How much money you have is proportional to:
* How much value you create
* Your ability / willingness to monetize it
Now lets talk about why most artists are starving. These creatives are in the entertainment niche. Which is very different from the problem solving niche.
1. Entertainment is not a necessity, it is a luxury
2. Entertainment is a low-cost luxury[1]
3. This is a lot of competition in this niche. Remember how I said there are two types of products: Problem solving and Entertainment? Well the problem solving products only compete with other products that solve the same problem. In the entertainment niche, you are competing with every single other entertainment product. Your dopey little fantasy novel is competing with Call of Duty, 50 Cent, Angry Birds, Reddit, Flappy Bird, Facebook, Hacker News, and sex.
* 4. Given points 1 and 2, that means to make money, you HAVE to scale and be popular to many people[1]. Considering point 3, you have to have great content at the very least.
So I hope you can see why most content authors are starving is due to economics and their value creating ability, and not torrenting or spreading of knowledge.
I'm sure you know that the entertainment industry is a feast or famine one. The people on the top make all the money, and the people on the bottom make very little, simply because the barrier to entry for peoples attention is very high and only the best will get it (point 3).
If you're going to sell music, don't quit your day job unless you're sure you're going to be on the "feast" side of the equation.
*[1] Not necessarily. There is a growing model where you give content for free / low cost, then sell high priced ($1000+) goods to your rich, loyal fans (e.g. exclusive signed CDs, etc.).