[akadruid]

The argument that art will disappear without copyright has been comprehensively disproven. People have been infringing copyright on musical recordings with increasing efficiency for decades. If this argument were correct, the Top 40 would be the Top 5 by now, but it turns out there are currently more people creating more music than any time in history. Equally, by that argument, music would have been a rare oddity prior to copyright (it wasn't). Copyright, it seems, is useful to encourage the development of publishing businesses, but has a negative impact on the creation of art, primarly by muting the influnce of previous artists. The lower cost of distribution, brought on by technological change, is clearly a benefit to both artists and art lovers, but copyright in its current form is a net negative for society.

On the other hand, who cares if the middlemen get paid to distribute frozen copies of art, even if such distribution is to cheap to measure?

[RiderOfGiraffes]

Consider the possibility that while there is more music now, it is less good. Consider that there are brilliant musicians who no longer make music because they cannot afford to do so. We lose out, we get the crap, because the best musicians no longer produce in a form we have access to.

Yes there was a lot of music before copyright, but copying was less efficient back then, so your arguments don't really make the watertight case you seem to think they do.

I know some brilliant musicians who have turned to other means to live, and who no longer use their gifts, talents and skills in music. Instead there's vast amounts of crap floating around, with the occasional gem that's hard to find.

I'm not saying copyright made it better, because there were the toads and slimey bastards in the middle, taking their excessive cut and squeezing the artists. What I'd really like to see is the best artists (not just musicians) being fairly compensated, just as I'd like to see the best programmers getting the recognition they deserve.

It doesn't happen, it probably won't happen. Certainly it never has happened.

But instead of technology just making the copying easier, wouldn't it be nice if it also made the proper compensation of artists possible.

Won't happen. The very people who could make it happen are the ones who claim it doesn't matter.