In again...

I think there's an important point that's being missed here.

I've never 'needed' to make money from music. I've had a successful career elsewhere, I've been retired on a decent pension for several years. I'm a mainly-amateur/occasional semi-pro, part-time artist. I frequently play for nothing, as does the band I'm part of - I do it because I love making music, and because I get pleasure and enjoyment from giving pleasure and enjoyment to the extent that my talents, such as they are, allow. I don't 'need' to sell CDs. I suppose, as someone alluded to above, they are an ego-driven project, and my only aim has been to cover the production costs - unsuccessfully so far! This is the nature of the 'folkie' world I inhabit.

But there are many professionals who do rely on CD sales at gigs and elsewhere to make up a substantial part of their earnings. These aren't 'superstars', travelling by chauffeur-driven car, staying in good hotels, with a road manager to handle life's necessities, and a crew to lug and set up/break down, and load for them. They are people who drive themselves around in eight-year-old cars with 250k miles on the clock, sleep in club-organisers' spare rooms or on their sofas, and give a great show for the kind of money that probably wouldn't buy Ed Sheeran a decent dinner.

I know several personally.

And every bootleg copy of a CD takes food out of those people's mouths. They need to sell them to be able to keep performing.

Someone also mentioned Streaming. I follow Roseanne Cash - a worldwide artist - who has written widely about the effects of streaming on artists, and fights for artists rights with regard to streaming. She testified before the US Congress that her earnings from 600,000 plays on, I believe, Spotify, earned her the princely sum of $114. I call that robbery on a grand scale.

It's not all roses for artists, even 'big name' artists.

Out again...