"I'd wager that the vast majority of music, art, and technological process and creation for our species has not been for pay in service of the groups you described."You'd win, but not for the reasons you imagine. You'd win because the vast majority of everything created by humans has been produced in the last century - and most of that has happened in countries with relatively strong democratic governance.
"To think that art has historically been created solely for the rich is rather absurd. It simply isn't true."
You're asserting this without any evidence, and doing do in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
"From the first known cave paintings, to the blues, to free software..."
Whoa, hold up, there's a HUGE gap between your first and second examples, and specifically, a gap where the evidence you're unable to cite should be.
Given the millennia-spanning history of civilization, expression that is legally protected from government interference is a very recent development, and even now, it's not one that's enjoyed worldwide. From ancient Sumer forward, you'll find that pretty much everything of note was created and controlled by the elite. And if not directly controlled, then certainly permitted only with their approval. Between the guilds that dominated production and the religious authorities who sanctioned their output, the power of art has - until very recently - been kept on a very short leash.
To a degree, I see how this validates your point in that it speaks to a large (and largely suppressed) desire to produce work that goes beyond the range of official sanction. And that's true of both work that gets supported in return for toeing a party line, and of work that gets banned for crossing it. But the desire to produce work is not the same as producing actual work. More powerful forms of creativity that went beyond folk art (largely restricted to song and dance) require advanced study and formal training, which absolutely and invariably took place under the watchful eye of the ruling class. Near-exclusive reliance on patronage not only provided a means for rewarding the useful and the loyal, it also provided a reliable means for starving the disloyal and disruptive. And I wasn't being flip by associating patronage with systems like the index of banned books and the divine right of kings. You can dismiss the broader context in which patronage thrived if you like, but that's no way to gain a comprehensive and accurate view of the subject.
Again, IP laws have never been perfect. But to the extent that they encapsulate the promise and power of democracy, they are tremendously instrumental in the explosion of human creativity that democratically ruled societies have been responsible for. Sure, there's always been some level of creativity present in human societies. But not until creative expression gained a measure of legal and economic independence, and people gained a strong measure of control over their governments, did the creative potential of humanity really lift off.
While IP laws are far from the only factor in this explosion, they're within the set of indispensable conditions that made the explosion possible in the first place. In the absence of a social contract that guarantees the physical well-being of every individual, regardless of the work they do (or don't) perform, IP laws provide an essential protection for the vast stores of materials and labor that go into the production of the most compelling works of art. Absent this protection (and general social support) the ability to control and advance the arts returns to the elite and their dependents. Invariably, this concentration of cultural power gets used to undermine the democratic institutions that exist to limit the concentration of political power in the hands of an otherwise unaccountable elite.