I am being honest with the consequences. It is desirable that we should have a supply of good books; we cannot have such a supply unless men of letters are

I am being honest with the consequences. It is desirable that we should have a supply of good books; we cannot have such a supply unless men of letters are liberally remunerated: and the least objectionable way of remunerating them is by means of copyright. You cannot depend for literary instruction and amusement on the leisure of men occupied in the pursuits of active life. Such men may occasionally produce compositions of great merit. But you must not look to such men for works which require deep meditation and long research. Works of that kind you can expect only from persons who make literature the business of their lives. Men who make authorship the business of their lives. We shall have less of them. I accept these consequences. Let it be. It's the future they chose. I do have one hope though. Later in the text, he expresses a rather low opinion of patronage. And he isn't wrong: patronage by governments, churches and moneyed elites obviously distorted the creativity of authors and that is not at all desirable. That's why copyright is advanced as the least bad solution. However, modern technology has changed patronage. It's now possible for wide audiences to subsidize the work of their favorite creators. It does not require artificial scarcity. They are rewarded for the act of creating, not the final product. As far as I'm concerned, this is the only way forward. Because enforcing copyright in the 21st century will require tyranny the likes of which should give pause to everyone who posts on Hacker News. It will literally destroy computing freedom as we know it today. And that's a consequence I don't accept. I'd sooner see creators find another job.