By Alex Ross: “ An extinction event is looming over the performing arts, and it calls for a change of practices. When we take music for free off the Internet, we should seek ways to give concrete support to the people who made it. Sites such as Bandcamp have a far more generous way of sharing revenue, though nothing equals the impact of paying for a recording directly: the income from a single CD sale is equivalent to that of more than a thousand streams. Streaming also exacts a hidden environmental toll, in the form of increased carbon emissions generated by electricity-consuming servers. If the performing arts are to retain a place in our society, we will have to rethink how we value them—economically, culturally, politically. For now, we can try to repay artists for the immense library of music that we have been given, or, more precisely, that we have taken.”

From the final paragraph of a review of new recordings by the pianist Víkingur Ólafsson and by the composer Liza Lim.

Source: The New Yorker