If there wasnt an artificial scarcity on hard to produce, easy to copy items then really how many films would we be enjoying now? ... I will tell you now, not many at all. When it comes down to it ... without the artificial scarcity we would have rather less entertainment.

Which, in the United States, is the reason the Constitution grants the power to establish Copyright to the Congress. It's supposed to be a trade off: a time-limited monopoly on your creation (which is easy to copy), and then it goes to the public domain. Unfortuately "time-limited" is sufficiently vague as to allow those who create Copyrightable products to lobby/bribe Congressperson into extending that limited time without apparant bound.

Next time you claim the artificial scarcity is an abuse of power, just think of the diversity and entertainment value that that scarcity has produced.

And consider the LACK of diversity caused by people holding on to "intellecutal property," preventing its re-incorporation into derivative works. Really, should you have to get Fox's permission to include a 5-second shot of an old episode of The Simpsons in the background of a shot in your documentary?