Does music pirating actually hurt artists, or is it just a convenient scapegoat for an industry slow to adapt? I've been downloading albums since the Napster days, and now that streaming is the norm, I notice many musicians earn more from live shows and merch than from record sales anyway. Piracy forced labels to innovate with Spotify and Apple Music, which paid artists better than radio ever did. Maybe the real threat isn't the pirate downloading a track, but the label that pockets 80% of the revenue and calls it a loss.