Another thing that is really missing from this is the idea of licensing. That’s a huge income source for artists and you don’t have to be signed to a major in order to get into it. I’ve licensed my music for indie films.

Music as a service may be the present in some places, but it is still very much a product in many places. I spend money on beats, mastering my tracks, submitting to festivals, web hosting, video promotion, and getting CDs made to give to DJs and to sell because there are A LOT of people who don’t believe that you are for real without having that shrink-wrapped disc. I make money through digital and physical sales, ad revenue from sites like Reverb Nation, digital streaming websites, and music licensing. But when someone bootlegs or illegally downloads my music, all that does is confirm to people that music has value but the artist isn’t worth getting paid. I saw on Facebook last week that someone asked the question would you buy a whole album from your favorite artist. There were 35 comments, and every last one of them people said they would first try to find it online for free and download it! Someone even said they don’t want to spend music on a whole album because if 2-3 songs were not to their taste they would feel ripped off and that the artist didn’t put their all into it! It’s time “music fans” realize that indie artists should be treated differently major label artists, but a lot of them don’t want to see us as relatable and on the same level. A lot of them don’t think we are worth anything until someone famous co-signs us and they see us on MTV. That’s just the way it is.