So, for the most part art was like everything else: If someone wanted it, they paid you to produce it. If you thought you could produce something people want you made it and maybe someone bought it. Or not. Same as a carpenter making a chair or a table. Maybe someone buys it, maybe not.

Then we got copyright and with it the idea that producing something gives you rights to every copy of it. Like a carpenter building a chair and laying claim to a chair someone else build, cause "they looked at my chair".

I think this is absurd, but many people seem to like it.