| Zkuq said: I don't think e.g. very many books would get written without copyright, because copying is so easy nowadays, and I don't think we want a world where literature isn't doing too well. |
That is most likely untrue. First of all books existed before copyright. But more importantly: there were studies on the era that had established printing with Gutenbergs printing press but before the introduction of copyright, and it saw an explosion of authors and texts. The reason is the economical incentives for printers. Before copyright a successful text probably was printed by others withing a few months. So there was a strong incentive to pay more authors for more new texts. After the introduction of copyright these incentives shifted. You could now ride on a success, so the need to constantly print new authors with new texts vanished. Also the printers could delegate their risks towards the authors. They could the authors pay less by giving them royalties - which were dependent on success. So no success, the author got not much out of it. Before copyright the authors would be paid upfront, as no long term gains could be made anyways. So especially for books we know that copyright isn't beneficial to creating more. For other media it is not as clear, as these mostly came after the existance of copyright.
Last edited by Mnementh - on 03 August 2025
