So without copyright anyone can print To Kill a Mockingbird without paying royalties to Harper Lee. How would that be a better system. Should she make her money charging admission to public readings of her work, as is proposed for musicians (making income from giving concerts rather than selling recordings) in a copyrightless world?
Copyright is nearly useless in a world where there is an infinite supply of any given work for negligible cost. Anyone can print anything without paying royalties to anyone, with the only actual barrier between them and doing so being an unenforcable, obsolete law made for a world with a finite supply of a work.
But I read Harper Lee's work and enjoyed it. I want to pay her for it, so I don't just steal it without doing so. But I also don't want to pay a publisher for Harper Lee's work because I don't know how much the publisher is going to give Harper Lee directly. I'd much rather pay Harper Lee herself. I haven't been coerced into doing so - I do so because I enjoyed her work and want to pay her for it. This is particularly true if I acquired her work conveniently at a time of my choosing using an outlet on the Internet that I know she herself set up.
Louis CK, Radiohead, and Andrew Sullivan are all making a living on this model. They are still selling recordings. They know that people will probably still acquire their work without paying them, but make enough on the good people who don't so to offset the cost, especially since in doing so they pay middlemen nothing, or nearly nothing.
People will pay a lot for both convenience and the satisfaction of knowing they compensated the original author him- or herself for an enjoyable experience. Paraphrasing Jobs, stealing a work is only free if your time is worth nothing. I don't need copyright to know that.
>Copyright is nearly useless in a world where there is an infinite supply of any given work for negligible cost.
The entire point of copyright is that copies cost significantly less than the original. For example, no one has a copyright on a well cut diamond, because there would be no point. However, if after you put in however much work it takes to cut the diamond, people are able to make perfect duplicates at little to no cost, then you need copyright to protect your initial investment.
The only reason it is easier to buy works than pirate them is because copyright does exist, so there are additional barriers to getting the work in a way that the author does not want. As it is today, people buy books through publishers. If there was no copyrights, why should those publishers pay the author anything?
@droithomme
I was using Harper Lee as an example. I didn't actually take an ebook and read it without paying her. I read To Kill a Mockingbird from a print book I bought a long time ago, but will gladly send her a donation anyway to offset the thievery of Mr. Pinkus.
Substitute any of the other names I mentioned in there and my argument still holds. I have bought a subscription to Andrew Sullivan's blog, voluntarily paid substantially more than $0 for In Rainbows, and paid for Louis CK's latest online only comedy special. Gladly.
You're assuming that the only alternative to copyright is to have no incentive structure at all. There are other models with their own advantages and disadvantages. This is one particular weakness of copyright that an alternative system might avoid.
So without copyright anyone can print To Kill a Mockingbird without paying royalties to Harper Lee. How would that be a better system. Should she make her money charging admission to public readings of her work, as is proposed for musicians (making income from giving concerts rather than selling recordings) in a copyrightless world?