everybody should have free and equal access to information and art, and also the people who make that art should be able to earn a fair living. both of these things should happen. unfortunately, we live in a world where neither of them happens. moreover we live in a world where they are seen as oppositional forces where to favour one is to deny the other. but it is not the fault of either the producers or the consumers that these truths haven't already been reconciled, it's a) the middlemen who profit from the labour of both sides, and b) the system as a whole that makes living something to be sweated and bled for and not something we can simply do. furthermore it is deeply unfortunate that action against those middlemen will always hurt first the producers of that art and information, because rather than see their profits shrink, the middlemen will only extract more labour for less money. and this will not be a victory for the consumer in the long run, but if the alternative is for the profit to grow at the cost to the consumer, who would blame the consumer for taking the temporary victory? and the system cannot be allowed to continue to exist in the state that it is, and sometimes those middlemen are making choices that do harm. so how do you change it, if you don't want to hurt the people at the bottom who have no power over the people at the top? can it be changed? or will it always be a case of pitting the producer against the consumer as though that was ever the fight to be won in the first place?