Concept:
As artists, accept the notion that — in general — your work is better when you work for it, not the other way around. The problem is an insistence on ownership of the ideas produced, in essence making it about you, not the work. Most artists had day jobs before they committed to the notion that their art should feed them. I'm not saying that artistic talents/ideas are worthless, I actually think it's the most valuable thing — good art/music, etc. — but ultimate value doesn't always result in acquisition of money or goods for exchange.
Insistence on owning one's ideas necessitates limiting who has access to those ideas. If the goal of making arts is communicating ideas through that art, then insisting on owning the idea is in direct opposition to the actual goal. Thus insisting on being paid for making that art is by extension in direct opposition to the actual goal. Ownership, and by extension licensing that ownership, is the shady side deal that talentless (outside of dealmaking) dude with an overcoat full of watches makes with artists to allow him to make money off the art too. If the goal is to make money, good luck to you, but I would argue that few people get into devoting time to creative pursuits merely to make money.
If you really want to foment the slow revolution, the only RIGHT kind of revolution, make art, give it away anonymously, and don't worry about what happens to it. Paint a picture, don't sign it, install it late at night, unseen by others, in a public space in a way that isn't destructive to the space it's hung in, e.g. on cardboard hung with rubber cement, and leave. Then don't be upset when it's gone. It went into the ether, and the people who saw it, and the way it was presented aren't affected by you, or the way you look, or anything attached to you. They just experience the work on its own terms, the ideas on their own terms. Maybe it offends them. Maybe it inspires them. Maybe it doesn't affect them at all. Maybe they don't even notice it. It's like throwing paint at a wall, some of it will stick, and some won't. You do it and you hope that eventually there's a critical mass of that type of behavior.
Now how do you do that with music?
All this said, I have no problem with the notion of paying for a physical good, and I generally WILL buy a record/book/print that I know is good, and that is interesting in its physical form. But I don't buy it to "support the artist" as much as I buy it because I want something nice to hold in my hands and look at while I'm listening to the music it contains, or want something nice to sit on my bookshelf, or hang on my wall. Most of the time, I prefer to buy physical copies from the artist when I see them on tour, mainly because I suspect that doing so has an effect on whether the artist gets to eat on the road. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I would guess that on tour you've already paid for the records, etc. at the merch table, so the money I drop there is conceivably going into your bellies/gas tanks, assuming you're not selling it all for cost.
But what the fuck do I know? I'm just a critical thinker. I'm not really making anything.
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