3 ms·

If publisher X stuck ads on their content it would be an opportunity for publisher Y to come along and win consumers by offering the same content without the ad

• AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  OK, I now understand what you're saying. But I don't think it works. Take Facebook, for example. Even without copyright, the only way you could offer Facebook's content is to completely scrape Facebook, because (at least currently) that's where people post their stuff, because that's where everybody who they want to reach is. Even if you consider that an ethical thing to do (I don't), you're still going to have to have servers (plural) running all the time. That's going to take a fair amount of money, and you aren't going to have the revenue, because you aren't going to be selling ads. So I don't think that your approach will actually work economically. Or take Netflix, as you mentioned in replies to other people. If copyright doesn't protect the movies, then you're left with love-of-the-art movies. And that's OK for those who like that kind of thing, but you're not going to get Star Wars or Marvel movies that way. You may consider that no loss, but the vast majority of movie watchers want to watch that kind of stuff, and don't want to watch unpaid passion projects. So your approach leaves consumers strictly worse off in terms of their preferences. (With one possible other option - that Marvel sticks enough product placement in their movies to pay for their creation.)