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Many things cost over $1 US - which in itself is a matter of supply and demand. Well, the supply went up. The cost should go down.

Every single time I read an "argument" like this, it rekindles my desire to find the moron who convinced everyone they could be experts on economics just by remembering "supply and demand", and wipe out his entire blood line.

Guess what? There is a lot more to understanding economics and business than supply and demand. I know, goes against everything you've read on the internet by people who like to criticize copyright law and the concept of "intellectual property".

So let's get down to what you've completely missed... Cost of development, cost of materials, cost of tools, cost of maintaining a retail presence. These things are factors, in addition to supply and demand, as to whether or not it's worth anyone's time to create and sell content in the first place.

You demonstrate a complete ignorance of that when you say this:
"Therefore, the sensible thing to do is to decrease prices so that copying 'illegally' is not something which people want to do. And in a way they have done so - by closing businesses, they've cut their own throats in a way over the threat that they would have their throats cut."

Tell me, how exactly does a business cut their prices to compete with virtually free and still be able to pay to operate a retail space, let alone have an incentive to create content that people otherwise aren't creating only to have some jackass running copybot steal it the day they put it on the market?

That's the thing you've missed here. A lot of things that cost over a buck are items that aren't things that everyone is willing to pay any money for. These things can take hours, days, weeks, and longer in some cases to develop. They've gotten developed for their relatively smaller target markets, where enough have been willing and able to pay the price desired to make the creators work worth while.

Not everyone is out trying to sell to every guy with a few lindens in his pocket. In fact, I would say most of the better things to buy in SL are NOT targeted at every jane and john, but are found in specialty shops. Just because what you are buying has a virtually unlimited supply, does not mean you should only have to pay 1 linden for it. If only a thousand people are willing to pay money for it in the first place, then the creator is forced to sell it for a buck because some lazy jackass copied it and is now selling it for a buck in a giant bargain store, and the creator makes 1,000 lindens(a little under 4 bucks), for something that took him a couple of days to get right, tell me exactly where is the incentive to create?

That is why some of the shops are closing down. They're hoping to send a message to the community what the potential threat of this tool actually is. This is a real threat to the second life economy and it's a shame that so many people commenting on this with your viewpoint are as ignorant of economics and how businesses operate in the real world as you are. Sending the message that these guys are whining over nothing, or worse, that it's their fault for "high prices"(the nerve of someone asking me for a buck in exchange for enjoying the fruits of their labor! Don't they know that information wants to be free!) is very much wrong. These guys aren't the RIAA or the MPAA(and that's a real cheap shot BTW, bringing those bastards up here), these are mostly small business people, who do real work themselves to create things or pay others to create things.

You may not see the value of that to the community, especially if you've been infected with socialist dogma, but the value is there and if the second life economy goes down because of it, it's going to be a much less interesting place. Maybe all the people blaming and villainizing the business people could start creating stuff for us for free to realize a socialist utopia in second life. Free, because after all, the supply is limitless. Right?