Maybe because it's effectively free to duplicate said property without depriving the original owner of it? Intellectual property to physical property is apples to uranium. Our economic system is out of date in many aspects and needs an overhaul.
Personally I am uncomfortable with the parasitical nature of taking somebody else's artistic creation, for its entertainment value, without any sort of consent/compensation involved.
>An idea as such cannot be protected until it has been given a material form.
And here, in the very first and central assumption, in my opinion, lies the problem. An idea is not a physical object. It does not have the properties of a physical object and does not act like one either. It has often been said that knowledge is power and, by extension, granting monopolies on knowledge also grants a monopoly on power. Funny how these monopolies are considered to be for the greater good when they directly harm it.
>Personally I am uncomfortable with the parasitical nature of taking somebody else's artistic creation, for its entertainment value, without any sort of consent/compensation involved.
As someone who creates art, I welcome this with open arms. The "pay what you want" business model for artistic creations has been demonstrated to work better than the old model (e.g. http://bigthink.com/ideas/41602). Yet it's not just the people who pay the equivalent to the full price who benefit but everyone - rich or poor. It's an inclusive model which respects peoples' financial status and removes the cultural pay-walls. Open Source Software has also been proven to deliver robust, high quality products without bleeding everyone's pockets dry. The Creative Commons is taking off and I suspect that it will be another such success story.
How can our society be so comfortable with putting a price on culture when it's our intellectual bread and butter? By limiting the supply of food, we starve innovation and ensure that what's here today is what's here tomorrow. I don't know about you, but I want humanity to evolve, not revolve.
