> The net effect cannot be anything other than to stifle creativity This could not possibly be more wrong. The entire purpose of copyright law is to enable cre

> The net effect cannot be anything other than to stifle creativity This could not possibly be more wrong. The entire purpose of copyright law is to enable creativity. Two main reasons for this: 1. If anyone can take the stories and characters and images you create, and exploit them commercially without having to worry about copyright, that is a massive stifling effect on creativity. You made a popular character? Tough, some big company is going to make all the money off of it and you're going to be left broke. No incentive whatsoever to actually put in the time and effort to create things if you can't reap the benefits. Copyright law exists precisely to let the creator actually benefit from their creations. 2. If everyone can make money by copying other people, who's actually creating stuff anymore? The other main reason for copyright law is to encourage people to come up with their own unique creations, instead of just copying each other. Now, it's certainly true that corporations have managed to extend copyright law far beyond what most people would consider reasonable. But that doesn't negate copyright law's reason for existing. > if I want to express my personality by putting a button with some character on my shirt - again, how exactly is this hurting the original author Because the author has now lost control over the distribution of their work (which is one of the exclusive rights granted by copyright), and any income that said distribution would have generated. Even if they don't want to sell buttons themselves, that's entirely their right to do so, and maybe they have good reasons for not wanting to flood the market with every possible expression of their character. Maybe they don't want to dilute the character, or don't want to have bad reproductions or low-quality merchandise hurting their public perception. Or maybe they just don't care about buttons but would be happy to sign a licensing deal to let someone else sell them if that someone else actually went through the effort of proposing an appropriate deal. No matter what the reason is, it's absolutely their right to control their creation. We as a society have decided that artistic creation is a valid form of work, just as valid as any other kind of work, and that the artist is entitled to benefit from their work. You are not entitled to copy someone else's stuff just because you like it; the very fact that you assign value to their creation means that their creation is valuable, and your copies are literally stealing that value from the creator. If the creator doesn't want to sell the merchandise you want to buy, that's absolutely their right, and the fact that you want something does not entitle you to that thing.