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Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"
(pluralistic.net)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
This only applies to cases where the artist/actor/whatever gets paid upfront. Most of the times, that does not happen. The creator of something only gets money when somebody buys what they have created (books, videogames, music, etc)
Even if they were paid upfront, they were paid off the idea that the company could make bank on their (ready yourself for the word in case it triggers): Intellectual Property.
In a future world where people have achieved their wish and the concept no longer exists, companies have no reason to pay creators ahead of time.
I can get that they'd not necessarily be paid upfront, but there is no possible legal contract in which they are to be paid only in the future, in causality, according to the performance of a ~~third~ ~ fourth party who is not in the contract. What, are the actors paying their weekly groceries with IOUs?
Every artist in every field get MAYBE paid a tiny bit upfront, and then a percentage of the sales. That's how books and music work, for instance