I did not say it would increase freedom of information. I just do not believe copyright is a good fit for the modern world, because it does not really work whe

I did not say it would increase freedom of information. I just do not believe copyright is a good fit for the modern world, because it does not really work when copying is not restricted to industrial operations. Today everyone has a copying machine in their pocket or on their desk, and there is no way that applying an industrial regulation to people sitting in their homes using a commonly available tool is going to work. Keep in mind that copyrights have only existed for about three hundred years. Prior to that there was no notion that authors had a fundamental right to control the distribution of their work, yet people have been writing books (scrolls etc.) for thousands of years. Copyright was a response to what at the time was a relatively new technology, printing. It was not created for the benefit of authors, it was created for the benefit of publishers, who lobbied for the restoration of a monopoly they enjoyed under an earlier censorship law. It is almost a textbook example of regulatory capture. Instead of allowing new technologies to flourish and new business models for publishers to develop, we are currently trying to emulate the old rules, stifling new ideas (e.g. peer-to-peer systems) and entrenching old business models. It is hard to imagine the sort of technologies we missed out on for the sake of keeping copyrights relevant, or what sort of business models those technologies might have supported. I see a lose-lose in resisting change just because it is inconvenient for some big incumbent industry.