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It's not so much as how much I'd want to pay for them, it's how much I CAN pay for them. With average salaries of $600-1000 it's a tough choice.
And indeed, when faced with the fact that the money I payed for something doesn't help the artist but in fact the greedy publisher - is it any surprise I turn to pirated material?
Don't get me wrong here, I do not support piracy just because of the price issue. I've bought things I valued at a price I can afford. I've also bought some things beyond that price and ended up disappointed, not because of the price, but because the product I bough had an added benefit packed in - buyer's remorse.
What puzzles me as an aspiring artist (both music, writing and digital art) is that the public stigmatizes fans that illegally acquire material they like without denying it to others but at the same time silently accepts the outrageous percentages publishers place on author contracts.
So in retrospect, I can say that those $4 don't just give me a product I am interested, they also give me the emotional satisfaction that somewhere, a greedy CEO won't be buying a new Ferrari with my money. And that's something that goes way away beyond the $4 I payed for it.
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