Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
But if you turn it around and ask "do you think authors and all those involved in the book publishing and book selling industries should work for free" then the answer would turn out to be very different.
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Why exactly would the book publishing and book selling industry be working for free? Many people myself included have paid for books in the public domain. There's still the cost of paper, the costs to the bookstore but I wanted paper copies of some things. And authors? even if there are no copyright I imagine there'd be plenty of sales of that first authorized edition before anyone could get their hands on it and make cheap copies, look at what people pay for hardcovers after all when they could wait and get the paperback much cheaper. There's no reason to think those overpriced hardcovers wouldn't sell during the time it takes someone else to set up production just like there's no reason to think people wouldnt' pay a small fee for an ebook that's already properly formatted rather than a quickly thrown together unproofed ocr'd darknet version. Of course the profit margins might go down but there's no right to a certain profit margin, if the free market doesn't want to buy at your price its your problem.
Though I don't personally advocate the elimination of copyright just the shortening of it the sky wouldn't fall and the world wouldn't end. There were after all books music and other art before copyright was invented.