It's roundabout, but it still applies. The main argument is that in a market economy, prices stabilize close to costs because competition exists. In this particular market, this cannot happen because each product is unique and gives monopoly to its owner.<p><i>But this is not written in stone.</i><p>Imagine an alternate model where artists still own full IP rights, including on non-commercial use, but use an open process to distribute their music. A free for all in distribution.<p>Or a model in which artists only make money in commercial distribution. Pirate Bay would have to pay, but downloaders not.<p>Or any model in which the artists can be compensated in two different ways. For example the classic way, and a way for listeners to subscribe to "unlimited mp3" plans. Of course, if both distribution channels go trough the same media companies, like I think they do now with online music purchases, there is no real competition to drive the prices down.<p>The crux of the matter is that the bottleneck is not at the artists, but one step down. Remove that, and lots of alternate models involving real competition can appear.