Ghost artists on Spotify

The entire history of the music business is one of attorneys developing ever more inventive ways of screwing over musicians.

The sad thing (for artists) is that it seems like most Spotify listeners don't care.

Most of our music consumption today seems to be as a kind of background vibe rather than an appreciation of the music itself.

It's a good demonstration of how the simple and seemingly solid foundations of our free market can still lead to extreme unfairness.

The music industry relies on government supported copyrights. Music is often unsaleable unless you have an existing exclusive contract with the label. Royalty rates are set by the government.

We're pretty far away from any actual "free market" here.

> The music industry relies on government supported copyrights.

The government protects intellectual property rights and they protect physical property rights. In a completely free market, you'd have to own an army to protect your company building. The people with the biggest army would own everything.

There's a crucial difference between intellectual property and physical property - in the case of physical property, someone else having it necessitates that you cannot have it.

Intellectual property is infinitely reproducible and someone else having it does not mean you cannot have it.