That’s ok, GPL’s entire purpose and only restriction is to prevent other copyrights.
> without copyright, all of the profit made on creative works (of a perhaps smaller pie) would get be kept by distributors like Amazon or Netflix
This is already true in most cases: companies own everything their employees create for them. And without copyright, studios would still pay artists, because that’s the only way art is created (which even rich people want, although you probably and I think their taste mostly sucks, so does everyone else’s…)
You sure about that? Because I'm pretty sure it's "entire purpose" is to keep open source code open.
> And without copyright, studios would still pay artists, because that’s the only way art is created
Hate to break it to you, but that's just not true. But you know what would make that true? Abolishing copyright.
Your second point seems to agree: if copyright was abolished, people (even rich) still want art, so studios would still end up paying artists, from patronage or some other system.
Yes, it would be exclusively the domain of the rich and powerful. If you're a little guy, they'll just shamelessly take what you make, because abolishing copyright abolishes the legal protections a small-time creator depends on.
Let's say you put a ton of effort into making an awesome YouTube channel people love. Copyright is what means a bunch of randos can't just copy all your work and take all the revenue from it. They can even undercut you, because they don't actually have the costs of creating anything. Copyright give you recourse.
Like LLM scrapers?
> Copyright is what means a bunch of randos can't just copy all your work and take all the revenue from it. They can even undercut you
If copyright is abolished, nobody's getting revenue from views. They can resell your work for $0, or can try charging, but word spreads and everyone will seek the free alternative (yours).
Attribution is different, but covered by trademark. Or may be covered by trusted sources like internet archives which prove who was first.
Also, just because randos will copy content doesn't mean that users will go to other channels to view it if they subscribe to your channel.
Assuming copyright gets dismantled is a good-faith way, Netflix/Amazon remaining as gatekeepers sounds unlikely, IMO. Free software clients like Popcorn Time provide a better experience and would be able to exist without threats from copyright trolls.
It's also much more robust regarding cultural preservation (as users and organizations can keep DRM-free local copies) and censorship (being torrent-based makes it much harder to delete a movie from existence).
Thankfully, RMS is not my guru.
Copyright is a valuable legal technology. It should be reformed to curb abuses, but we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I won't use an argument in favor of AI training here because AI can probably still be trained by fair-use information extraction from copyrighted works.
Without copyright, we can return to a patronage based system. Both rich and poor consumers gladly offer proportional patronage for authors they truly believe in.
Humanity will progress just fine via its scientific works which don't really require a copyright. Arxiv proves it.
The cost imposed by GPL not working will be negligible compared to the benefit of free use.