I think that was always the point. Rewarding creators was the pretext for this system, not the reason.

Especially since the recording industry has never been a friend to artists. They used to pay musicians a one off fee to come down to the studio and make some recordings, and didn't pay royalties, in the old days. Now they pay pennies on the dollar.

Meanwhile, independent music is thriving thanks to the Internet. Let it burn.

I'll just mention, because it hasn't been mentioned before: this is obviously wrong... We all know that it's wrong, but saying it has some symbolic meaning, right?

Because to find a counterexample you would only need a single artist who has the opportunity to spend more of their time working creatively (rather than their previous civilian job) because they get a royalty cheque every now and then. I personally know four of five such people.

Artists make most of their money from touring and merchandise. It's the labels that benefit off of their copyright-given monopoly.