[JoeD]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

And yet, the bottled water industry makes millions selling something that almost everyone has access to for free.

You don't always have free access to water though. When you're out walking, there's often no taps nor clean water supply.

If people have poor water quality in their homes, bottled water in quantity also makes sense (or a filtration system).

People pay for internet access even in areas with substantial free public wifi centres.

I'm not aware of examples of that, but even so, if you're sharing wifi, you have to be nearby such a location and even if you live within it, you have to accept the issues of bandwidth competition depending on the number of other users. You also have to take more care over privacy/security when anyone else on the same wifi network can read your data.

A lot of people are willing to pay for something they can get for free if it's convenient and they think the price is reasonable.

I agree. However, if movies had no copyright, I'm certain it would be very convenient to download it for free and watch it on your HDTV/Home cinema system vs paying to do the same. Even the current torrent system would become more user friendly and likely be built directly into the viewing apps such as XBMC or other media center apps. Since they'd have no legal worries about providing easy access to free downloads now they're no longer illegal.

Whilst I wouldn't go as far as saying it'd destroy all forms of entertainment (business often finds a way even if the players have to change for that to happen), I do believe it would be a seismic shift in the way entertainment is made/distributed and consumed.

Could we live without copyright, I imagine so. Would we want to, I'm not sure that's really possible to answer.

They made them for a long time when they could only sell them to cinemas.

For a long time we didn't have 40 inch TVs or projectors in the home and surround sound systems and the same quality or higher in many case than cinemas have.

I agree, but most of the people who argue about copyright seem content with the idea of Life + whatever.

I just don't like the life part. I'd rather copyright be X years. Whether that's 10, 20, 50 or 100 I don't care all that much.

This 70-to-130-years garbage just means "everything except the mega-cash-cows fades into obsolescence and obscurity before anyone else gets to play with it."

I agree and there's good arguments for shorter or longer copyright times. A fair balance could be made without the life + part though imo.