> "Good content does not create itself"

While it's tempting for me to caricature my idealogical opponents using examples of pithy, meaningless platitudes such as this one, I shall strive not to follow your example. If you really do value honest discussion, I think you'll find such preaching to be self-defeating.

> "...everything from Open Source software to self-published books paints a very clear and consistent picture"

Please do break this down with some stats and examples. You can't possibly be so naive to think this statement will be taken as axiomatic.

> "...while there are the occasional gems, most of the work simply isn't very good by professional standards."

Ah, an ad-hominem of your own, most self-righteously disguised. I am writing this comment entirely using tools that are covered under OSS licenses. I earn my living using the same tools, and my work is also covered under an OSS license. You'll note that I said "earn", and from that you might deduce that commerce and OSS are not mutually exclusive. You might also observe a counter-point to your rather haughty categorizations of "professional" and "hobbyist" creation. I even have hope that you may perceive the irony of accusing your opponents of being "black-and-white". Speaking of which...

> But as long as we confine the debate to a black-and-white "Big Media Bad, Cheap Freeloading Good" or "Cheap Freeloading Bad, Big Media Good"

You seem to have created your own personal straw-man using the most radical contingent of anti-IP viewpoints. I'm surprised you didn't call them freetards. Your post consists almost entirely of shallow, difficult-to-argue-with assertions seemingly aimed at thick-headed techno-communists. Do you honestly expect many folks here to recognize only the marginal cost of content production? Any answer other than "no" will tell me that you haven't been paying much attention. So long as you only hear what you want to hear, you won't be able to intelligently converse with the many folks here who are somewhere in between the extremes. Folks like me, who might say things like...

- I highly value content and the minds that produce it. Perhaps more than anything else, art is what makes life worth living for me. I require it, and I thus require content producers to produce it. I am willing to pay for it, but like everything else that I buy, the cost must be sustainable.

- Technology has long been at point where content is presented and used in its purest form: a totally non-rivalrous and totally non-excludable commodity. The carriers required in earlier times, e.g. books, CDs, etc., are no longer required. Any piece of content is now exactly equivalent to any other piece of information -- the words of a book, a song, a picture, an idea, a rumor, a number. There is nothing novel to me about the idea of copyright, or in its value as a temporary monopoly on the distribution of information intended to incentivize the creation of said information. Again, if you pay attention, I think you'll find this to be a commonly accepted notion around here.

- When non-rivalrous and non-excludable goods are treated like rivalrous and/or excludable goods for the purposes of regulation, bad things generally happen. The methods by which this must be done are obtuse, ineffective, and in my opinion, often unethical. Think censorship, DRM, security-through-obscurity, etc.

- It seems to me that if someone wants to make money from a completely non-rivalrous and non-excludable product, the onus is very much on them to distribute their product in a commercially viable way. Some artists are embracing the inevitable challenges of making money from information in today's market. The large distribution cartels (e.d. RIAA) have completely rejected them, and expect governments to maintain the old business models for them using force.

There is indeed much room for compromise, but be not mislead about the depth of the convictions of those who disagree with you, nor of the scope of their knowledge and experience.