|
I don't hold quite the same view as Andrew H., in that art would still survive in a PD-only world. Eliminating copyright won't stop people from creating.
However, it will destroy most of the financial incentives, the ability of artists to support themselves with their work and many large-scale works of art.
Also, it helps to be cognizant of at least a few basic facts of art history, such as:
• The majority of art was/is created by professionals.
• "Hobbyists" can occasionally make excellent works, but it is a rarity, due in no small part to a lack of time and resources to develop their abilities.
• Donations are not going to work.
• It's ridiculously obvious that many more people are creating work despite copyrights, and that patents are not slowing down innovation.
• It is not inconceivable that content producers would just re-create copyrights by some other mechanism -- e.g. requiring buyers to sign extensive license agreements that bar unauthorized replication or duplicate works, on pain of severe financial penalties.
As to "peoples will do it for free, I swears it" I agree that some work can be done without pay, but other work cannot.
Writing a book while sitting alone in your house is cheap, fun, relatively easy, and is a "social good" for which people may well eschew financial incentives. However, editing a book -- which will dramatically improve the quality of the work -- is not cheap, fun, easy or a social good. It's a market skill, any half-way decent editor is going to expect payment for slogging through your Harry Potter fanfic, and surprise! professionals actually need to eat, and like to get paid for their work.
Similarly, in case you missed it: Major movie productions can cost millions, if not hundreds of millions, to film. You need to coordinate a large staff of professionals for weeks, if not months -- i.e. it's not a job for hobbyists. There is no way people will donate millions to Warner Brothers for the latest Batman movie -- nor is a bunch of schmucks filming their own "$5.95 Garage Batman Re-Revisted" and putting it on Youtube a real replacement.
In short: Throwing out copyright is not going to give us a world full of puppies and whipped-cream bras. And we seem to have the latter, despite the allegedly destructive stranglehold of IP laws.
|