> How would you fix copyright? By abolishing it. Which I don't think is that radical of an idea. Would we come up with copyright today if we didn't have it al

> How would you fix copyright? By abolishing it. Which I don't think is that radical of an idea. Would we come up with copyright today if we didn't have it already? I don't think so. The system as a whole makes no sense as something that the government need to be involved in when it comes to enforcement and the "promotion of the arts" If we're talking about wholesale reform the burden of proof is one those arguing for that continued trade-off being worthwhile. Today everything from graffiti and the SMS messages you're sending to your mom, to a major Hollywood movie is protected under the same system. You could always right point out exceptions like Banksy for graffiti, but does that mean it's worthwhile for society as a whole to apply these blanket protections just in case someone comes up with a a worthwhile work they'd like to commercialize? The small bits of copyright that are worthwhile in practice could be salved under some system that worked much more like Trademarks or patents. I.e. you can't set up your own news site that copied articles from the NYT on a daily basis and charged for them, or the same with movies, but it would be on the narrow basis of directly interfering in someone else's (business) operations in a way that shows real demonstrated day-to-day harm. Or, you could pay an exorbitant fee (like a patent) to buy protection for a specific work when used in a specific way, which throw a bone to "big copyright", such as Disney. But to quote even an entire article in a book you're writing on the subject, or include a 20 minute clip from a Disney movie in a review you're preparing? The "copyright holder" shouldn't be able to do anything about that. Copyright was implemented at a time when the government and the people had an interest in things like the newspaper being as pervasive as indoor plumbing, or the water supply. It should probably be phased out in the say way many publicly run postal systems have (which you can argue is a bad thing, but it's absurd to claim that they're as relatively important to society as they were 100 years ago).