Yes, but can a small time musician make a fortune giving their album away? Timberlake had prior fame and considerable marketing resources (including dollars) at his disposal to get the business model right. That makes a world of difference.
I've found that the most vocal proponents of copyright crackdowns and DRM are small-time musicians, authors, etc. Piracy won't affect Lady Gaga's sales, but for that indie band from JP you love so much, it could mean the difference between being able to feed their families with their music, and having to work a shit job and therefore play less, perhaps not playing at all, to make ends meet.
"Unknown" musician Alex Day released his album on the same day as Timberlake and one day in, was ahead on the iTunes sales Chart. I'm sure that didn't last, but the guy reports making more than $5K/month on youtube and $15K/month from music and merchandise sales. That's not a Timberlake-sized fortune, but it is really quite decent money. He has not signed with a label and does not tour either.
True, but it's a double edged sword.
Before the internet and napster, were small-time musicians any better off? I still remember the market being dominated by big players with loads of commercial backing.
The tech makes music production much easier/cheaper and publicity/distribution trivial. The flipside of that technology is that it makes mass piracy much easier.
There are probably a lot of people willing to listen to obscure small time musicians for free, but how many of them would be willing to stump out $15 for a cd?
The major labels worked somewhat like venture capital firms. They funded lots and lots of small artists with advances that few artists were ever successful enough to pay back, with the ultimate effect of subsidizing a middle class lifestyle for them while on contract.
Artists today far more dependent on touring and merch revenue (fun fact: artists sold merch in the 1980s too!). There seem to be a lot of misconceptions about touring revenue. Justin Timberlake might pull in 6 figures from a show. Most indie acts can count on something more like $50 per band member per night.
I wonder how much that changes if you manage to take piracy out of the equation?
In other words, are less artists funded through A&R because there is a higher risk from piracy that previously, or is there also a factor that A&R becomes less important if musicians are able to self finance music production and distribution therefore allowing the masses to do talent discovery on their behalf?
I know a few independent small time artists and their plan seems to work on the basis of "do enough shows and get enough youtube hits & twitter followers and someone will offer us a contract".
I've found that the most vocal proponents of copyright crackdowns and DRM are small-time musicians, authors, etc. Piracy won't affect Lady Gaga's sales, but for that indie band from JP you love so much, it could mean the difference between being able to feed their families with their music, and having to work a shit job and therefore play less, perhaps not playing at all, to make ends meet.