Not that I disagree exactly, but how do you see the people making the knowledge being rewarded for their work?
I don't have the answer. I do know that all of society would need to change.
The simple approach would be that they are provided food and shelter, but this brings in the modern societal desire for 'more' than just needs.
How many people just work to afford to live, and why is that often so expensive... typically because others somewhere, indirectly, are making more than they need to live. Landlords, businesses, etc. Profit and 'growth' all break the basic concept of bartering to live; they take more than they give, in the name of status and power.
I don't think we can go back to a simpler approach, but at the same time I don't belive copyright is fit for purpose even in the simplest forms any more.
What people are willing to pay for seems to have become confused in the modern day compared to what they 'need' to live.
Just think we need to get a lot closer to that first before throwing out copyright entirely
Scientific publishing is possibly one of the biggest scams there is. The public funds scientists to do research who then haven't to pay the publishers for the privilege of publishing with them (no royalties! just the opposite!) The publishers who then send the papers out to reviewers who do what is essentially the entire point of the process, peer review, for free (reviewers almost never get paid) and then, once accepted for publication, they then charge exorbitant amounts for the same scientists (who want to do research, which requires knowing what your colleagues have done) to read that work.
Honestly, say what you will about Big Pharma, Disney or whoever else people usually complain about when it comes to abusing the state of intellectual property rights, but the sheer brazen balls of charging the people who actually do the work not once but twice, and charging everyone else as well (that's three!) Let's just say I'm glad cOAlition S was launched—and their current plans? Getting rid of APCs as well? *chefs kiss*. But yes, the exact models are something that are still currently being worked on, see PLOS: https://theplosblog.plos.org/2023/06/moving-away-from-apcs-a...
(Also covered, somewhat ironically, behind a paywall at Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03342-6)
I'm not sure I agree that science / fundamental research is the only knowledge that's worth anything through. Making a new product or making a work of art both take time and effort and are trivially copied and it would be a shame for there to be no way to make money from doing those.
(If your answer is that those should be publicly funded as well, that's fair)