Without copyright laws there probably wouldn't be incentive to create the lower budget movies either. Same goes for tv shows. Why create something that costs millions when it can be freely reproduced? Right now the entertainment industry's profits are only hurting because of illegal downloading. But if you get rid of copyright laws all together, their business model is obsolete. They'll simply stop producing a lot of the stuff they currently produce.
The stuff on college humor is funny but the resources required to produce it do not come close to creating something like Lost or probably even something like South Park. You may say, so what? I don't like those shows anyway. But that's not the point. The point is, why not give protection to people who create products that are centered around a business model that requires strict control of reproducibility? Protecting Warner Bros copyrights doesn't take any rights away from college humor, or really anyone else.
And they're not forcing you into using/viewing/listening to their stuff. They produce a product with a particular agreement attached, that you not reproduce it, it's up to you whether you want to accept it and use it or not. So who is being hurt if there are laws that protect their business model?
Patents and copyrights are two different things. I see no reason why businesses should not have copyright laws there to protect them if they feel the need to do so. Patents are a more complicated subject as they probably do have more of an influence on the rate of innovation which means the greater good should be considered.
There probably are games that have a devoted enough audience that would be glad to support them. There are open source products like this as well. But it still isn't a good argument against protecting a business model that requires enforcing the exclusionary right of reproduction. In fact, having both probably makes them both better in the long run since the open source developers often wants to match their commercial counterparts and obviously the commercial producers want to have a credible reason to put a price tag on their product.
Take again the forum software we are using as an example. Most people who have ever run a serious forum will probably tell you that vBulletin is by far the best. Although you may not need what it offers until your forum does indeed become a "serious" one.
Jelsoft Enterprises, the maker of the forum software we're using has and continues to produce the software as part of a for-profit endeavor, and in part that means charging for a license to use the software.
In the software industry, there may be some cases where there is an open source alternative that is better or as good, but in many cases the license/fee based software is better. And the one that relies on copyright protection may have not been produced at all if copyright laws did not exist. It just depends on who's behind the software and what their motivations are.
So if you don't have copyright laws, you are actually limiting the choices. Some people will never get into creating software if they can't make money up front on each copy, and they might have been the ones best able to make the software.
However, people who want to make software and give it away from free can do so if they wish. In my view, it's their right as the creator and should be protected.
erisch said:
I think I just gave you one. Choice isn't just important for consumers, it's important for potential producers as well. Because having a greater diversity of business models or ways to make money means different types of people with different motivations will be attracted to each model.
More diversity for the producer I think will also generally mean more for the consumer.
I do think your lack of support for copyrights is consistent with your socialistic philosophies, though, erisch. You seem to just not like for-profit business.
