I get that people just want to save money but I absolutely cannot understand how we keep screwing over artists like this. We pay a small amount, the middlemen

I get that people just want to save money but I absolutely cannot understand how we keep screwing over artists like this. We pay a small amount, the middlemen gets all the money, 0.01% of the artists get more than a few hundred bucks, everyone else gets nothing. Piracy is entirely justified. We should pay the artists and stop paying these leeches. The only real value created is from the artists themselves.