So I don’t know if there’s any good answers to this but in a world without any copyright today you would have some $tech_giant scooping all copyrighted content in real time and streaming it for pennies. There would be no avenue at all for someone to make money on the actual content. It would all have to be side-channels like merch and product placements. Distributors would make money on ads and subscription dollars but none of it would get back to the creators. Musicians at least have live performances but the spiritual equivalent, theaters, are no different than the streaming service and wouldn’t pay either. Nobody would have to license art for prints, shirts, use by other businesses.
Copyright sucks in so many ways but replacing it with nothing at all would actually kill creative industries. My personal ideal solution is copyright with fair (as to be determined by courts so you can’t charge $1e100) mandatory licensing. Wanna make a derivative work, use someone’s art, show a movie, have a
show on your streaming service? As long as you pay the royalties nobody can tell you no.
>There would be no avenue at all for someone to make money on the actual content.
Except this is trivially disprovable by simply looking at YouTube.
Copyright plays essentially zero role in the business models of the vast majority of sucessful youtubers, and it is arguably a platform that is far more sucessful than traditional media at producing high quality, relevant content.
Sure, if you get rid of copyright some business models will no longer be possible... but some new business models will now be viable.
You wouldn't argue "we have to protect the baby crushing machine industry because if we don't then the baby crushers won't have a job", so why are you making that argument for copyright?
Copyright hasn't stopped rampant piracy and bootlegging either, but a lot of that is due to super annoying or unavailable legal ways to stream/acquire the same content.
Copyright sucks in so many ways but replacing it with nothing at all would actually kill creative industries. My personal ideal solution is copyright with fair (as to be determined by courts so you can’t charge $1e100) mandatory licensing. Wanna make a derivative work, use someone’s art, show a movie, have a show on your streaming service? As long as you pay the royalties nobody can tell you no.