Please care to enlighten us as to what the "bigger picture" is?
Edit: I cannot believe I am being dv'd for this. Are people seriously telling me they don't believe opinions and attitudes willl change as they get older? Do you think you're as wise as you'll ever be when you're young?
This is a mistake only young people are capable of making?
You are confusing young people with ignorant people.
But just think about this: I am 23 years old, I barely remember a time when there was no internet. Kids today grow up taking their iPods for granted. They take for granted that music, movies, media of all kind is digital. The take for granted that is easily shared. That there is no fundamental restriction on the consumption of content. Technologically we are at the point where virtually all content is available to virtually everyone at virtually no cost.
Politics and law do not matter. This reality is neither a good nor a bad thing, it just is.
(FWIW I did not downvote you)
While many young people's views will change over time on many issues, it seems kind of rude to assume that it's certain they will. For example (and this is not meant to be a comparison to copyright, just an example of attitudes not changing), while it appears to mostly be older people against gay marriage, that does not mean that younger people are misinformed and will change their minds on it as they grow older. Somethings are actually generational shifts in attitude, independent of the generation's age. I do agree that it's possible that the current generation may shift to a more conservative view on copyright as it ages, since that happens with many issues, but it can sound somewhat offensive depending on how you worded it. I think it's a point worth considering, but sadly many people will have a negative reaction against something that looks "You'll get it when you're older", and that may prevent them from considering the idea in a more neutral light.
As for whether it's correct, I'd lean towards "No". I think young people who grow up to produce content they want to commercially develop may, but that's likely going to be a minority. I don't think the majority that casually illegally download things without a second thought will have a change of heart. It being wrong just doesn't seem to enter most people's minds. I think part of the reason is the overly harsh propaganda against it. While there is a core ideal worth considering ("Artists should be compensated for their work"), the ridiculous exaggeration ("Pirating movies supports TERRORISM") leads to people ignoring the issue.
The current, and notoriously short-sighted beneficiaries of the copyright cartel see this as a good thing, as it appears to hand them a massive (and totally unearned) expansion of their power. The (mostly young) people who are most exposed to this hubris display a reassuringly mature recognition of this badness, and resist accordingly.
Good government (i.e. government of, by, and for the people) would avoid open conflict by adjusting the law to the benefit of the people's constitutional liberties, challenging the old commercial order to adapt peacefully or die gracefully. The fact that this isn't happening is de facto evidence of growing corruption. If anything, the wisdom of age makes this less - not more - tolerable as time goes by.
After all, there is no precedent (at least in America) that suggests a system providing total domination over all aspects of cultural and intellectual is a good and worthwhile thing. Indeed, much of America's involvement in the 20th Century revolved around violent opposition to the horrific and miserable places that did try to institute this level of control. Today, we're discovering that we can't even be 'friends' with countries that behave like this (Exhibit A: Egypt), since majorities everywhere find these orders deeply hateful, rendering them inherently unstable. Indeed, no modern totalitarian regime has survived for more than a few decades, let alone the lifetimes that democratic republics boast.
Please don't confuse this with endorsing the draconian punishments heaped on people who infringe on copyrighted works.
It seems to me that the new change is that suddenly, discovery and dissemination are enjoying large-scale volunteer effects, where previously it was just word of mouth. The pre-existing laws presume to deal with for-profit redistributors, and as such are hardly applicable.
The burning question in my mind is whether the volunteering will persist and suffice to meet the offering of the distribution business. Will it result in a karma economy, or will there be a new business area in archival? Will people tire of providing free service when they find themselves preoccupied with the worries of middle age, or will they merely scale back?
You think the Lord of the Rings movies would ever have been made without copyright law? What Kinsella is arguing is that we have no business setting up rules such that a project like that can be economically feasible. (That, I suspect, is likely because Kinsella is an anarchist. He realizes that his preferred system of government (that is, absence thereof) could not support IP; ergo, one must argue that IP is not a desired thing, cuz it sure ain't going to exist in utopia.)
It seems really poorly thought out. If you want copyright-free material, produce it! If you object to copyrighted material, don't consume it! If you're right about it being abhorrent in the digital age, then let all the abhorrers not buy it. It's so easy to just opt out.
If you buy Kinsella's argument, you don't need anything to change about the laws. Just don't participate in the copyright regime. If you really believe in his theory, the moral thing to do is boycott it all. If you say you believe in Kinsella's theory, but go ahead and copy and use stuff the author thought he was going to get paid for, it seem really, really likely to me that what you're really doing is just using intellectual blather to salve your looter conscience.
Trouble struck when Marty Katz was sent to New Zealand. Spending four months there, he told Miramax that the films were more likely to cost $150 million, and with Miramax unable to finance this, and with $15 million already spent, they decided to merge the two films into one. On 17 June 1998, Bob Weinstein presented a treatment of a single two-hour film version of the book. He suggested cutting Bree and the Battle of Helm's Deep, "losing or using" Saruman, merging Rohan and Gondor with Éowyn as Boromir's sister, shortening Rivendell and Moria as well as having Ents prevent the Uruk-hai kidnapping Merry and Pippin.[9] Upset by the idea of "cutting out half the good stuff"[10] Jackson balked, and Miramax declared that any script or work completed by Weta Workshop was theirs.[9] Jackson went around Hollywood for four weeks,[10] showing a thirty-five minute video of their work, before meeting with Mark Ordesky of New Line Cinema.[11] At New Line Cinema, Robert Shaye viewed the video, and then asked why they were making two films when the book was published as three volumes; he wanted to make a film trilogy. Now Jackson, Walsh, and Boyens had to write three new scripts. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_tril...]
And because of copyright law, we now have a shitty screen version of Atlas Shrugged that takes place in the future? C'mon!
I am not advocating abolition, only reform. I am not sure it is even possible to create copyright-free material in the United States. The producer of the content would be required to explicitly waive copyright.