[literalusername]

…without copyright laws, there would be a significant decline in the production of movies, music, games, and many other costly mediums.

I disagree. What were talking about here is art, and mankind has been producing art since long before government-guarded IP. It isn't because IP laws provide an incentive that we create things; we do it because it's human nature. The ability to freely copy other people's work lowers the barrier to entry, so eliminating IP laws would spur a creative renaissance. The only downside is those big media companies would be forced to innovate.

[dexy]

Would people still create cave paintings without copyright? Absolutely. Songs? Yes. Books? Fewer, but probably yes. Multi-million dollar movies and games? Absolutely not.

Art would still exist, but it would exist much differently than it does today. Free copying does allow for more creative freedom in many respects, though I would argue many of those benefits can already be had through current fair-use practices, which are quite extensive.

I've often heard the argument thrown around that "the world could live without another Transformers 2." I don't know if you fall into that camp, but many people really enjoyed that movie. In aggregate they were willing to pay more to see it than ~99.999% of individuals globally produce in a lifetime. If big-budget movies, pop stars, and games cease to exist, other things will surely take their place, but they won't be the same and most media will start to look a lot more like youtube and less like hollywood. Most people probably don't want that.

People need incentives to do things. Incentives are probably the second most powerful force in the universe, after compounding interest :), and a lack of them is why communism fails. People are not benevolent. They do derive utility from things other than money, but money is able to coordinate the interests of many individuals from disparate backgrounds under a common goal. Other things can too, and the Linux OS I'm running right now is a testament to that, but Linux can exist in a world with copyright while Transformers 2 most likely cannot. At least not until everybody in the world is a lot richer and making Transformers 2 is a lot easier.

[nickik]

I think this is to some extents true for big movies and games but in longer terms some system will build up how to fund these project. No copyright does not mean that there will not be any contracts. You can still produce a movie and sell it to somebody, people cant copy it if they don't have it. For exampe a groupe of movietheaters could get together and fund a project, they will be the only ones who have the movie in a good quality. People still buy stuff even without copyright. Systems like steam would probebly still work, consol games would probebly still work. My pridiction would be: First a downfall to almost nothing then systems develop that still make some of those things possible in a smaller scala, these systems will get better over time.

[dexy]

You should realize that what you're advocating is much worse than the current copyright system. You say that movie studios should produce a movie, lock it up extra tight and only show let theaters show it in high quality. If the movie is never leaked, then you're hurting everyone who would rather have paid to watch that movie on DVD, or through paid digital download, or off of Netflix. You're saying people should hide information and limit how it's disseminated even more instead of sharing it for a price. Yes, with contracts you could still have DVDs and require purchasers of them to agree to the contract and pay if they're caught sharing it. With contracts, you can do everything that's possible under copyright EXCEPT punish the freeloaders. Once something gets leaked, everybody who shares it from then on is free of any culpability, because they never signed a contract. This leaves us in essentially the exact same place we started. Either everything will be locked down tight and less useful to the public or else it will instantly be leaked, and then the leaked information will be sold/distributed legally where now it cannot be and the system will break.

[literalusername]

…most media will start to look a lot more like youtube and less like hollywood.

The difference between youtube and Hollywood is such a chasm only because of IP laws. Hollywood is a superstar market. It's filled with aspiring artists waiting tables because the barrier to entry has been artificially inflated.

Hollywood hates innovation. Transformers 3 could be funded in a myriad of ways that have never been attempted. But because they'd rather lock down IP laws, the entire economy suffers.

A world without IP protection is not a world in which there is no money to be made; It's a world in which new business models need to be innovated.

[capisce]

Those movies could still get made, if a large enough group of people pledged to fund the production of the movie. The fact that other people would then get to watch it for free wouldn't deter those pledgers, if their interest in that movie concept was high enough. It would be a different kind of model, but it could work.

[Anderkent]

In a trade between freedom of information and Transformers 3 I will choose the freedom.

[dexy]

Freedom of information is only useful to those who can use it. Most people do not gain much from free information, as they can't make money with it and they're not interested in learning from it. They gain more from the entertainment Transformers provides. In the world we on Hacker News live in, freedom of information is much much more valuable than it is to the vast majority of mankind. Because of its value to us, things like open source and wikipedia exist, where people share things freely because everyone benefits so much from that ecosystem. I'm commenting here right now because I benefit from this ecosystem and want to do my part to keep it going. The beauty is, as I said before, that this can all exist in spite of copyright. Louis C.K. can make a ton of money without needing to use DRM or enforce his copyrights. People can choose not to use the system, and do so to great success. But some things require the system to exist, and those things don't need to be sacrificed. Vote with your dollars not by pirating but by supporting content that is open source, or that doesn't use DRM. Pirating more convinces the powers that be that it's a growing problem, supporting content made by people who aren't draconian hoarders of information will encourage more to be open with their content.

[CJefferson]

While you might think that, that is not how you want to argument phrasing to the general public. I am completely sure they would choose Transformers 3.

[tzs]

> The ability to freely copy other people's work lowers the barrier to entry, so eliminating IP laws would spur a creative renaissance

You lost me. What would being able to freely copy lower the barrier to entry of? How would it spur a creative renaissance?

[literalusername]

To use software as an example, it's much easier to improve upon someone else's work when their work is open source. You fork it and improve it -- much easier than building it from scratch. This process also aids in learning how to write good software, by becoming familiar with other people's techniques.

On the other hand, if you're afraid that using someone else's work can result in a huge fine, then you're less likely to do the project at all. If you choose to do it anyway, you'll have a lot more work to do. There is a higher barrier to entry.

[tzs]

Software doesn't really make your point, because eliminating copyright would not make all software open source. In fact, it would most likely cause a shift toward closed source as companies could take open source and use it in closed products without having to release their modified source.

[literalusername]

As much as I want to refute this, I have to admit you have a good point.

[njs12345]

Mashup artists, for example, would be able to use a much greater variety of samples if IP laws were less restrictive.

[frobozz]

"A significant decline", not a total collapse. Prior to IP laws, individuals took matters into their own hands to prevent losses due to plagiarism. I wouldn't be surprised if the removal of legal protection would lead to more ubiquitous and intrusive DRM.

That said, one potential advantage is that if content is being produced simply because creation is human nature, rather than because a similar item sold well last year; it could lead to higher quality output.