[falcolas]

What's better - high quality and enjoyable, but derivative entertainment, or a substantial drop in the amount of available entertainment?

Have no doubt, even truly creative works would suffer, since there's no incentive for investors to invest even in truly creative work, since there's no monetary return on investment - just a movie which they can't monetize.

Imagine if George RR Martin had to hold a day job in addition to writing - how many books would he have actually written by this point?

[utf985]

I'd say that the abundance of (arguably) high quality derivative content is the worse option. Mostly because the alternative to that is not necessarily a lack of choice.

In my experience, in recent years I've found to enjoy lot more independently produced content (which either happens to be free or very cheaply available) as opposed to big budget titles produced by big corporations. Not because I actively seek such content, but because I genuinely find it to be more worthwhile and enjoyable than the other option.

Now I can't really speak for motion pictures, because I don't watch tv shows and movies anymore - but I can definitely say this is very true for the music and video game industries - big investment and quality are not correlated.

[falcolas]

Isn't it wonderful that both options are available today? You remove IP, you remove an option. Perhaps that doesn't hurt you, but there are quite a few people who appreciate that they can get the output from commercial creators at low prices.