Completely agree that the questions should be asked honestly and with an eye on social benefits and costs. I'm no fan of the copyright system as-is precisely be

Completely agree that the questions should be asked honestly and with an eye on social benefits and costs. I'm no fan of the copyright system as-is precisely because I think those tradeoffs are poorly balanced given modern technology. As for whether it is "bad" to lose capacity to do things like "Lost" I think (for my value system) it's clearly very bad even if 9/10 such projects are not of lasting value. These kinds of mega-projects allow us to push the frontier of what is possible as entertainment and human expression. If you don't particularly like "Lost" for artistic reasons (fair enough ;-), then perhaps substitute anything by Pixar; losing society's ability to make "Wall-E" or "Up" means a duller, less inspiring world. Of course, you could similarly disagree with the artistic merits of Pixar films as being a worthwhile tradeoff. But at some point that line of reasoning just becomes "I'm personally happy with art made on the cheap by a small group and no marketing or distribution costs; I'm ok sacrificing everything else."