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Originally Posted by PKFFW
Why should an artist be required to do any of that if someone wants to read their book?
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Why should they have to learn IP law, learn document formatting, understand complex contracts, analyze royalty statements, go to book signings, and be active on Twitter and Facebook in order to market their book?
There is no job that doesn't come with "but I just want to do the parts I like, that I'm good at, and hand the rest over to someone else."
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How many people here advocating such and who trade x hours for x dollars each day to earn a living, would be happy if their boss asked them to put in extra effort, time, work or add some extra value before they were willing to pay them for their regular work efforts?
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Like, "wear a suit" and "go to the company picnic?" Neither of those affects how well one answers phones, files papers, manages accounting software, writes code, or does desktop publishing.
The vast majority of all business work can be done perfectly well in t-shirts and sweatpants, and yet most offices require employees to buy much more expensive clothes for work. Refusal to participate in office social gatherings can get a person passed over for promotion or sometimes fired.
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Maybe your employer wants you to run a customer service chat room for them in your spare time before you get your pay each week for doing your regular hours. Sound like a good plan? Yeah, didn't think so. 
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I'm not saying the extra social-work or "bonus content" for authorized-source purchases are a good-and-reasonable substitute for copyright law; I'm saying they're possible.
When radio got popular, formerly-successful singers who had great stage presence but limited vocal talent lost their edge; performers with voices like angels but who looked like sticks holding a microphone could be successful. Remove copyright, and authors who are comfortable & skilled at interacting with their audience will have an edge over better writers who are more solitary. (It's possible that solitary writers could get someone to be their public face--a best friend or spouse could just as easily be the active presence to drive sales.)
It would push authors into being "performers" rather than "builders" who can easily keep selling what they've made; while I don't like that, I can accept that we could find a way to encourage them to keep making things. (Probably either by re-instituting something like copyright law, or coming up with a complex set of contracts about sales rights.)
Also not saying the transition would be smooth & simple; it'd probably be hell for about a decade while the current publishing & entertainment industries collapsed, with little pocket fragments surviving by latching onto some method of income that works without the support of copyright.