Copyright is an infringement of free speech. I mean we know that if we write something, it is speech too, some say even money is speech, iirc. Now tool assisted communication, such as a telephone call, is still speech. If you use an algorithm and a computer to assist in the copying of one number from one location to another, how can that be illegal? Because it is a fact that is just what it is, using tool assistance to copy one number from one location to another. It is merely tool assisted communication. I mean you can charge money for improving society, taxes, so you should be able to justify charging money for such speech but not excessive punishment, nor should you be able to prohibit tool assisted communication and free exchange of ideas.
That said, I still think we should have some form of copyright to protect artists. I think producers should be pursued not consumers. I also think the punishment needs to be proportional to the crime, potentially years in jail and tens, hundreds of thousands or even millions? That seems cruel and unusual excessive punishment.
But thing is I have a different position on copyright and patents, I think given that we all have a right to free speech, you cannot take that basic human right away merely to incentivize art creation. Nor will it ever be justifiable to punish an individual for basic use of their innate human rights. I think copyright should be modified so as to grant you the right to a REASONABLE royalty for your creation, but you cannot bar others from creating and selling unofficial fanfiction versions, nor prohibit distribution. You merely take a cut of their income, a reasonable cut.
Same with patents, you should not be able to bar others from using your inventions or charge exorbitant fees. You shouldn't be able to deny licensing, and licensing should have a reasonable cost. This fosters innovation and competition.
Right now copyright and patents are harming innovation, startups, the development of the art and science, rather than fostering progress these laws are harming progress as well as the innocent. Harming humanity and civilization for the profit of the few. The free exchange of ideas, allows society to develop and progress, these laws are an impediment to such, slowing down progress and reducing competition in the market.
TLDR:
You can potentially charge people some money merely for communicating, in order to incentivize the arts and science, though speech being a basic innate human right, you cannot deny their basic human rights nor use barbaric excessive punishment to incentivize the arts and science. Really, we cannot take away basic human rights of others to incentivize artists, but let's be honest it likely is the middlemen who benefit the most, and many artists are actually harmed by such laws, and their creative output is stifled.
In patents, we've seen patent trolls, and large corporations with large war chests of patents threatening smaller companies and startups with extensive litigation and extorting them out of the market or to give away their inventions in exchange for peanuts. Same happens in the arts, with large corporations having gargantuan ever growing body of copyright that can be used against new independent artists on the grounds of similarity.
