I think it’s interesting how some artists attain most of their wealth through live performances while others make most of their money through the actual published works. In the play industry,for example, I know that most of the profit is made through live performances rather than the selling of actual play scripts. However, the opposite is true of the book industry. For example, J.K. Rowling makes a majority of her money through the selling of her books. Only a small portion of her fortune is made through speeches. After analyzing all of the various types of creative industries it seems to me as if a majority of artists seem to gain their wealth through live performances. This became especially evident to me after searching the internet in an attempt to find a full live concert performance of one of my favorite artists, and finding it extremely difficult to do so. I was only able to find short clips of their concert performances, all of which were extremely blurry and hard to hear. I then found this website, which was supposed to allow for the listening of live concerts. After I clicking on the website link, a notice popped up stating that I would not be able to view this page. I’m guessing that the reason for this had something to do with copyright infringement, although I’m not positive. The one thing that is clear is that artists these days make it extremely difficult for their live performances to be viewed online. Although it is certainly possible to do so, it is nonetheless a hassle.
In J.K. Rowling’s case, this might be true, but think of past presidents. They did not make that much money as president, and then they write a book about it. Then they are doing speeches all over the country and making millions of dollars a year because of it. I agree that artists make it difficult to view their live performances online, but youtube.com is helping out with that problem.
I think an interesting thing to think about is the idea that these people who do speeches and do not allow them to be put online are keeping a resource from people. Anyone can order a book and read it. Not everyone has the opportunity to see someone speak so maybe speeches should be put online?