>Private property is an extremely useful idea—arguably one of our greatest inventions. So far, each new definition of it has brought us increasing material wealth. [4] It seems reasonable to suppose the newest one will too.
This seems like a somewhat weak argument from extrapolation, since there aren't very many data points and they're so heterogenous.
It seems reasonable to assume that people will respond to lack of incentives in content production by producing less content (if only because they now need full-time jobs outside content creation to support themselves). In a new world without copyright, then, we'll start out with a large "endowment" of movies and music from the "copyright era", but the endowment will grow at a slower pace than it did, and additions to the endowment will be less polished than those from the copyright era. Doesn't obviously seem better or worse to me.
It may be that there just isn't a neat solution to this problem.
This seems like a somewhat weak argument from extrapolation, since there aren't very many data points and they're so heterogenous.
It seems reasonable to assume that people will respond to lack of incentives in content production by producing less content (if only because they now need full-time jobs outside content creation to support themselves). In a new world without copyright, then, we'll start out with a large "endowment" of movies and music from the "copyright era", but the endowment will grow at a slower pace than it did, and additions to the endowment will be less polished than those from the copyright era. Doesn't obviously seem better or worse to me.
It may be that there just isn't a neat solution to this problem.