Copyright was created centuries ago when people needed a literal printing press in order to create copies at scale. They had to be a major industry player in order to infringe copyright. We're living in the 21st century: people infringe copyright without even realizing it and all but the worst offenders go unpunished.
Whatever the point of copyright was when it was conceived, it no longer applies. It's obviously incompatible with free computing as we know it today. In order for copyright to be enforceable, computers that run unauthorized software must be made illegal. Otherwise, people will always be able to copy whatever data they want and there's little anyone can do about it.
Part of the social contract behind copyright is giving the public free access to the works of humanity after the protection expires. It's clear now that the copyright industry has no intention of ever letting these protections ever expire. There's no reason for the public to recognize copyright as legitimate when the copyright holders refuse to keep up their end of the deal.
Communism implies an economy. When it comes to data, there is nothing to economize. It's abundant, there's more than enough for everyone.
The only reason the internet isn't a post-scarcity society is we still have laws like copyright holding us back.
> Oops, now nobody is working and there is no stuff!
Pretty weird seeing this argument on Hacker News of all places. Lots of developers work for no financial reward, myself included. Scratching one's own itch is a hacker tradition and it disproves the notion that nobody would create anything if it wasn't for copyright.
I think you are unaware of how stupid that sounds, maybe go and read what communism is/was or stop commenting when you have no idea and you learn things from Star Trek.
FYI people were/are working in communism and things are not free (so 100% comment you had there)
Having the freedom to access information and information be8mg easily accessible are two different things. Those are the two things the above commenter was advocating for.
Should accessing information be free of cost? Of course, yes, as much as possible it should. That's why we have libraries.
Should creating information be free of cost? Of course not, that's just nonsense and the fact that you thought anyone would suggest that is rather telling.
Sorry, no. What you're describing is "easily accessible".
The comment above wrote "knowledge should be free and easily accessible".
> Creation of valuable information is effectively infinitely more expensive than copying valuable information. It's not unreasonable to consider that this distinction alone may be enough to consider restrictions on copying abhorrently immoral.
That is an entirely unreasonable and absurd conclusion. Of course it takes more effort to produce valuable information than to copy it. That is the whole point of copyright; it protects creators and encourages people to create their own works. In doing so, creators contribute to higher quality of life for everyone by earning an income in exchange for putting the fruits of their labor down on paper.