Nearly 200 A-list musicians have signed an open letter to Congress calling for better protections against copyright infringement and higher royalty rates from streaming sites. Current licensing laws, they say, are out of sync with the digital age and threaten the ability of artists and songwriters to make a living. It’s an oft-repeated critique that will sound familiar to anyone in a creative field: that the Internet and media consumption habits have strained the economics of producing art to the point that musicians, writers and filmmakers will be forced out of business. Yet the reality is more complicated. While it’s true that many of these professions increasingly favor the few, there’s little reason to worry about the creative class disappearing altogether.
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