@raven >Copyright protects the author's income as an encouragement to write books. With no protections, most authors wouldn't write.
That's the argument the publishers like to use, but it has no basis in reality.

Only a small number of authors (compared to the population) can make a decent income out of writing books and most of them seem to be motivated by their enjoyment of writing and publishing books - profit seems to usually be a secondary thought - few, possible no authors are motivated how people will be restricted from making copies of the book they paid for.

Even if it was impossible for authors to make a profit from writing books, many authors would still write.


I would argue that copyright rather serves as an disincentive for most authors to write books, as almost all publishers demand that authors surrender their copyright to them.

Some authors have noted that copyright is a problem for them, as publishers stop distributing their books after a year or two and then use such copyright to prevent them from getting their book published elsewhere.

>I think the basic idea of copyright is sound.
I think the whole concept of copyright is brain damage and would only achieve its stated goals if applied to commercial activities only.

As copyright currently exists whether I want it to or not, I ensure to license under the GPLv3-or-later or the AGPLv3-or-later to ensure that everyone is free to share my works.

>Are you familiar with The Gutenberg Project, an archive of public domain works?
Yep.