Is there a historical precedent for the current digital filesharing situation?

That is true.

And that is is where you go wrong. People produce art for many reasons; to make money off of it is just one motivation (and often not the most important one). Creation of art isn’t going to stop if it ceases to be a money-making venture. What probably will change is the idea that a person ought to be able to make a full-time living off of art production. We might be heading toward a world where most art is produced by amateurs who work at it simply because they enjoy it as a hobby, and where the only artists who can support themselves off of their work are ones who give public performances, such as stage musicians, theater actors, and dancers (because the experience of attending a live performance can’t be copied). It would be a different world from the one we’re currently living in, but not necessarily an inferior one.