One of the supposed justifications for the intellectual monopoly called copyright is that it drives creativity and culture. In the last few weeks alone we have had multiple demonstrations of why the opposite is true: copyright destroys culture, and not by accident, but wilfully. For example, the MTVNews.com site, along with its sister site CMT.com, …
If we did ever get away from copyright we’d have a very different funding model for artistic creation. More patronage, patreon, and tipping based and less payment per sale. Artists, or groups of artists, would create and share their work, and people would direct money towards those they enjoyed the most. Physical copies of anything would decline in importance with all art available for free download, and would be sold and costed more based on the effort needed to manufacture that physical object than anything to do with the original creator or creators.
Patronage and tipping only goes so far.
I don’t think anyone would say that American news media is healthy, but that is how a copyright fee media landscape would look. No one pays for media anymore, so the media becomes advertising. If we are lucky, we only get creative media turned into commercials for product. If we are unlucky, creative media becomes a new tool to sell Christian-fascism because no one else is willing to fund big movies.