> Cultural products, of whatever
> variety, are deeply integrated into this market. And if they're given away
> for free then the people that are going to have to make them are going to
> have to do so on a tiny budget and probably part-time. The result? They'll
> be completely mediocre.
Not necessarily. Sometimes they can be astoundingly good, or circumvent the limitations of their material.
What the digital commons is doing is lowering two costs: (1) the cost of creating works of art (the Web is now a vast library of sounds, images, texts, archives, and software to access, edit and reproduce these things), and (2) the cost of distributing or copying texts is falling. Something similar is now happening to art appreciation and art criticism, thanks to free sites like DeviantArt, where artists post their work for free (with the option of payment, if you want to order a custom print).
-- DRR