Musician here. It's possible to record your own album, book your own gigs, be your own marketing department, and make a living wage from it. Just like it's poss

Musician here. It's possible to record your own album, book your own gigs, be your own marketing department, and make a living wage from it. Just like it's possible to ride a unicycle over a tightrope across the grand canyon. Of course, even with a label, you have as good of a chance making good money from original songs as you do being struck by lightning. Most artists who were successful at the DIY thing got fame with a major label at some point (Trent Reznor, Radiohead, etc). So as long as artists depend on labels to get their music heard, labels are going to dictate copyrights and licensing to a degree.