It may also be worth considering how value is created by the intermediaries. In the case of, for example, a hit single it's not obvious to me how much of the financial value came from the music itself and how much from the promotion of it.

Which only makes me wonder further if the underlying IP is really valuable or not.

That's a fair point. Come to think of it, hit singles seem to be a lottery - most of the successful ones aren't much different from the unsuccessful ones, except that they reach the threshold of popularity (after which it becomes a positive feedback loop for a while). Spending money on promotion increases the chances of a single to win the lottery.

So I guess I must concede the point. At least in pop music, it could be argued that the value of the work alone is small, and almost all of the value is created by third parties. You gave me something to think about.

Given an IP strong environment, promotion via piracy, either by blatant give away, "free", or by tolerating some piracy can be high value when compared with the cost of promoters.

A few examples:

Official torrent with tip jar, purchase here info included. One could host this torrent too.

Download here page with ads and opportunity to buy, pay what one wants to pay.

Pay for copy, or stream it anytime from our nice server...

Social media, coupled with variations on the above can get word out quickly.

These things, and the many variations on them possible, are of least advantage to the big players, and can be a serious advantage for new, small, up and coming players.

Piracy does not eliminate any sales opportunities. And it can often garner attention where buying that attention can be otherwise costly.

Being relevant opens a lot of potential doors.