Established artists do not actually make that much money out of CD sales. Nine Inch Nails made US$1.6 million from releasing Ghosts I-IV under a Creative Commons license, and it topped the Amazon mp3 sales charts. A lot of bands and musicians make their money out of concerts and t-shirts (simplification much...) and the measly amount that the Record Industry ends up giving the artist isn't much.
(From my thesis:)
[m]agnatune.com is an online record label that uses CC to ‘...promote its catalogue with free samples of songs, alongside a variable pricing model’. The site allows consumers to pay a price they (the consumers) think is fair ranging between US$5 and US$18. A fixed rate on physical copies applies (Magnatune, 2009), with fifty percent of any sale going to the Artist. As at January 2006, artists on magnatune.com received on average, between US$1500 and US$4000 a year from sales on the website. (Creative Commons Clinic).
Creative Commons and a relaxed or the relaxed copyright law that Lawrence Lessig is after, can easily be as good a commercial model as traditional copyright, which in this day-and-age is geared towards the publishing industry rather than the artist (contrary to the original reason for copyright law).
A lot of people are actually honest in what they do (pirates buy more than people who don't pirate), and if they like the music will often try to buy it (at a reasonable price).
