Would we be better without copyright laws?
I think the concept of copyright law is good in lots of ways, but the current copyright laws in the USA are pretty awful. It was originally 20 years, now it's 90+. Lots of old works are being lost or having access denied because they're still under copyright, but nobody is publishing them.
Also related: "the war on sharing" https://stallman.org/articles/end-war-on-sharing.html
So we are at the pure rent seeking stage.
Work for hire (producing something to begin with) would still be a thing.
For a broader discussion I'd prefer to reference the actual text for the basis of US Copyright.
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
With the meaning of those words at the time of their writing:
* limited to scientific works
* and methods of doing things that have direct industrial benefit.
* ONLY by the author/inventor (not corporations)
* LIMITED time, I think 5 years is probably plenty and 10 is a maximum.
* I like the idea of a short default term, and paying (active effort) for longer renewal.
* Consumer protections (trademarks) are a different matter entirely.[0] http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/featur...
I understand the sentiment but..why. Why is it necessary. Art and science advanced on its own long before copyright enforcement of any kind.
True there are things that are particularly benefited from copyright. But they do so at the expense of something else. It diverts labor to things that later require law enforcement to protect.
But that, of course, is no longer true. The advent of technologies to capture and distribute art has led to new forms of art, and with that an amazing situation where people have unparalleled access to the works of genius. However, those new forms also have a drawback: they can be easily copied and distributed without compensating the originator. So in order to keep being able to support filmmakers and novelists and musicians we need to shield them from this. Otherwise, they will stop making their works.
Who is going to spend 5 years writing a novel if they can only sell one copy?
Hopefully no-one. Apparently there is no value to that novel unless resources are spent protecting it.
We see today things that in a non-copyright world would not exist. But we dont see the things that would exist instead ,so its hard to know.
That is a non-sequitor.
Roads. Infrastructure for sewers. Defense. Fire suppression.
These are all cases where a purely free market fails to provide optimal levels of the good or service.
People are evidently willing to pay for novels, so we know they have value. The question is whether the current copyright system gives copyright owners too much power to extract rents at the cost of the public domain.
Writing books, making movies and composing music are some of the things that should we should never have an interest in creating externalities for.
The act of publishing the book has positive externalities (people derive benefit from reading it). Copyright is an attempt to allow creators to capture some of those positive externalities to promote more production of books.
Your position that the creator should not have a mechanism to capture any of those benefits is rather extreme, as is the position of the copyright maximalists that assert they should capture all of the benefits.
Yes, science and art will progress, but if there is no economy attached, then they will be dominated by people who don't have to make a living. Unless we fund the whole thing publicly. That would work, but in other contexts we believe the market is more efficient.
In many ways it isn't even about copyright - it's about IP, and that's actually a whole other problem.