This art project is more of an unintentional argument against piracy. I mean it literally shows how copying something makes it worthless.
No it's not. If anything, that is a ridiculous opinion. It has no basis is society, law or discourse. There's little relation between labor and copyright. A more apt analogy is something like land rights. But that is still not talking about the real issue. Chefs puts significant amount of labor into their creations, they are not covered by copyright.
"How exactly is a software developer/musician/artist supposed to be compensated for their time/labor without copyright and the ability to determine the terms of the sale?"
There are plenty of creative people who sell their time, just like chefs. Of course plenty of companies today don't even sell software, but essentially services.
"There is significant up-front time and expense involved with any type of creative work"
Yes, but this is to some extent a different issue than copyright itself. I'm not even arguing for the removal of copyright (I'm personally for stronger authors rights with drastic reduction in terms), just that copyright is mainly rights to artistic, rather than utilitarian or scientific, things i.e. doesn't have a whole lot to do with labor.
This should be even more apparent today with cloud distribution, where software can't be resold.
I also do not really care for the super-long copyright terms, and my posts here should not be confused as a defense of the likes of Disney, etc. Most software is obsolete within a year. The unauthorized copying of newly-released software is my primary issue, having been directly affected by it for so long.
How's that? If the same copies were legally bought they would have had value, but now that they are illegally created they are worthless? Is it the law that gives them value, instead of something intrinsic? Is value the same thing as cost?
Well it depends on how you interpret the word intrinsic. You were inquiring about how written law could influence value, I was responding by saying value isn't determined by some made up law written by humans, it's determined by laws intrinsic to economics: The law of supply and demand.
>And if value is determined by cost,
When did I say value is determined by cost? Cost is only an indirect contributor. Value itself is determined by supply and demand.
>how come people still want it when it's free?
If something is free, it doesn't change how much people want the product. Value does not influence Demand. It is the otherway around: Supply and demand influence value. Thus whether I charge a billion dollars or zero dollars for the oxygen you breath, you'll still want it as much as you did before regardless of the value.
The demand for air is much, much smaller than the supply, so by your logic it should have very little value. Yet it has a huge value and no cost. Now you see why I'm saying that market forces influence only the cost and not the value?
What if I restricted the supply of air by choking you? Give me $100 dollars and I'll let you breath for ten seconds. Suddenly 10 seconds of air is worth more than $50 dollars.
You demand air to survive but how much you pay for air (aka the value of air) depends on me controlling the supply.
The project wouldn't be an "art project" if the copies were actually distributed.