When you pay the contractor (or, to the other reply to my parent comment, to Fender), presumably it's very clear what you're paying for. You're exchanging doll

When you pay the contractor (or, to the other reply to my parent comment, to Fender), presumably it's very clear what you're paying for. You're exchanging dollars for a very specific good/service. When you "buy" a CD/MP3/what-have-you, you're buying a license to that song, not "the song", which would be much, much more expensive. In fact, it's difficult to figure out how much the song is worth up-front, which is why there are generally licensing deals. That way the artist gets compensated according to how well the song does: if a lot of people like it, they make a lot of money. If nobody likes it, they make no money. Seems fair to me. I guess a more accurate analogy would be if you designed a specific type of product and paid a carpenter to make it. Then you see him open a store that sells that item to a million people for 10x what you paid him, even though he directly ripped off your designs. He's profiting off of your work & ideas, with no compensation to you. Obviously this assumes that it's a novel idea, etc, but I think it's a bit more accurate.