Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
If authors (and IP creators) cannot make a living by the fruits of their labors they will be forced to do it some other way and the result will be lost culture.
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While what you are saying is plausible, it remains to be seen if "the result will be lost culture." The culture would surely change. There will be no Disneys; yet there would be Aristotles, Shakespeares, samizdats (the samizdat authors were not only uncompensated, they risked being imprisoned in the Gulag for their works), Linuses Torvaldses.
Copyright is a relatively recent invention (since the Statute of Anne/Copyright Act of 1709). It could be that our culture has been greatly impoverished compared to what it might have been without the invention of the copyright.
By the way, only after the 1886 Berne Convention, the copyright became automatic. Before that time, the authors had to opt in (i.e. assert, declare, register etc. their claim) in order to be covered by the copyright. And the United States did not join the Berne Convention until 1989!!!