Ever seen the credits for a movie? Hundreds of people. Yeah, hes talking about those people. Lets lookup some numbers. BMI lists around 500,000 composers/songwriters/music publishers. The NEA lists around 2.1 million people employed under the artist category (Actors,Directors,Authors, Musicians, Photographers,etc,etc)
Lets take a nice round number. One Million. How many "rich" artists can you name? 500? 1000? 10000? Thats still 0.01%.
>Artists should earn their living, sure. But they don't need to be filthy rich.
Who says they are?
Copyright is making a very privileged portion of the world very, very rich. That's completely unecessary. Artists should earn their living, sure. But they don't need to be filthy rich. To be filthy rich isn't really a "need" for anyone, in any time.