Copyright at least makes big players pay the original creators for the rights to the works. Netflix going ahead and making money off of subscribers while paying nothing to creators would be a significantly worse situation.
Copyright does not protect authors, it protects publishers. This is justified as protecting authors in the very narrow sense that authors did get to negotiate with publishers first, but at the most disadvantaged position they will ever be at in their career. They have to pay, but they can pay a pittance and authors will take it because they have no better options.
The low- or zero-copyright world would at least end the practice of publishers buying rights to works and then pushing the artists who made them out of it. For example, there are loads of unfinished trilogies whose authors would love to finish them, but the publishers don't want them to, because they consider it a lost cause. Nor do they want their authors self-publishing or going with another outfit, so they won't revert ownership back to the artists, because an unexploited, worthless copyright is still worth more as part of a horde of gold that they sleep on.
The thing about publishers is that none of them are interested in publishing without copyright. Authors have inherent advantages in their craft that would at least leave them with something in a zero-copyright world - you can still crowdfund literature, and that's why you see plenty of self-published authors but not that many self-published filmmakers[0]. But publishers can't - all the things that make them money require not just copyright, but also sublicensing rights on derivative works. In the zero-copyright world they're all fighting to republish things that people already have. So they need copyright ownership with licensing terms that subtly disfavor authors instead.
That being said, I'm not an advocate for zero-copyright. That's the nuclear option. But it does need to be pared back to protecting artists from publishers[1], rather than protecting publishers from readers.
[0] YouTubers and TikTokers don't count, that's a different medium.
[1] And, also, Amazon and friends
Sure. From now on I either release my software as AGPLv3 or I don't release it at all. Truth is even if someone violates my license I'm not gonna waste my limited time on this earth litigating against them in court over it. I have better things to do.
Stallman would disagree but I think licenses like GPL shouldn't even exist at all: they all depend on copyright to enforce their terms and copyright shouldn't exist in the first place. It's fair as long as nobody is protected: billion dollar corporations can make money off my code but I can make money off of theirs too. Netflix code gets leaked? Oops, looks like it's our code now.
Also, Netflix literally exists to solve the problems created by copyright itself. It's ironic how it was ultimately destroyed by copyright holders when they pulled their precious content and started their own shitty streaming services instead. Were it not for copyright, we'd all be using peer to peer technology invented decades ago to consume content much more efficiently. Everything humanity ever created would be available at our fingertips.
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/mar/17/copyleft-ethical-...
You do realize that barely any of that content they provide would even exist without copyright. There would be two outcomes either movies only get released in cinemas and the original copy is for projection is heavily guarded with not official "home video" releases at all or no movies with a significant budget ever get released.
> Everything humanity ever created would be available at our fingertips.
Yes but "Everything" in that situation would only be a marginal proportion of what is available now. Forget expensive movies/tv shows/etc. how could even any writer make a living on his own without having to rely on some reason patron or a full time job like back in the 16th century?
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/501607/wipe-out-when-bbc...
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/missing-pieces/lost-mov...
Why not just make it public domain? That's the default in a world without the right of ownership of code.
> Oops, looks like it's our code now.
How would you make money of it? It's not like you can sell it.
> Were it not for copyright, we'd all be using peer to peer technology invented decades ago to consume content much more efficiently
What content? How would it be paid for, since there's nothing that could be sold?
Even hobby movies are done to make money.
Because if I do that I'm just unconditionally transferring wealth to corporations just as you claimed. No point in doing that while they still get to be "all rights reserved". It's only fair if nobody's protected.
> How would you make money of it? It's not like you can sell it.
By using it to do improve our own systems. Apparently what the GPL already provides used to be the norm back in the day before copyright protection was applied to software. We should go back to those days.
> How would it be paid for, since there's nothing that could be sold?
Selling copies after the fact doesn't make sense. Paying for the product before the work is done does. Crowdfunding, patronage. I'm sure they'll figure it out if they have to.
So basically every creator would have to have a rich patron/be funded by a government/etc. who would obviously generally want to impose their own agendas?
> Crowdfunding
So unless an author already has a widespread reputation and a large group of people willing to support him he has no right to benefit from his works? Somebody who is completely unknown but ends up publishing a book which ends up widely popular gets absolutely nothing?
I find it inconceivable bizarre that anyone would ever want to live in such a dark and intellectually subdued world for some ideological reason. I mean abolishing copyright would throw us back to the 15-16th century just with internet instead of the printing press...
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-legal-war-over-disco-elysium-rea...
https://kotaku.com/witcher-author-threatens-cd-projekt-red-w...
https://www.dualshockers.com/nintendo-copyright-strikes-laws...
Copyright is not in place to protect the authors, but to protect the corporations that own the rights.
The system is not perfect, obviously. There are problems that need to be addressed. But I refuse to view the world in black and white terms
Copyright does protect the author or at least most authors to varying degrees. Just go around and ask any author whether they'd prefer the entire concept of copyright to be abolished because it's used to "protect the corporations"...
> You are already living in that dark an intellectually subdued world
And I'm certain it could get even darker with no copyright protections at all.
But you are "certain" copyright is good, and removing it would be terrible. That's awfully close to painting things in black and white.
> Just go around and ask any author
I put all my work under open source licenses and creative commons. If copyright disappeared I would just continue to do so. Corporations would be screwed, but art can go on without them.
Already a thing. They even have an euphemism for it: "producer". Every time you watch a film or something, look for the producers in the credits. Those are the guys with the money.
If it's no longer possible to make any profitable movies whatsoever, just try to imagine what happens...
Well they managed to realize a couple of decent movies in the USSR so maybe the situation of 99% government or interest group funded cinema and TV production won't be utterly terrible just very miserable.
Not all of them.
Thos who do want to make money will need to adapt to other business models - probably something closer to crowdfunding or patronage. How exactly is irrelevant for copyright reform as the law should not concern itself with protecting specific jobs.