" If we create great work and send it out into the world using a delivery mechanism conducive to piracy, it’s no wonder we end up getting screwed."<p>That's the most important point in this piece, IMHO. People who sell digital content can't use the same business model as people who sell non-trivially reproducible goods and expect to have the same success. In theory consumers could build their own copy of a good like a pair of jeans or a bicycle, but few have the skill or desire to create a high quality replica, and the parts and equipment are specialized and most likely need to be purchased.<p>Digital media is trivially reproducible by unskilled people with equipment they already have on hand. Instead of a high quality pair of jeans, their good is more like a burlap sack you tie around your waist with a bit of rope: anyone who'd be tempted to buy that product would probably just make their own at lower cost.<p>This if course does not address the skill and difficulty of creating music or film, but rather the difficulty of reproducing it, given a copy to work with. Thus, it's reasonable to ask a large amount when crowd funding a film or album, because of course the artists should be well rewarded for their talent and effort and the many expenses in producing this good must be paid, but it's a foolish business model to put the product out and then stomp your feet when people choose not to pay when they can trivially copy it.<p>It's harder to copy a well-made T-shirt or hat and it's impossible to copy the experience of a live performance, so selling those is a sensible venture as well.