Why don't people want copyright?
Say you wrote a book. Why should other companies/other people be able to copy it just because a certain number of years has passed?
Copyright isn't a "natural" right. For physical possessions, you can defend them or have others defend them. For copyright, you are using my tax money to have the government prevent what I can do with what ideas are presented to me, even if it doesn't directly harm you. So it feels kind of like bullying.
But copyright does make sense "for a limited time". I think the big issues is that the current time limits don't make sense. Let's say that you interpret that having a government-enforced monopoly on creative works is what lets you make money off them, and that making money is what promotes the initial creation of those works. In reality, most of the market value on the vast majority of instances of several classes of works is much shorter than "life of the author plus 70 years". For example, a new hit song may sale quite a bit in the first year, a bit more over the next few years, then it dies out into obscurity. Long copyrights keep such works dead (no one will continue to publish it if it doesn't make money, and nobody else is allowed to publish it). So this is a net loss to society.
Now what what really makes sense, and feels more fair, is that if you as an author want to use my government's force to maintain an exclusive monopoly on your work, then you should pay for that service. This could be a per year fee (doesn't have to be a lot), so that if the work becomes abandoned then it doesn't become lost to society.
Physical property rights aren't natural either. We depend on the government to prevent theft. Without that, anybody strong enough could just break into our house and take what they wanted.
What may be natural, is the human feeling of ownership. But that isn't always aligned with the legal definition. For example poor people feeling that their gentrifying neighborhood is being taken away from them, even when they didn't "own" any land in it. Plagiarism too - we don't like to see others take credit for our work or ideas (which aren't copyright).
For-pay copyright sounds like a good idea. I wonder though if it would prevent many lucky great work getting off the ground. You'd have to predict in advance that it might be successful before paying the fee. Poor creators of work would lose their right to copyright because they didn't want to take that gamble on everything they produced.
> For-pay copyright sounds like a good idea. I wonder though if it would prevent many lucky great work getting off the ground.
Grant a decade for free. After ten years, you probably know if it's successful or not. Then you could choose to register for more (or not) with a good understanding of its value.
Because the book you wrote is not original. It is based on the work of many that have come before it, and just like you copied others (perhaps indirectly) those that came after you should be able to do the same with your work.
because the freedom to share ideas and culture is paramount, first and foremost. There exists no legitimacy to the end of restricting people's ability to share things. The only reason copyright law exists is as a means to the end of promoting economic basis for progress (and so, it is failing whenever it isn't achieving that end).
And copyright and patents were introduced to foster creation and publishing of new works. Why do you think patents are public once filed? By having a copyright system, creators were encouraged to create and publish more, knowing they could reap the benefits for a reasonable time, while allowing others to reuse it under well-defined terms.
Normally laws are constructive: you can do anything, unless it's so objectionable that people pass a law against it.
Let's say I am the first one to find a star. Should I be able to stop other people from looking at it? Maybe, but the burden is on me to convince a lot of people that such a law is justified; not on stargazers to justify why they should be able to look at it.
Copyright for a limited term makes sense. It doesn't make sense to have copyright extend 70 years after the author's death, which is the current regime in the US.
But copyright does make sense "for a limited time". I think the big issues is that the current time limits don't make sense. Let's say that you interpret that having a government-enforced monopoly on creative works is what lets you make money off them, and that making money is what promotes the initial creation of those works. In reality, most of the market value on the vast majority of instances of several classes of works is much shorter than "life of the author plus 70 years". For example, a new hit song may sale quite a bit in the first year, a bit more over the next few years, then it dies out into obscurity. Long copyrights keep such works dead (no one will continue to publish it if it doesn't make money, and nobody else is allowed to publish it). So this is a net loss to society.
Now what what really makes sense, and feels more fair, is that if you as an author want to use my government's force to maintain an exclusive monopoly on your work, then you should pay for that service. This could be a per year fee (doesn't have to be a lot), so that if the work becomes abandoned then it doesn't become lost to society.