If I could copy someone's birdhouse, and they could still keep it, why should they even bother putting time into making the birdhouse in the first place if the whole point was to make money off of it? In that case, there's no incentive to create anything at all.
And secondly, I believe people need to respect other people's rules for their own content. It's rude to disregard someone's wishes with regard to what they've created. If someone says "Yeah, go ahead and feel free to copy my book" then that's fine. But if someone says "I'd really prefer it if people did not copy and distribute my work", and you do so anyway, well... that's just not very nice because you're disrespecting that person's wishes.
The only thing that matters when it comes to copyrights is what benefits society. It is not a matter of being rude or not being rude, it is not a matter of morality, it is not a matter of the creator's wishes, it is a matter of ensuring that the general public has access to "science and useful arts." Copyrights were created to promote businesses that make copies of creative works, because in the 18th century that was the best way to spread knowledge and art.
Of course, today we have a much better system for spreading knowledge: the Internet. We should be promoting that, and developing new systems for paying for creative work that are based on using the Internet (and especially peer to peer networks) to spread that work.
I like this. Living in America, I get bombarded with the Libertarian idea that one should focus on the self so much that I forget that there was a time when focusing on the progress of society was not heresy.
> If I could copy someone's birdhouse, and they could still keep it, why should they even bother putting time into making the birdhouse in the first place if the whole point was to make money off of it? In that case, there's no incentive to create anything at all.
You've just glimpsed the future. The creation of content without monetization as the primary, or indeed any, motivation.
There are other motivations to create original content, and monetization can be achieved indirectly (e.g. musicians sharing their music for free to sell concert tickets or merchandise, authors writing books to sell public speaking engagements) so that those involved in the creation of original content can still earn a living doing so.
Right, I can see things headed that way. I mean, people already create a lot of things just because they want to, and they want to see them shared.
The problem is that when the creation of something is expressly for the purpose of maintaining someone's livelihood, they should be the only person who decides how that content is handled. It isn't (or shouldn't) be up to everyone else to decide how their work is distributed just because everyone else thinks the world would be a better place if they just copied it all over the place.
The fact that their livelihood depends on other people consuming the content they create in specific ways (i.e. remunerating them in the process) does not give them the right to limit the ways in which other people can consume said content.
And secondly, I believe people need to respect other people's rules for their own content. It's rude to disregard someone's wishes with regard to what they've created. If someone says "Yeah, go ahead and feel free to copy my book" then that's fine. But if someone says "I'd really prefer it if people did not copy and distribute my work", and you do so anyway, well... that's just not very nice because you're disrespecting that person's wishes.