Artists Losing Money??? Correct me if i'm wrong?

Question

Ok i hav a debate in a week about copying music and my side is to debate about how it is not illegal to download music. Ok so they all say that artists are losing money because of downloadable music but if you think about it we buy our music from a music store in a shop..... so then obviously that shop bought those cd's from a wholesaler.... then that wholesaler ordered them directly from the music label company... and duh the wholesaler pays the music company and so on.... so in the end the record label still gets the money from the cd's bought by the wholesaler.... and the music store where we buy it from then only loses money..... so why r they moaning about artists and them losing money???

Answer 1

A percentage of what doesn't get sold is sent back and the stores get their money back.. I think the wholesalers then cut the price and sell them for discount bins... but if I am correct they give the record label a percentage of what they make.. so, they still wouldn't make the same amount of money..

However, this is one angle..

Look at the people who are normally downloading instead of buying.. young teens with little to no income, or adults .. once again with little to no money to spend.. So, they aren't losing money because the people downloading wouldn't have had the money to pay for the CD's to begin with.

You can probably add more to that with some research into percentages and such.. maybe see if you can find inforomation about smaller artists who actually use the free downloading idea to get their name out.. such as Inkubus Sukkubus.. look at artists on Soundclick for example..

Look for people who have downloaded artists they've never heard before ... and then went and bought the CD's later.. (I've done that many times.. I won't spend $15 or more on artists I've never heard .. but I will buy them if I like what I hear)