>>> ...piracy brings artists absolutely nothing at all. I'm not sure about that. A related situation is software piracy. There was a long time period when it w

>>> ...piracy brings artists absolutely nothing at all. I'm not sure about that. A related situation is software piracy. There was a long time period when it was easy for people to get "free" copies of software titles such as a major word processing program, by copying them at work and bringing them home. This might not really have hurt the vendor of the software, because they still sold lots of copies to businesses. But it effectively kept anybody from bringing a less feature rich but lower priced alternative to the market. Some of the companies whose works were copied became effective monopolies. Another way of putting it was that the software had two price tiers: A paid tier for businesses and a free tier that kept competitors out of the market. Had anybody done this deliberately, it might have been considered "dumping." Music piracy may have a similar effect of creating a moat for the big labels and players who can diversify their income streams, while preventing small-scale acts from offering an acceptable but lower priced alternative.