Doesn't this go back to Stewart Brand's 1984 "Information wants to be free?"
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free>
> and
>
> * Why isn't this universally true? Or to put it another way, why are
> both the Pirate Bay, the center of the piracy universe, *and* iTunes,
> the premier pay service, successful?
Pirate Bay is a an example of Brand's dictum, and iTunes can charge because some people will pay a premium not to have to wait for 3 days for a torrent to complete, only to be broken. Together they form, in Chris Anderson's parlance, a freemium service:
<http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free>
Best, Charles