If A) Why are the releasing their music at all? If B) Why are they not opting out of ASCAP, and in general only distributing it through channels that are free,

If A) Why are the releasing their music at all? If B) Why are they not opting out of ASCAP, and in general only distributing it through channels that are free, then? Happily, these are both options that some musicians are taking (presumably, in the case of the former). But not 'most'. Just some. I suspect 'most' simply want to make no effort in creating a new distribution model (I don't blame them, that's effort that is not going into making music), but also be paid more. But the change in technology has allowed people to want and expect to be able to listen to music from hundreds of artists, finding new stuff they like, and in general -explore- music more. The existing distribution model can't cope with that and make it as black and white, successful or failure, as it could when people either bought an entire album, or not, and there was no in between. What is the value of listening to a single track, on an internet radio station, once every few weeks? "Hey, I had a million listens, I should be paid X for that!" Should you? Would any one of those people have been willing to pay $1 for that track? You don't know; there's ambiguity when the old distribution model is applied to the new digital listening patterns, that was never there when we ignored celestial radio, and only counted album sales.