They then invest their hard-earned money to record, mix & master that song to professional standards...
Then some stranger puts that song on a file sharing site and lots of people download it for FREE.
Screw the Capitalist who created & recorded the song, RIGHT FREEPERS?
Theft is theft.
Way to blatantly and foolishly misread the situation. This isn’t about illegal downloads, this is about ASCAP trying to horn extra money out of LEGAL downloads by declaring them to be something they aren’t. The artists will still get their normal pay for the sale of the goods, they just don’t get the performance royalty because it’s not a performance.
Read it again. It doesn’t say that. They only ruled on whether it constituted a “public” performance. No one’s copyright is being annulled.