My wife is a musician and we have this argument all the time. She's not a recording artist or anything, but she does complain of abuse in the deals her differen

My wife is a musician and we have this argument all the time. She's not a recording artist or anything, but she does complain of abuse in the deals her different bands and groups get at venues. And I say, that's supply-demand, that's the way business is done, how much is the venue getting out of the concert? How can you compete when there's so much people playing for free or on much lower cuts? What can you do if the end-customer prefer not to pay cover charges or see the value in live music? etc. etc. It's a music business after all. So Taylor Swift's plead is pathetic, "Thankfully... I can support myself," deceiving "by playing shows" [1] and even condescending, "This is about the young songwriter who just got his or her first cut... who works tirelessly." Oh, come on! You don't agree with the terms of the deal, so you pulled out. Fine. Now your fans who are going to try this new service won't have access to your latest album. That's the price of your decision. To me that's fair game, show a little muscle to your distributors, maybe get a better deal. Now, please don't try to spin this as some social injustice towards creative people. Just because you're an artist it doesn't mean you're immune to market laws. Taylor Swift is a billion-dollar business. Stop treating music fans like we're stupid. [1] "Swift had sold over 40 million albums, 130 million single downloads and was one of the top five music artists with the highest worldwide digital sales" -- http://www.ifpi.org/news/Taylor-Swift-named-IFPI-global-recording-artists-of-2014 http://www.ifpi.org/news/Taylor-Swift-named-IFPI-global-reco...