter that their music sales are cool and all, but they can only make a living because people where coming to their shows. They made an exclusive deal with amazon to bridge some time during the pandemic, but things are going downhill for them currently. I heard the same from fiddlers green when I saw them live, telling us the live shows and the merch are the thing that keeps them running. So I've got two artists telling me the money is in performances and merch, in addition to the statistics about the payments from streaming companies.

> "merch"? Doesn't exist for most musicians, I guesstimate 99.999%

And that's a failure of those musicians. It does not mean that society should implement draconian measures to ensure that they have another specific way of being paid.