[Zonulet]

You're admitting what most anti-copyright people don't want to admit – if instead of bookshops we only had the Emergency Library, certain classes of works would indeed go away, including most good fiction, not to mention history, biography, reportage etc. You say that's "just what happens" like it's some ineluctable natural process, but none of this is preordained. The traditional model has a lot of defenders – including the majority of readers who are still happy to pay for books – and with those defenders' help it can survive.

[EvanAnderson]

If a market's survival is incumbent upon screwing-up new technology for everybody then I say "Let it die". It it means having draconian laws that tie up the most precious products of human toil in too-lengthy "protection" terms, to the point that works of culture are lost, then I say "Let it die".

Not being able to make a living producing something that no one will pay for sounds very much like a natural, preordained process to me. I can't make a living manufacturing buggy whips or operating elevators anymore. Technology made those jobs go away. It's sad perhaps, from a nostalgic perspective, but the world moved on.

If a business model needs "defenders" in the face of technological change then it's no longer a viable model.

I don't believe a transactional model is the only one that can work. It happens to be convenient for a certain type of creator, but that doesn't mean it's the only one.

I will clarify that I'm most certainly not anti-copyright. I think a lot of value can be derived from a copyright regime based on a more balanced social contract. US copyright law, and those who have "harmonized" with the US, has shifted much too far in the direction of favoring the owners of "intellectual property".

[Nemo_bis]

> certain classes of works would indeed go away

Unlikely and definitely unproven. Historical precedent rather shows that at least 96 % of the books would be produced even without copyright, given less than 4 % bothered to register the copyright when it was mandatory. And less than 1 % of the 4 % required a copyright term longer than 14 years. https://archive.org/details/howtofixcopyrigh00patr/page/104/...

If tomorrow Congress repealed the Berne convention and shortened the copyright term to 5 years from publication, in order to make the Internet Archive's "National Emergency Library" permanent even without fair use, probably a good 99.9 % of the works would still be produced.