Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age

by Cory Doctorow

They need to make enough money to support their infrastructure—their offices, their equipment, their staff—even though much of that infrastructure won’t be used for putting your works into the hands of audiences. And they’ve got to have enough left over at the end of the day to keep their shareholders happy, which means that their business practices will be designed to ensure that shareholders get money out of the business before creators do.

they can always get new creators to fill their pipeline—but investors are strictly non-commodity, and are the true first-class citizens of a media firm.