But, that's the point. Things usually only have value based on scarcity, at least for luxury items. The problem is that data is never a scarce resource. It's,

But, that's the point. Things usually only have value based on scarcity, at least for luxury items. The problem is that data is never a scarce resource. It's, for all practical purposes, inexhaustible. So trying to put a price on a collection of bits is virtually impossible using classical models. So what you end up with is companies trying to recreate this 'scarcity' with encryption schemes and lockins and all manner of other protective measures. Which all inevitably fail, rendering the production cost of this new item extremely close to zero. Now, some people argue that you must take development costs into account, lost sales, etcetera and then you end up straying into wild, untamed territory. After all, you don't see car companies suing the manufacturers of bicycles for taking away sales, or anything like that. But yet, when it comes to digital information, this seems to be par for the course. And of course, the counter-argument to it is thus: If I make say, 1,000 copies of a game and keep all these copies on my hard drive, does that cost the company more? No. But if I give these new copies that I made at my own expense (as little as that is) to my friends, this is somehow a transformative process and is treated as costing the IP owner profit (or increasing effective cost or somesuch). It would probably serve better to just give up on this and focus on creating product in a way that follows traditional markets. Give away the music for free, it's only data. But make your revenue from shirts, concerts, etcetera.