In the sense that it is a fixed income situation, where the question of how the income is divided does not make everyone richer as a group. If you change the rules for dividing the spoils, those who get more income do so because someone else is getting less. This is consistent with the definition of "zero-sum game".
> that they are paid their fair share of the cut?
There is no unique definition of "fair share" here. It is not inherently "fair" that if some subscriber paid $10 for a month, and forgot all about the service and ended up listening to only one song that month, that some artist should get $7 for that. It's not "unfair", either.
> You just pulled those numbers out of your ass.
That is true, and if you would prefer the numbers out of your ass, then you do the pulling; I'm not going there, sorry. Ass numbers for the sake of example is all we are going to get here, though.
In the sense that it is a fixed income situation, where the question of how the income is divided does not make everyone richer as a group. If you change the rules for dividing the spoils, those who get more income do so because someone else is getting less. This is consistent with the definition of "zero-sum game".
> that they are paid their fair share of the cut?
There is no unique definition of "fair share" here. It is not inherently "fair" that if some subscriber paid $10 for a month, and forgot all about the service and ended up listening to only one song that month, that some artist should get $7 for that. It's not "unfair", either.
> You just pulled those numbers out of your ass.
That is true, and if you would prefer the numbers out of your ass, then you do the pulling; I'm not going there, sorry. Ass numbers for the sake of example is all we are going to get here, though.