There's nothing preventing people from producing works and releasing them without copyright restriction. If that were a more sustainable model, it would be happening far more often.
As it is now, especially in the creative fields (which I am most knowledgeable about), the current system has allowed for a incredible flourishing of creation, which you'd have to be pretty daft to deny.
> If that were a more sustainable model, it would be happening far more often.
that's not the argument. The fact that there currently are restrictions on producing derivative works is the problem. You cannot produce a star wars story, without getting consent from disney. You cannot write a harry potter story, without consent from Rowling.
That's not actually true. There's nothing stopping you from producing derivative works. Publishing and/or profiting from other people's work does have some restrictions though.
There's actually a huge and thriving community of people publishing derivative works, in a not-for-profit basis, on Archive of Our Own. (Among other places.)
> There's actually a huge and thriving community of people publishing derivative works, in a not-for-profit basis, on Archive of Our Own. (Among other places.)
Yes, and none of those people are making a living at creating things. That's why they are allowed by the copyright owners to do what they're doing--because it's not commercial. Try to actually sell a derivative work of something you don't own the copyright for and see how fast the big media companies come after you. You acknowledge that when you say there are "restrictions" (an understatement if I ever saw one) on profiting from other people's work (where "other people" here means the media companies, not the people who actually created the work).
It is true that without our current copyright regime, the "industries" that produce Star Wars, Disney, etc. products would not exist in their current form. But does that mean works like those would not have been created? Does it mean we would have less of them? I strongly doubt it. What it would mean is that more of the profits from those works would go to the actual creative people instead of middlemen.
> Yes, and none of those people are making a living at creating things.
Again, not true. One of the most famous examples is likely Naomi Novik, who is a bestselling author, in addition to a prolific producer of derivative works published on AO3. Many other commercially successful authors publish derivative works on this platform as well.
> It is true that without our current copyright regime, the "industries" that produce Star Wars, Disney, etc. products would not exist in their current form. But does that mean works like those would not have been created? Does it mean we would have less of them? I strongly doubt it. What it would mean is that more of the profits from those works would go to the actual creative people instead of middlemen.
Speculate all you want about an alternative system, but you really don't know what would have happened, or what would happen moving forward.
Sorry, I meant they're not making a living at creating derivative works of copyrighted content. They can't, for the reasons you give. Nor can other people make a living creating derivative works of their commercially published work. That is an obvious barrier to creation.
> the current system has allowed for a incredible flourishing of creation
No, the current system has allowed for an incredible flourishing of middlemen who don't create anything themselves but coerce creative people into agreements that give the middlemen virtually all the profits.
People do not put out their stuff. People get lured into contracts selling their IP to a shitty company that then publishes stuff, of course WITH copyright so they can make money while the artist doesnt
Yes, they can't, because there is no legally reliable way to do it (briefly, because the law really doesn't like the idea of property that doesn't have an owner, so if you try to place a work of yours in the public domain, what you're actually doing is making it abandoned property so anyone who wants to can claim they own it and restrict everyone else, including you, from using it). The best an author can do is to give a license that basically lets anyone do what they want with the work. Creative Commons has licenses that do that.
As it is now, especially in the creative fields (which I am most knowledgeable about), the current system has allowed for a incredible flourishing of creation, which you'd have to be pretty daft to deny.