"IMHO copyright laws should not exist. Either write something and make money out of it by being first and/or sell the expertise you gained in the process."
The main flaw in this is you wouldn't make money out of selling it. Maybe $9.95, and then its all over. The first person to come and buy it off you can then upload anywhere on the internet for thousands to download for free.
Considering this, how would you, a programmer, feed your family (an extreme for instance). In fact, why would programmers even program? If they can't sell their product, they can't get an income from it. Therefore, they wouldn't go to University because there'd be no future in that career.
With no programmers, we have nobody to develop software or firmware for chip manufacturers, and even if we did, they wouldn't be hired as any other chip manufacturer could just steal their code.
There'd be no travel, as anybody can print tickets. There'd be no money, as anybody can print notes. There'd be no books, as it costs a great deal to publish them, and any geek could convert it to PDF, and distribute it freely. No movies, as every cinema could purchase copies of every film for free, resulting in no revenue for movie creators, etc etc etc. Need I go on? And don't bother pointing out "sure there'd be money, it'd be fraud to reproduce it" - there'd be no point - there'd be no products to sell so it'd be worthless anyway. You're talking about knocking us back to the stone age where we're trading in fruits and animals.
Copyright law, and enforcement, is what keeps the world ticking. So - most of your code is GPL. Fantastic. But you're doing nothing for the economy. Your software will never be even in the top million revenue generating enterprises in the country. Consider the biggest sellers that keep the economy going - entertainment, sex, and drugs. Entertainment- scratch tv, movies and music. Sex - scratch porno magazines, videos, and internet web sites. Drugs - well, congratulations, after we get rid of copyright, theres still one industry we can count on to keep us all alive and well. ;) *sic*
While in your mind, in an ideal world, copyright would not exist, its simply not possible. Not in todays world. Not with the internet, and instant distribution. Sure, go back 200 years. A guy paints a masterpiece. Its very hard to copy. He sells the original. Voila - that systems works, but we're 200 years ahead of that now. As technology and society has advanced, so has the need for such social controls, such as copyright law.
To do without copyright law, we'd either need to go back a few hundred years, or else live in a fantasy utopia where nobody cares about money because everyone does the best they can to help everybody else. You say you're not a communist, yet a communist-style existance is the only way to satisfy your aspirations.
And disliking "corporatism".. think yourself about where we would be without corporate structured buying, spending, and marketing powers. No motor cars, no airplanes, no post-it notes. How did I come to that conclusion? Pull your head out of the ground and use it to think for a change.
