We're talking about a lot more than just MP3s here, so you're not doing yourself any favors by restricting the argument to just popular culture. Copyright cove

We're talking about a lot more than just MP3s here, so you're not doing yourself any favors by restricting the argument to just popular culture. Copyright covers any type of creative work, and is going to become more and more important as the world switches from work that is primarily dominated by physical labor to one where one's creative work is how they are compensated. Software developers can't keep popping out new versions of software every week, and authors can't write an entire book each week, so there is an economic requirement that they be able to amortize the costs of their labor. The only way to do that is to allow the developer to dictate the terms of the sale and artificially restrict access to only those that agree to the terms. Perhaps Kickstarter or others will change this and we won't need copyright anymore, but right now it doesn't just protect the rights of large distributors, but also the rights of millions of independent creators that rely on such laws to ensure that they are compensated for their work, and to prevent bigger, more established players, from stealing their work.