That is the inherent contradiction of IP in a digital world.
One one hand you are supposed to be paying for a scarcity: someone expending time and resources to produce something. On the other hand you are supposed to be paying by buying a copy: something that is an abundance with a natural price of zero.
Buying is not just setting a price according to the seller being a nice guy or having indirectly done something else. Buying is a market interaction: you aim to pay the lowest price available (Don't we want functioning markets?). Well, that is zero, because copies are infinitely available.
No matter how much the law tells us copies are restricted, they are not in fact, and we know it. The market will always drive toward making things available at the real physical cost of their production. As long as IP tries to force prices so far away from their real level, people will respond in odd ways.
One one hand you are supposed to be paying for a scarcity: someone expending time and resources to produce something. On the other hand you are supposed to be paying by buying a copy: something that is an abundance with a natural price of zero.
Buying is not just setting a price according to the seller being a nice guy or having indirectly done something else. Buying is a market interaction: you aim to pay the lowest price available (Don't we want functioning markets?). Well, that is zero, because copies are infinitely available.
No matter how much the law tells us copies are restricted, they are not in fact, and we know it. The market will always drive toward making things available at the real physical cost of their production. As long as IP tries to force prices so far away from their real level, people will respond in odd ways.