Of course there will be data even if people cannot make money with it. Just less data, and sometimes of lower quality. There are plenty of examples of people wr

Of course there will be data even if people cannot make money with it. Just less data, and sometimes of lower quality. There are plenty of examples of people writing novels in their free time. Or people writing free software as a hobby, while working in a company developing internal software for which copyright is irrelevant. But anyway copyright is just one way of monetizing one's creation. People will pay to see their favorite bands, or to have the original of a painting or sculpture even if copies can be freely made. There are free ad-supported newspapers. Many artists get public funding. Many projects are supported by donations, and so are some individual programmers[1]. I'm all for deprecating copyright-dependent business models and encouraging the development of alternatives. Kickstarter has some good examples of what can be done through donations, and I can see similar models replacing much of the copyright-based economy. [1] See http://ardour.org/node http://ardour.org/node for an example.