edit: what is up with all the idiotic downvotes in this thread? You are NOT supposed to downvote just because you disagree with an opinion.
Do you believe that, really?
As an example, for most users, using Linux on the desktop is a lot more painful than using Windows on the desktop, because Microsoft has to pay a lot of people to do boring work that makes Windows less painful to the user. Linux only gains the features that someone feels it is rewarding to work on.
If we don't have copyright, then we have no way of rewarding dull work that only makes economic sense when replicated across millions. Think of the garbage truck: it's dull and smelly work, and you have to get up in the middle of the night. Almost nobody would do that if they didn't get paid. Yet society needs that work done -- yet we figure out how to compensate that work so it gets done.
Perhaps we can come up with a better way to compensate this kind of development work, but your argument does not provide a credible alternative.
And yet, we don't offer garbage men royalties on the garbage they've collected for 70 years after their death.
Works were created for looooooong time before any sort copyrights existed. The problem is having too many works, too many shitty works that only exist cause there's an artificial profit motive to create them. Have a look at major music and movies and books. I'd rather have 1 good movie a year than 100's of shit we get now.
Things will always get created. Probably not with any mass-market appeal or Block Buster level of attendance. Sounds awesome. I'm totally behind it.
"Information Economy" is artificial construct US is trying to push cause we no longer can compete in the Reality Economy. We will probably succeed in pushing it. But, it's just setting us up for even more epic collapse later.
Plenty of artists, many of which spend years honing their craft, not only don't require copyright, but operate in environments which actively work against any kind of ownership (graffiti artists, for example).
Dostoievsky wrote The Idiot to pay some gambling debt. Da Vinci and Michelangelo and the other Masters of that age did all their work for wealthy patrons. The reason why Victorian novels are so long is partly to do with the fact that authors were paid by the page.
An argument can be made that at least some great works of art would not have existed were it not for the profit motive. Would someone like Mark Twain still have written books if he could not have made a penny out of it? Probably yes, but probably not as many.
Isn't that exactly what people are suggesting as an alternative to copyright? This isn't an argument against receiving money for your craft (I would argue that "profit motive" is inaccurate), but an argument against a legal construct which allows you to continually benefit in perpetuity via artificial constraints.
Would someone like Mark Twain still have written books if he could not have made a penny out of it?
Didn't Mark Twain marry into wealth specifically so he could write without any monetary worries?
FWIW, I upvoted you. I'd rather promote discussion than drive it off just because someone has an unpopular opinion. But anyone advocating an unpopular idea has to be a bit more careful in backing up their arguments for obvious reasons.
edit: there is no reply link visible to me for the comment below this one, so replying here:
The context is that my comment is a reply to another comment. It should be read in the context of that comment. The author of that comment already argued that without copyright, more would be available. I'm pointing out a factor he failed to consider. I'm not making an independent argument, and so do not need to restate things he already covered.