First, a caveat.
I, personally, firmly and irrevocably believe that current copyright law is in desperate and serious need of overhaul. Specifically, I am convinced that the current term of protection provided is too long to a ludicrous degree. I am aware that the only real reason for the current length of the copyright protection period is because the Disney Corporation (and a few other organizations in a similar position with regards to copyrightable materials) purchased legislation to make it so.
That caveat aside, the basic system formed by the copyright laws is a sound one for accomplishing its stated objectives - namely to encourage the proliferation of the arts.
It is unrealistic to believe that a system that requires persons interested in expanding the body of creative work to obtain funding for their endeavor in advance is even marginally functional. For starters, asking people to pay for an artistic work in advance is asking them to buy a pig in a poke in the most fundamental sense.
“Hey! You with the cash! I’m going to write a book here, and if you want to read it, you should give me a dollar right now, or else no book for you!”
Faugh. Very, very few reasonable people would be willing to part with their cash on that premise. There is an unimaginable amount of heinously, grossly, fundamentally, intestinal-distress-inducingly bad writing abroad in the world. The odds are not good that our cornerside author is capable of producing readable writing, let alone writing that appeals to my particular taste. Hell, sometimes authors whose work I generally enjoy write books I can’t manage to plow through.
Since getting paid upfront is plauged with a number of let’s call them logistical impracticalites, that leaves getting paid AFTER producing the work in question. The only real way to assure this is to guarantee to the author (in copyright parlance, all persons producing copyrightable material are “authors” regardless of medium) that they and only they will be entitled to make decisions about the fate of their completed work. This is, in essence, what the copyright law does.
In practice, authors customarily sell their exclusive right (or rent it, depending) to corporate entities, who then sell copies to the general public. There’s a whole risk vs. reward dynamic there that I’m not going to go into. The author is then repaid for their labor, and can trot off to their garret (or whatever) and begin the process again.
The author gets something (paid). The corporation gets something (well, duh - corporations always get something). The public gets something (an addition to the arts). Everyone gets something. Of course, the general public has to PAY to get their something - but then I have to pay for oranges, gasoline, electricity, and the exceptionally fabulous leather jacket I wore to work today, too.
Unlike the windshield washer analogy I read earlier in this thread, I am in no way obligated to PURCHASE the copyrighted work. Nobody hucked the book at me and forced me to read it and then pony up $7.99 for the trouble. The case with music broadcast is slightly different - it is totally possible to enjoy someone’s copyrighted musical matieral through no action of one’s own - via radio, TV, etc. However, you may rest assured that somewhere, someone paid for that. In the instances where nobody paid for the privilege of broadcasting the song (as is sometimes the case) then it is being aired in the hope that once you hear it, you will want to hear it again - therefore inducing you to purchase a copy. The difference between the radio and the milk-for-sale analogy is as follows:
Music isn’t milk. Self-evident, I know. True all the same, though. Music (or literature, or sculpture, or photography) are not concrete products with physical presence. Their value is not intrinsic. The “property” part of intellectual property is pretty much a misnomer of convenience. Downloading a track off the net because you don’t feel like shelling out the 12 bucks for a CD is analagous to walking into the store with a sale on milk, grabbing a gallon, and walking back out without paying at all. Milk sellers with below-cost sales are hoping you buy more things than milk, but they ain’t giving milk away for free.
The reason people purchase music is to enable themselves to hear the song they want to hear when they want to hear it. We buy CDs (or tapes or vinyl) because we want the convenience of being sure we can hear the song we like whenever we want to hear it. You are totally free to try and slake your yen to hear a given song by listening to radio stations whose format includes that song until they play it if you want. Really, we buy convenience.
Another issue with doing away with copyright protection is just as LeeshaJoy (and a few others) have pointed out. Any number of people produce work that is ELIGIBLE for copyright, but that they have no intention of ever publishing for any reason. J.D. Salinger for famous example. Myself for another, exceptionally less famous, example.
I keep a journal. An old-fashioned, paper journal. If Mr2001 or another one of the extreme “no more copyright!” brigade were to break into my home, steal my journal and proceed to print out copies for distribution and there would be no mechanism available for me to prevent that. I could get angry and yell a lot, but I would have no right to prevent that. I never intend to publish my journal (oh God no), but that really doesn’t matter.
Copyrightable work does, in fact, include such things as personal correspondence, personal photographs, journals, etc. Copyright law allows us to prohibit the use of such things - it’s part and parcel of the right that allows authors to sell their works for profit.
For those who rail against copyright law on the grounds that they cannot then make backup copies of works - or copy a work in part or in whole for academic purposes - or make a mixed tape for your sweetie, I invite you to explore the concept of “fair use”.
Copyright law only kicks in when you attempt to distribute (or perform, or derive, or any of the other rights covered under the Copyright Act) a copyrighted work absent the permission of the author (or the person to whom the author has assigned those rights) AND (really there’s two parts here so let me repeat it) AND such contemplated use cannot be termed “fair use” under the meaning of the phrase.
I download songs for free all the time. Songs I already own. Songs I don’t feel like burning from CD onto my hard drive. Songs I own in a format inconvenient for my intended personal use. I was a student for many many years. During that time, I copied I-don’t-even-know how many documents - for use in academic arenas. I routinely quote movies, literature and music. I possess backup copies of computer games and other software made by me or at my instruction by friends and relatives. All fair use.
I read a lot about people attempting to justify their theft by condemning the law that they’re breaking while carrying out their theft. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not the law. Hell, the basis of the law is rational, purposeful and well-thought-out for the purpose. It’s socially responsible and a creative way to solve the problem of how to encourage the spread of the boundaries of art, culture and science. The current iteration of the law needs some work for sure, but the basic law is a good one.