The Amount Of Content Created In Spite Of Copyright Is Staggering

We hear all the time how the world needs stronger copyright laws or people will have no motivation to create. This is obviously false, but to what level? Well, the amount of content creation going on these days is staggering. By some reports, every two days, we now create more content than was created from the beginning of time until 1993. I'm not sure I totally believe that stat, but even if it's an exaggeration by an order of magnitude, we're still talking about a ridiculous amount of content creation every single day. And the thing is, the vast, vast, vast majority of that content creation is done for incentives that have nothing to do with copyright. I think it can easily be argued that over 99% of the content created today is done for reasons that have nothing to do with copyright.

Of course, when we talk about things like torrent trackers, copyright maximalists like to point out that since (according to some reports) 99% of the content found via those trackers is infringing, then the trackers and search engines themselves should be deemed illegal. Of course, if we are to accept that logic, then shouldn't it apply equally to works automatically covered by copyright, despite no need for them to be covered by copyright? If 99% of works created are not due to copyright incentives, by the very argument of the copyright maximalists, copyright should be deemed worthless. Note, I am not saying that copyright is definitely worthless. I'm just pointing out that if we use the same basic logic as those who wish to condemn tools like The Pirate Bay using the 99% claim, then those same folks should obviously support the idea that those works created without copyright as an incentive do not deserve copyright. Why do I get the feeling they will claim otherwise?

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Source: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110221/12161313191/amount-content-created-spite-copyright-is-staggering.shtml

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