Thanks for the comment. We don’t necessarily advocate piracy as the way everyone should access music, but we do believe that not only has piracy of content always existed, but the best ways to attract people to support artists are in opposition to a lot of the things the music and content industries have been doing.

I think there are lots of ways that a new artist can build a successful revenue stream, but I think there are two essential rules to keep in mind.
1. Successfully making money at the start is going to take a while and be a messy business involving various different revenue streams each making a small amount.
2. Before the internet age, the majority of artists didn’t succeed or make money, and although the internet makes things more accessible, it doesn’t mean that suddenly a lot more people will become highly-successful.

With those two out of the way, and it’s something I might write about in more detail soon, it’s a mixture of the following, which is all based on constantly gigging, producing music and building relationships with fans. If you’ve only ever played to 5 people, and have 2 friends on Myspace, then you’re unlikely to make money yet…

1. Give away digital copies, but sell physical memento copies.
2. Live performances.
3. Merchandise – clothing, mugs, books etc can all be self-produced and self-published.
4. Support for specific projects (e.g. using Kickstarter, etc).
5. Ancillary ideas – Any personalised offering you could make to your fans, or tied into specific other projects to raise awareness or direct sales.
6. Small revenues from the likes of Youtube, Spotify etc – you need a lot of scale to make significant revenues, but as your following (hopefully) grows, it can be a much needed source of cash.

None of it is rocket-science, and it’s similar in many ways to what some successful bloggers and new media sites have done – look at them for inspiration and ideas and see what you can adapt to your own way of doing things.