&gt; that artists and musicians either don&#x27;t deserve a good living or should be happy just to get to do what they do<p>They don&#x27;t; that&#x27;s simply a fact, no one is owed or deserves a living, you have to work for it like everyone else.  If there is demand for what you do, monetize it, if you can&#x27;t, then pick another career because the market has spoken.  You can&#x27;t mandate that X career deserves to be paid, the market does that naturally via demand.<p>&gt; It&#x27;s a tremendous sense of entitlement on the one hand, to express contempt for the individual while expecting unlimited access to their work.<p>Stating facts about their lack of being entitled to anything isn&#x27;t expressing contempt.  If they don&#x27;t want people accessing their work, they don&#x27;t have to publish it, but expecting perpetual payment anytime anyone looks at what you put out is absurd; intellectual property is a flawed notion that only worked well when distribution was a challenge. With virtually free distribution, you cannot prevent information being free, i.e. copying, and thus you cannot rely on making money from distribution; you better learn how to make money performing live, as has been done historically.