You are completely disregarding everything that went into making the media.

People have to get paid, and there are a LOT of hands that touched said media in some way before it hits that shelf. Take your statement about "pay $50 for a video game that probably cost $5 to make. There was a huge discussion about this at work on our internal forum recently regarding the Fairplay campaign (http://www.fairplay-campaign.co.uk/). The games don't just make themselves and print themselves to media as i'm sure you're fully aware. There are dozens of artists, programmers, managers, marketing folk, media producers, etc... who have to get paid in order to produce that plastic 90 cent disc.

Now, music i can understand taking issue to... because some of my close friends own record labels that consistently sell CD's for $10 shipped to your door no more no less (and that usually makes the ARTIST less than $1 per CD after production, insert art costs, marketing, shipping and all that is accounted for. $18/CD is insane, but that's because most popular music passes through more money grubbing hands than Indie label stuff.

It's not the cost of the media itself and it's not the "artistic license", it's what went into making it, and the people along the way who have to get paid.

Now as for what rights you are buyin, that's a whole other argument =]