The idea that we really believe it’s possible to have “free goods,” such as downloaded music or videos, go on forever concerns me as an economist who learned somewhere back in the dark ages that water and air were only “free goods” if you ignored externalities like pollution or deserts or the imbedded costs of agriculture.

I seem to remember being taught to ask the question, “What IS the value of every asset?”

Free, huh? How about the consequences of society “taking” everything it can, now, while the getting is good?

The lessons of salmon and other over-utilized/over-demanded resources tell us a great deal about what we can expect in our future. The lessons of Easter Island statuary are equally meaningful. Once we begin going down that slippery slope of using resources indiscriminately, without regard for the potential scarcity of that resource or the value of that asset being consumed over time, then we start digging our own grave. We start eating our own seed.

So, downloaded music is a “free good.” And who perchance will be producing high quality music in the future once we all have decided that those who produce music deserve not to be compensated for his/her time and creativity? What will be your “day job,” music-creator, if you are not compensated on the music-creating stage?

Downloading videos are a “free good,” you say? And how many independent film creators will stay in business once we all have our 16 to 20 hours of video clips daily on our personal computers? How will you earn enough to pay for food, room, board? Or will you simply hang out at Mom and Dad’s?

Who needs writers anyway, when content is a “free good” for everyone? Why bother with a Writers’ Guild contract about “digital residuals” if we are all downloading it off the Internet without attribution. Who’d be dumb enough to create written works?

Oh, but the advertising will pay for it all, you say? Advertising only works if someone points, clicks and pays. Why should we pay? Isn’t it all supposed to be “free goods?”

What is the difference between the taking of an asset like music, video, content off the web and taking away someone’s valuable asset such as a home – through a mortgage scam like sub-prime loans well outside of the reasonable ability of a “home consumer” to pay? Why not take an asset like a high risk sub-prime loan and repackage it as “securitized” loans with zero inherent value, but copious servicer-fees? Isn’t it all the same gratuitous “taking it for yourself,” now while the getting is good?

Why should we care? Why shouldn’t we take what is supposed to be “OUR free goods?”