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 partic

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. But this is not written in stone. 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. Or a model in which artists only make money in commercial distribution. Pirate Bay would have to pay, but downloaders not. 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. 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.