Agreed. Question Copyright was a non profit that advocated that but they just shut down recently.
I think the most prominent copyright abolition (or at least, reform) groups nowadays are the online pirates, who are essentially nullifying copyright in practice. No matter the legal status of AI, you'll be able to rely on them for a torrent.
The end of copyright just means that corporations would no longer pay creators, they would just steal all the work and sell it without asking. It would hurt creators more than help them, today if someone writes a book you have to ask them to distribute it, without copyright they would just distribute and the author wouldn't make any money.
> The end of copyright just means that corporations would no longer pay creators
We wouldn't pay corporations either.
> they would just steal all the work
There is no such thing as "stealing" any of this. There is only copying.
> sell it without asking
There's no need to buy what they're selling. Supply is infinite. Without copyright, you'd just download anything you want.
Maybe some people will make physical books for those who prefer it. That's fine.
> the author wouldn't make any money
They need to find new business models anyway. Authors need to find ways to get paid before the work is created, for the act of creating. Not by selling artificially scarce copies.
Most copyright abolitionists advocate for a pre-production funding model, such a patronage or crowdfunding. It's not perfect but we can see both already in use in the real world.
Both give an incentive for good projects, since a bad project with no users won't attract any funding. Crowdfunding further incentivises creators to keep a good reputation for being reliable, since customers have to take on more of the risk.
Furthermore, copyright abolition allows creators to legally make money off of "alternate sequels" or "alternate versions", if the original company screws up the story in some way. Currently it's all just hobbyists that fly under the radar.
I also think that copyright limits art and its spread to only what is profitable. Few people currently care about art that doesn't make any money. A world without copyright would be a world where people appreciate art for what it expresses, not how many dollars it rakes in.
It's also worth noting that copyright applies outside of artistic endeavors, such as software. I think this is a pure hindrance to technical progress. Imagine if it was illegal for your friend to fix your car without the manufacturers consent. That is the world we live in with software copyright right now. It's absurd. People should be charging to write software (real scarcity: labor) not distribute it (artificial scarcity: licenses).
To be fair, I think making art for money is fine, but I agree with your second paragraph in which the actually scarce thing (e.g. labour) is the one that should be monetised, not artificial scarcity.
In fact, commissions artists are doing exactly that. Same with patreon which seems to be really popular, and crowdfunding for the bigger projects.
> Few people currently care about art that doesn't make any money.
I don't think this to be the case at all. How often are GPL violations settled with compensation? How's compensation framework talks go with respect to generative AIs?
All the copyright holders care is control over you - not money.
