[ProPain]

Indeed we have a different moral on this issue

I claim that charging a fixed sum for a digital download is non-sense. If you speak of value as in efforts made to create and distribute, how come you can earn twice or ten times more if twice or ten times more people buy your creation, for no added cost?
..... So the value in sales is totally disconnected from the value in investment.

If you think this mechanism is exclusive to digital downloads you don't understand how revenue models work. It's common for writers/musicians to receive money for every copy sold of their book/cd. Musicians also get paid every time one of their songs is played on the radio. For them this is also income without added costs. They don't print their books/cds themselves, publishers do that. And playing a song on the radio is even without added cost for the publisher.

Heaps of writers spend just as much time writing their books as J.K. Rowling needed to write a Harry Potter book. Rowling made millions, other writers are hardly making a living. Apparently some people are able to make more money for their (invested) time than others.

It's what we call scalability of a business model. The better the scalability the easier you can increase sales for decreasing costs. Books are very scalable because reprinting is cheap compared to the writing and initial work making a script print ready. Consultancy hours are not so scalable, there;s only 24 hours in a day. When you want to increase your revenue you need to raise you hourly rate or hire more consultants and become an employer.

You might feel this disconnects revenue from time investment, but that's more of a capitalism vs communism discussion. It's one of the concepts of capitalism: people will try harder when they can improve their situation/earn more money. You might not agree with this concept, but then we need to start another thread about the pros and cons of political systems.

Also, I think you have understood that I make a disctinction between value as in work and value as in goods. This is precisely what has changed so much with digital copy.

Nothing changed really. Maybe digital distribution made this more visible because digital distribution is the extreme end of scalability.

I hope you will not say that "one illegal copy is one less legal buying act".

Indeed I will not say that, I used the word 'opportunity' not 'act'. I totally agree that not every download is a missed sale. Again that's even true for shoplifting. If you see the amount of food that shops discard everyday, it's very possible that the bread that someone stole would otherwise have ended up in the bin. But shoplifting is still stealing.

BTW, it has already been proven by independent studies that the more you pirate, the more you buy.

True but totally irrelevant to the discussion. Also if you pirate a CD from band A and buy CD's from band B and C you still harm band A.

Piracy cannot be prevented. It has been so widely spread, who has never pirated anything?

Same can be said about shoplifting, speeding and ignoring red traffic lights. And that also sums up how I feel about the gravity of piracy. Not such a big deal when it's an incidental thing. BUt irrelevant to the discussion about the value of digital goods.

Plus, aside this technological evolution, I also speak about the moral side. Is it the goal of a musician to make millions? Since when is it necessary that the people help talented musicians make millions? Just like Bill Gates having what is his wealth today, why should Michael Jackson or the Beatles be so rich?

It's called capitalism and apparently you don't agree with that system. That's perfectly fine. Cast your vote accordingly next time you have elections or you can also move to a state that is organised according to different principles. But again: irrelevant to the discussion about the value of digital goods.