I was hoping this thread was dead.it has served no useful purpose.it started with the leftist "Guardian" and should end there..
It's taken you quite a few weeks to bump it and, given with what words you've done so, it's hard to see why you have! Mr Zimerman behaved as he did and others behave similarly or do nothing about it when people who think that they have a divine right to anything and everything without having either to pay for it or to request the permission of those involved go recording live concerts, uploading copyright material to YouTube and many other places and the rest of it. If you think tht this is OK, then so be it, but presumably you are neither a composer nor a performer nor a record company owner. I am not a "leftist" but I have to make a living like everyone else and that's not helped by thieves. Your remark seems to have little if any substance beyond that of your personal view of the British newspapaer in which this event was reported; had the Zimerman case been an entrely isolated and exceptional instance, your statement above might attract some credence but, in reality, this kind of thing is very widespared indeed and many people are adversely affected by it.
Gerard's earlier comment about artists (be they composers or performers or both) not needing to be involved in "selling" their work is all very well, but
someone has to sell it and someone has to pay for it otherwise those artists will receive no income and therefore be unable to do any work; in reality, the situation is no so very different from the taxi driver whose income is removed from him because someone's stolen his cab (at least until his/her insurance stumps up).