The fanfiction phenomenon suggests otherwise; plenty of creative people are willing to spend a lot of time and effort on creative work even when they don't and can't own it.

My daughter loves drawing cartoons and comics. But she's not going to build something as ambitious as an entire graphic novel, because that would (a) turn her enjoyable hobby into work --- an often unpleasant expenditure of energy performed in the service of a long-term goal and (b) consume more time than she has available to her.

And so it is with fanfiction. The fanfiction process isn't going to generate _The Sound and the Fury_ or even _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_. At least, that isn't going to happen the way fanfiction is constituted now.

I respect any hobby that involves huge amounts of creative writing. But there's a difference between a hobby and a profession.

Meanwhile: if you don't believe that society benefits by having an economic framework wherein JK Rowling and Thomas Pynchon can dedicate all their productive hours to writing, and that instead we should do away with commercial publishing and switch entirely to the fruits of people's hours after they get home from their real jobs, you can have that. Today. Just don't read commercially published books. There is, as you point out, a lot of fanfiction out there, and a lot of it is probably quite good.

> The fanfiction process isn't going to generate _The Sound and the Fury_ or even _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_.

By which you mean what exactly? I'd say e.g. To The Stars is every bit the equal of The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

> if you don't believe that society benefits by having an economic framework wherein JK Rowling and Thomas Pynchon can dedicate all their productive hours to writing, and that instead we should do away with commercial publishing and switch entirely to the fruits of people's hours after they get home from their real jobs, you can have that. Today. Just don't read commercially published books. There is, as you point out, a lot of fanfiction out there, and a lot of it is probably quite good.

Unfortunately, copyright means that every so often some of it gets taken down, and potential socially valuable services don't exist (e.g. I'd happily pay for bound copies of certain works, but because they were produced in violation of copyright that business doesn't exist). So while I will continue to read fanfiction, I will also continue to argue for a relaxation of copyright law.

We could always pay people (sign a contract) before the work is produced. Seems to work fine for the other 99.9% of professions.