In yesterday's New York Times Magazine, James Gleick wrote about how the value of the original object has been rising even as copies are becoming ever better and cheaper:
"Just when digital reproduction makes it possible to create a 'Rembrandt' good enough to fool the eye, the 'real' Rembrandt becomes more expensive than ever. Why? Because the same free flow that makes information cheap and reproducible helps us treasure the sight of information that is not. A story gains power from its attachment, however tenuous, to a physical object. The object gains power from the story."
