> "If anything should be open and free, it's art." Sure, and by extension, if anyone should have all their living expenses covered without question and be give

> "If anything should be open and free, it's art." Sure, and by extension, if anyone should have all their living expenses covered without question and be given whatever materials they need free of change, it's artists. I mean, your utopian vision is great, and a world in which it was economically viable and politically acceptable is one that many artists would willingly embrace. But in the meantime, when artists still need to pay for food, rent, studio space, and supplies (to say nothing of health care, education for their kids, and retirement) your view seems...less than intelligent. Indeed, what it really sounds like is bullshit - not unlike "We're going to reinvent leverage by diversifying engagement until we get a critical mass of traction with enough disruption to convert our best-in-class imaginings into free unicorns for everyone!" Because that's what happens when you remove political and economic reality from any equation and add a bunch of hype to all that remains. > "instead we've (framed) the discussion to the degree that everyone refers to music as an article of commerce and not as a work of art, to the point that even artists speak that way and buy into the 'threat' of the Internet." No dude, it's not the "framing" that makes artists think about their work in terms of needing to make a living. It's the need to make a living that makes them think about the need to make a living.