Quote:
Originally Posted by QuantumIguana
If there were no copyright, authors could not make money.
|
That simply isn't true. Publishers make money on public domain stuff now, even though it's readily available for free elsewhere. There are a number of public works (thousands, I suspect, but at least hundreds) for sale on Amazon and B&N that are available for free (and often of higher quality) through Project Gutenberg, and they do sell.
New material gets published for free, as well, with authors being
given money even though there's no requirement. There's a whole line of computer games that are distributed on the basis of "pay us whatever you feel like" that has made millions.
I agree that a heck of a lot less new material would be available without copyright, but making absolute (and untrue) claims like that doesn't help the argument any.