Copyright through moral means, not legal ones
When I create any content that could be easily mimiced or copied, I honestly hope that other people don’t just take that content and redistribute it for their own profits. I don’t have a problem with other people taking what I made and making copies to redistribute freely — in fact, this is good for me if my name is still attached. It is completely free marketing! I also don’t have a problem if someone takes what I created and charges others to view it. Someone can duplicate all my websites, books and other creations and stick it on their site, run ads or charge for it, and I’d be 100% satisfied, as long as my name is attached to it somewhere.
So why am I against copyright? Because there is no way to enforce it morally. The few people who can enforce it legally have bottomless pockets — they’re able to use the legal system to manipulate, regulate and restrain the actions of other individuals. When someone takes my easily-duplicated content and reproduces it for their own media (websites, CDs, printed books, whatever), they are using their own labor to duplicate what I originally created. Of course it costs them less to do this, generally, because they didn’t invest the time to write it. So what? I don’t write articles just so a reader will see them once and forget about me — I write in hopes that the reader will come back tomorrow and the next day, reply to the articles on the forum or in e-mail, and help me create more value in myself through new knowledge and debate. What do I lose if someone takes my words and reproduces those words with their own name on them? So someone else might profit from what I created, but it still takes time, labor and drive for them to profit. If they profited in a huge way, it would eventually be discovered that they didn’t create that content. Remember Milli Vanilli? The fall came very, very quickly.
I do believe that I morally can not copy the works of another. I restrain myself often when I see something interesting said or written by someone who doesn’t have an audience. I work very hard to give respect and reference to anything I quote or use — but I do so out of moral obligation, not legal. There is no legal means for me to protect my work as my own, other than hoping that I can embarass the person who copies my work without offering a reference.
If they do copy me, I usually don’t care. I write in such a way, on such niche topics, that someone interested in the copied medium will likely still find me evetually. Google sends enough traffic to my sites that I see no need to protect anything I do legally, the few times I’ve found others copying my work, I still end up getting traffic from it even without the reference or in-bound linking.
Copyright has no justification in the legal spectrum. In order for true freedom to exist, we must repudiate copyright and instead start instilling in others the knowledge that copying is only moral if you produce a reference, and even compensate the original author in some fashion. Compensation can come in the form of just a reference to the author, it can be a financial compensation, or it can even be something unique and different that gives the author some form of tribute for creating the content originally.
I don’t propose to know the answer to the compensation structure other than to say that you morally know what the content you’re copying is worth to you. Use your moral guidelines to set forth the means and amount of compensation when you copy someone else’s content.
Discuss this at the Repudiate Copyright forum.