[noduerme]

> One could argue that the whole purpose of society is to get rid of scarcity.

Scarcity of resources has nothing to do with scarcity of artistic works. Literature isn't fungible like a commodity, and can't be grown or mined as needed. It's also not a professional service or a form of labor. You can't put a gun to a farmer's head and make them write something brilliant, the way you can make them farm potatoes.

One could just as easily argue that society exists to organize labor in a way that increases specialization and efficiency. The reduction of scarcity is just a side effect. Specialization breeds scarcity in every new speciality until it becomes universally reproducible. Art is the forwardmost outcropping of specialization - it exists in advance of what it describes being known or understood - and by definition it is always the most scarce speciality. The artifice in making distribution of it remain difficult is therefore an extension of the natural place of scarce ideas in a world of abundant things.

[bheadmaster]

> One could just as easily argue that society exists to organize labor in a way that increases specialization and efficiency. The reduction of scarcity is just a side effect.

If so, then what is the purpose of specialization and efficiency, if not for the reduction of scarcity, in terms of individual access to resources? If cooperation wasn't beneficial for the individual, nobody would cooperate (unless forced to do so, but I personally wouldn't want to live in such a society).

> The artifice in making distribution of it remain difficult is therefore an extension of the natural place of scarce ideas in a world of abundant things.

The whole idea of monetizing ideas the same way we monetize material things comes from their representation in scarce material things, such as paper. There's nothing "naturally scarce" about ideas - I'd argue the opposite, the ideas can be multiplied and shared at zero cost to the original author of the idea. The only cost comes from the way in which ideas are distributed.

The golden age of music industry happened when the only way to distribute music at scale was to sell records. Producing records was costly, but since there was no other way to listen to music at home, people paid for them. Companies charged more than production cost, and they made profit. Nowdays, music can be distributed at almost zero cost, and every attempt to restrict that is just an attempt by old money to keep the old ways of business, since it was so profitable for them. Spotify and other music streaming services grew as an alternative. I'm not saying they're perfect, or even good - just that there's no reason why alternative models of monetization couldn't be invented.

My whole argument is that treating manifestation of ideas as scarce things is an outdated view - in the digital age, all it takes to share an idea is a few button clicks. Trying to force scarcity will never work unless we devolve into a surveillance dystopia, and we need another way to reward the authors.

[noduerme]

You're talking about distribution cost and ignoring the cost in time (and lost opportunity to do something else) to the writers or musicians.

The price of a record was never just the cost of pressing the record. CDs cost pennies to burn; paper and digital printing by the late 20th century were extremely cheap. The wholesale and retail prices always included pay for the artist (along with a raft of agents and corporations along for the ride). Spotify itself imposes artificial costs to distributing music, in the form of limits, prohibiting downloads, subscriptions and advertising. They do this to make money for themselves, but also to pay the artists.

As you say, distribution is now essentially free from a technical standpoint. There's no philosophical difference between Spotify charging 100x what it costs them to stream a song, and a record company charging 20x what it cost to press a CD. Free distribution would mean zero money for artists. We started by talking about piracy. By definition, with piracy the artist gets nothing.

Since no one can sustain an artistic career and produce writing or music over a long period without some sort of income, this means either all artists will have to be from the wealthy classes, have other means of support, and simply want to make art as a hobby, or else there has to be a distribution channel with an imposed toll of some kind that ultimately funnels them payment for their work. Whether subscription-based, or charging per-device for copy protected media, that will never be a perfect system, will never be free of piracy, and will always appear to the end consumer as an arbitrary restriction on free information.

I don't think scarcity of paper has been the limiting factor on price since at least the 18th Century. Since there is no scarcity of electrons, I don't view scarcity as a useful paradigm. The prices of locked downloads are simply representing the actual cost and market value of the work, which should be the same whether on the paper or in the aether.

[bheadmaster]

Distribution costs are the reason why record labels earned so much money - it provided friction to piracy, since copying a vinyl was as expensive (if not more) than buying a new one. That friction is no longer there, and such a model cannot work anymore. Perhaps the age of "rock stars" collecting rent for years is simply over. Why should artists be rewarded indefinitely for just one piece of work? Perhaps the very expectations are inflated due to the previous golden age.

Artists should be rewarded for their work - but artificially limiting everyone's ability to share information is not the right way to do it. It would have severe consequences for the free society.

Another way must be found. I don't have any ideas, but I know that restriction of sharing information is not a good one.