[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by leebase

And yet...we DO have copyright now. There can be both just and unjust fights over what is a violation of copyright. And yet....more books are written now than ever. Movies are made. Games are made. Theme parks are built. Tv shows are written.

Only very few posters in this thread have challenged the general idea of copyright. Personally, I think it is unavoidable in a capitalist society (which we will be stuck with for a long time, so we will need to have something like copyright for a long time.)

Originally Posted by leebase

There is no limit on fiction. Either you are trying to write something "original" -- which you'll have no trouble doing. Or you are TRYING to bank on someone else's material. Which you are precluded from doing and SHOULD be...lest you work out an agreement with the rights holder. Which you may or may not be able to do....which is as it should be.

What you are overlooking is the fact that literature is not exclusively about making money. Shakespeare didn't use Holinshed's Chronicles because they were a smash hit, but because they inspired him. Say there was a brilliant writer inspired by Kafka's Metamorphosis. Under current copyright law they can just use the story and do with it as they please. Which is a good thing, because that writer might produce something just as brilliant as Kafka's story, which would benefit all of humanity. But with eternal copyright, our author would have to deal with the Holtzbrinck Group, one of the most powerful corporations in the publishing business, which owned the copyright before Kafka's works became PD. So our author can bury the idea right at the start.

I know your reply: why don't they create their own giant bug? But what if they want to use passages from the actual story, putting them in a different context, and what if precisely this kind of montage was essential for the new story?

Originally Posted by leebase

There's a reason people want to create Disney Princess halloween costumes. Sure, you can buy "Sleepy Queen" costume that looks a lot like (but not too much like) Snow White. But Disney has spent billions on making their version of various Princess characters such that there is a demand to be Ariel or Snow White or any other one.

And you can create any monster and call it Frankenstein....but if you want your Frankenstein to look exactly like the one in the movies....you probably have to pay someone. As you should.

It is no small task to not only create a character but create the demand for a character (or story universe).

And, fwiw, there's only value in these characters because everyone CAN'T copy them. If everyone COULD...then the value would quickly evaporate. What people want is to be able to horn in on Disney's built up value....but if they could then everyone could....and then there'd be no value.

Disney can sell Mickey Mouse ears for a profit. If everyone could sell them...then nobody could make any money. (see Android phones)

But all this only makes sense in a context where creativity has already been reduced to nothing but a commodity. I guess in a world in which that nightmare is reality, there is nothing to say against your points. But we don't quite live in that world yet, and limited copyright is one of the few things we are holding onto, keeping us only halfway down the cliff.