"Getting paid" or "making a living" is no justification for an unethical
activity such as "tying users" (your words). One can make a living
"stealing". Does it make stealing OK?
There are many ethical ways to make a living. Many people developing and
supporting free software found one for example (contrary to proprietary
software developers). I did. For art, crowd-funding is growing. I recently
donated a few bucks to http://film.zemarmot.net for instance. But like onpon4
wrote: 99% of the people who want to make a living through their art don't.
That is: every artist but the superstars (who earn far too much money) makes
art despite very little money return. If any. Nothing new: it has always been
like that. No copying system (tape recorder, VHS, CDR, Internet, etc.) ever
made any difference.
I am all in favor of an ethical way to have more artists living from their
art. Artists, not Hollywood, music majors and superstars. A tax on Internet
connection that is redistributed according to people's desires would be
great. Something like a compulsory Flattr. It would work not only for art but
for anything on Internet: press articles, software, etc. In compensation,
non-commercial sharing must be made legal. Like it should.
Finally, you write about people stealing art. You actually mean "copying".
Stealing is subtracting: the one stolen does not have the good anymore.
Copying is multiplying: nobody loses anything. You won't convince me that the
multiplication is a subtraction!
