One solution to the revenue issue for musicians is freely distributing the digital music and selling merch, physical copies, and concert tickets for income, much how Run the Jewels operates.

This doesn’t work, however, if one’s work is largely copied by larger figures early on, such that building a following and steady income is difficult to impossible because people first and foremost encounter soullessly copied derivatives of one’s music and the original artist is now “just another copy.”

Hence the discussion on how much of a work must be original.