[DB]

I'll add, who makes the money from a music CD?

The artist and the label or the CD manufacturer.

Clearly it is the former. The same goes for DVDs.

[A. Pole]

Can you be an artist without instruments and without ability to test what you are composing in real time?

[ByteMercenary]

If you know anything at all about the music busines, you would know the artist is paid the least of the three mentioned. The artist typically gets less than $2 of that $15 CD you got for Christmas. The lion's share of that $15 goes to the recording label.

[Fairview]

I'll add, who makes the money from a music CD?

A perfect example. The NV Philips company of the Netherlands invented the CD and the CD player. They still manufacture these things, and they make an enormous amount of money from the sales of CDs and players and from licensing the manufacturing rights to other companies. They can continue to innovate because they know how to research, engineer, and produce the machinery.

[lucysmom]

I'll add, who makes the money from a music CD?

The artist and the label or the CD manufacturer.

Poor analogy. The CD has nothing to do with the creativity of the artist. It is only a way of distributing what is created - it doesn't give the musician a new way to play his instrument.

If we don't train and employ musicians (the guys on the production line), will we produce composers (the inventers)?