I agree that we as a society should make sure that artists can make a living. But I am honestly not sure an open-access approach to music would be any worse financially. Historically, the recording industry was one of the most exploitative. You can find a hundred stories of bands that sell a lot of records only to see barely-getting-by money in return. You can find a thousand stories of modest-selling bands getting totally screwed.

Things are now in a great turmoil, so we're still seeing where this goes. But I think it's no accident that Patreon was started by an independent musician. They expect to pay out $150m this year to artists. What do patrons get in exchange? Basically nothing. They just like supporting people doing good work.

I agree the morality of pure piracy is not so great. But the notion of piracy itself is rooted in a specific and entirely artificial theory of ownership, plus an industrial model built around that. The morality of that industrial model is in practice not so great either.

Things like Patreon and Wikipedia suggest that the morality of the commons is one that could work well in practice. It has its issues, but I don't think they're a priori greater than the historical alternative. Especially if it's supplemented with the sorts of things that Kevin Kelly describes as "better than free": http://kk.org/thetechnium/better-than-fre/