I wonder if you can apply the lessons learned here to, say, various creative fields, most notably producing music and writing books.

When an artist gets a recording contract they will get an advance and the resources to produce recorded music (eg studio time, a producer). The label will end up owning the masters and get a percentage of sales. Whatever percentage the artists get first has to go towards the label's "costs" being all those services they originally provided (eg studio time) such that an album can make millions before the artist gets paid at all [1]..

Only the very top artists can actually make a living of royalties and sales. Almost all artists have to support themselves by performing. It's also why top artists who support the current system (cough Metallica cough) never talk about performance income. TDhey try to frame music piracy as stealing from artists when the artist almost never gets any of that money.

But why I bring this up is that it seems to bear a lot of similarities with these income sharing arrangements (eg the mismatched goals of the participants). 1[]: https://www.gerryhemingway.com/piracy2.html