One of the clearest demonstrations of how copyright is actively harmful is the lawsuit that four of the biggest publishers brought against the Internet Archive. As a result of the judge’s decision in favour of the publishers – currently being appealed – more than 500,000 books have been taken out of lending by the Internet Archive, including more than 1,300 banned and “challenged” books. In an open letter to the publishers in the lawsuit, the Internet Archive lists three core reasons why removing half a million ebooks is “having a devastating impact in the US and around the world, with far-reaching implications”.
Cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17259314
I’m fairly sure that at this point pirating has been shown to lead to increased sales, even of small scale productions.
Also, no one said that people can’t keep the rights for a while, just that if you don’t let people access those things you don’t get to prosecute them for making the art available.