Yes. People are supposed to get paid for the labor of creating. Not the finished product.

Why would we pay people for the labor, not the product? I don't care if something took you 1 minute of 10 years, it's value to me doesn't change (except in the case where the 1 minute version is reproduced a lot by you and it's scarcity gives it value)

Because creators are scarce and finished products are not. It's simple.

We're in the 21st century, the age of information and networked computers, and these people are trying to sell bits. It makes no sense. If your work is making bits, you need to figure out a way to get paid for the labor of discovering those bits, not the bits themselves.

Because god knows how easy it is to copy those bits after they've been found.

We've already figured out a way to compensate creators for their work—it's called copyright. You say you don't like it, but you don't propose any alternative either, which makes you sound like an entitled brat.

Copyright is not necessarily the best way for creators to get compensated. For example, for most musicians in the US it's only a small part of their income [1]. Study is from 2013, could be different in the Spotify era, but it found that on average 12% of musicians' income came from copyright-related sources. 22% if you count session recording. Top-earners made a higher percentage from copyright. It isn't terrible, but it's not exactly the main way musicians are making money.

Writers make basically all of their money from copyright-related sources, but the median income from writing for full-time authors in the US is 20k [2].

My point is, copyright is a way to compensate creators for their work, but it's not the only way, and in practice for most people it doesn't do a stellar job.

[1]: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2199058 [2]: https://authorsguild.org/news/authors-guild-survey-shows-dra...

I have issues with your interpretations of both papers. High level: The paper on authors says it's Amazons monopoly rent seeking as why writers don't get paid more Music is also famously an industry where artists rarely own the copyright for their (recorded) music, instead selling it to cover production and advertising costs. Also, the music study suffers from and the paper on musicians has a good deal of classical performers and teachers in the mix skewing the sample. These are not professionals that interact with copyright in any meaningful sense, but they are also not professionals that would be classified as creators.

Of course, because music can be performed. People will pay to see a live performance, which means music performers aren't entirely reliant on selling recorded performances. Live readings, on the other hand, don't attract large crowds and therefore aren't a great source of income, making writers more dependent on IP rights. It's pretty obvious.

Oh please. I cared enough to propose some alternatives up above but the truth is I don't really need to fix their broken business model for them. How they get paid is literally their problem. If they insist on selling bits, they're free to seethe endlessly when people copy those bits with complete impunity. I'm done feeling sorry for these monopolists.