Actually, the amount of creative work in any medium that existed before the Enlightenment era is pretty thin relative to what came after. And it's not even a dr

Actually, the amount of creative work in any medium that existed before the Enlightenment era is pretty thin relative to what came after. And it's not even a drop in the bucked compared to the explosion of material that followed the industrial revolutions on general and the modification of copyrights to make them transferable in particular. This legal innovation became the bedrock for the massively collaborative forms of media that went on to define the 20th century (newspapers, encyclopedias, literary anthologies, films, broadcasts, video games to name the biggest). Also, the point of copyright is to resolve a very specific problem, which is reconciling the high capital costs of content creation with the low marginal cost of duplication. Of course, none of the people who casually and dismissively say "just figure out a different model" will be ever be clear about exactly what problem needs solving. That's because acknowledging the mathematically inevitable failures awaiting any endevor with high R&D costs and low manufacturing and distribution costs make the logic of copyright clear. Either we create legal protections for the business or let it die. Given the extraordinary value offered by intangible goods, advanced economies have made the smart choice of creating legal protections in case where markets left to themselves would leave many of our best and brightest high and dry.