Are you saying the main motivation to create 
       art is profit and/or recognition?

No, stop twisting my words.

BTW, that article about the Titanic is in total favor of what I said. To break even, the Titanic needed ~ $400 million dollars.

I would totally love to see someone sharing that for free, for art's sake ;-)

      You argue people will stop creating because there will 
      be no profit for them to do so

I'm not talking about profits; I'm talking about revenu. I'm talking about a book author that works on a book for an entire year, during which he has to put food on the table, pay the rent, pay for his son's tuition and live in a decent environment. In my country, the best poet we've had, a pure genius, lived in inhuman conditions and died at 39 years old because of syphilis.

Are you by any chance suggesting that they are paid too much?

Do you think the genius poet would have been inspired living in a mansion, every need catered to by servants?

You validated my point. The best poet was not motivated by revenue, and althought I do not know, was probably not worried of others disseminating their work.

Creating art for art's sake, not to pay for the offspring's tuition bills.

Some of the greatest pieces of expression that have endured the test of time and taste (from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to Norman Rockwell's most iconic American slices of life to Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises") were almost resoundingly commissioned works, the artist working full time on their craft and getting paid to do so. Most artists are career changers, going from a "normal" job to one of creativity and artistry.

Even John Keats, the "poster boy" for poetic works of unending beauty and pure inspiration, quit his job as a surgeon-in-training to become a full-time published-and-paid poet. He could've easily worked his day job as a surgeon and moonlighted as a for-free poet by night. His primary goal was to be a poet, and he found the only way to do so was by making it his career.

Even Vincent Van Gogh, the more modern keeper of raw artistic expression, pined for more people to buy his work, not the least of reasons being to fend off abject poverty, but also as a validation of the style he admittedly created. He was resigned in his later years to live off his brother as he painted prodigiously, but by that point he was in the throes of psychosis. Is that what you meant by "art for art's sake"?

It's surely a romantic notion that artists draw forth passionate forms of expression from fending off psychological defect, hungry bellies, and harsh surroundings. But the truth is, every one of those artists to a person wanted to get paid doing what they do. Perhaps the money is a validation, or incidental being a published or culturally accepted artist, or simply a means to an end. Doesn't matter a whit. They want to do what they want to do full-time.

In other words, "Shakespeare got to get paid, son"[1]

[1] http://i.imgur.com/cyIGF.jpg

In the arts, like in any field, you only get better by immersing yourself in it and it's hard to do that when you have to treat it like a hobby rather than a job.

Ask yourself what level of talent you would have right now if there was zero money in coding or designing software, and you just did it on evenings and weekends, when you were not working your full time job in retail or food services to scrape by?

There is just something disturbing to me about this idea that people should be suffering so that others can read better poetry on their comfy 100k tech salaries.

"Ask yourself what level of talent you would have right now if there was zero money in coding or designing software"

That's actually part of the reason why I find it so delicious that there are people outside of Computer Science that are hitting it big in Web and mobile apps; it's a validation that anyone can do the work of a CS grad just as anyone can write a novel or paint a picture; it just takes time and effort and acquiring skills.

I'll go along with bad_user's example of Avatar.

From Wiki: "Avatar was officially budgeted at $237 million.[3] Other estimates put the cost between $280 million and $310 million for production and at $150 million for promotion."

So, I'd have to agree. At those costs, I don't think any amount of creativity or motivation could get that creator over the hump if all they had to look forward to was a bunch of people torrenting their creation.

I view the choice as simple. If you don't want to pay, in some regard, then don't watch the movie. Everyone has a choice. And nowadays the choice is easy... wait a few months and pay a $1 from Redbox if that's all its worth. Or get it through Netflix. At least the team gets SOMETHING for it.

If you don't want to pay, you don't have to pay. Ever snuck into an extra movie in the theatre when you were a kid, or had a friend who worked at the theatre get you in to a free show?

In your Avator example, had their been a group of motivated people willing to pursue the creative goal of James Cameron's vision in spite of monetary compensation, $237 million would not be required. Some sort of 501c3 action movie production company.

There have been no instances of altruistic people creating a movie valued at over two hundred million dollars, nor would piracy be justified if such an instance existed.