No. I did not. Just because something can't be bought or sold does not mean it lacks worth. Please explain why you think "technological progress would basically grind to a halt" in a world where people are allowed to collaborate freely.

Because while I'm not sure what kind of world you live in, in mine I need money to put a roof over my head and food on the table - things that according to your world-view definitely do have monetary value.

If creating anything digital makes it basically a free-for-all on who can grab it for free faster, then I'm not going to bother as it's not paying my bills. And, in case you haven't noticed, most of our world is pretty much reliant on the digital now.

I'm all for free-software and public-domain work, but there's a difference between supporting it and forcing everyone else to follow along. Like it or not, not everyone can or wants to make money out of giving their work away for free.

I live in a world where, due to the continuous advancement of technological efficiency and the resulting elimintation of jobs, it's becoming increasingly ridiculous to expect people to work for a living. Society no longer needs contributions from everyone.

When you get to the point where what you do on a day-to-day basis is no longer directly tied to your livelihood, what will you do? As the number of ways in which an individual can make money rapidly dwindles, what will humanity do?

I tend to agree, though this kind of reasoning followed through leads to very nasty conclusions. A fully automated world could eliminate most people, eventually, seeing them as parasites and freeloaders, but who would want to live in that?

People can still contribute in lots of ways which are severely under-appreciated by the capitalist system but appreciated by other people. There will hopefully be a point at which cutthroat "efficiency" and "productivity" is not the only goal anymore. After all, redundant and decentralized systems are more fail-safe, stable, and common in nature.

And the people are there, they may just as well do something... preferably something that makes them feel useful and belonging. Like open source software for programmers, art for creative people, caring for the old and wounded for empathic people, and so on...

Then again I might be a hopeless idealist. In that case, good luck holding on to a piece of the ever-smaller pie. The next round of musical chairs might be my, or your obsolence.

I don't think you're a hopeless idealist. In fact, I'm with you. I fully believe that we're headed toward a world in which most people are sitting around all day doing the equivalent of playing World of Warcraft. But that's not a bad thing. Where others might see freeloaders and parasites, I see potential. Give everyone the opportunity to do something meaningful and some of them will. And some of those meaningful contributions might not be anything any of us ever dreamed of paying for.

The point of automation is to take care of the easy stuff, which allows us to focus on the cool stuff. I know for a fact that there are individuals out there who, even if their livelihood is taken care of, will still want to push the human race forward.

No nasty conclusions. =)

So let's say say we have essential work for 50% of all available manhours. Why, then, is it not a great thing that the other 50% can be paid even when they are just producing digital, intangible goods? I think rising productivity is actually a great argument in favor of copyright laws.

I should probably point out that 50% was just a random, badly chosen constant. It's not a zero-sum game anyway.

But fact is that thanks to copyright laws, one can save some money from copyright-unrelated work, take a break to invest in a game, album or movie; and if people like it, one can make money with it, for which others agree to do a little more copyright-unrelated work on their part.

The alternative is that everyone does copyright-unrelated work and creates goods in their free time, outside of all market mechanics. But I'd rather let the (democratically) good artists have more free time to do their work, and I don't see anything wrong with it.

You bring up an interesting point. I think it is indeed a great thing that people can be paid even when they are just producing digital, intangible goods. What I don't think is great is when they are paid for having produced intangible goods. The difference is between "when" and "for." People should be paid simply for being human, and then on top of that, they should be paid for anything they sell that has value, whether it be their time or a physical object. As you say, it's not a zero-sum game. The net weath of humanity is increasing. The pie isn't actually getting smaller. It's getting bigger. The problem is, it's becoming increasingly difficult to divide up that pie using capitalism alone.

Markets will rise and markets will fall. It's natural. It's supply and demand. It's capitalism. There are laws that artificially protect certain specific markets at the expense of the more general free market. The copyright laws fall into this category. But why do we need to protect markets from natural economic forces? I don't think we do. These protections are causing some nasty side effects.

The alternative is that the government takes a big chunk of the pie and divides it up evenly among its citizens. This will allow us to unchain the economy from unneccessary regulation. Minimum wages? No longer any need. Copyright exclusivity? No longer any need.

I'd rather let anyone -- good artists, bad artists, scientists, atheletes -- have more time to do whatever they want. I'd rather automate away as many jobs as possible. We're approaching the point when the unemployment rate will positively correlate with prosperity.

But as long as the economic system as a whole does not work as you describe it, isn't it unproductive to strip artists of their rights in the current system before we implement a new one?

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And there are many people with free time already (me included). The whole free market argument goes both ways. Right now we allow both copyrighted and "free" content on the market. Why can't copyleft content just win out in the market of consumption if the existence copyright doesn't have a conceptual advantage?

That's a very good question, but my answer is no for a few reasons.

1. Change is gradual. Copyright exclusivity can slowly be ramped down at the same time the government gradually provides more and more services for its citizens. One doesn't have to come before the other. Meanwhile, there certainly shouldn't be any new enforcement of copyright (or patent) exclusivity where none existed before.

2. Copyrights aren't rights. They're tradable monopolies upheld by the government. You'd actually be giving artists more rights by removing exclusivity. No longer would be able to take away their right to do whatever they want with their own work. The artists who are in it for the money are doing it for the wrong reasons.

3. The economy will never work as I describe it as long as copyright exclusivity enforced. I don't believe in copyleft. It still involves keeping track of licenses on everything, which can get very out of hand. Big corporations should be able to use free software too.

Copyright exclusivity is the only reason an intellectual property market exists today. The law can affect the economy and vice versa. We can bootstrap ourselves out of this mess.