Copyright is an author's lifeblood. It's what prevents "Books R Us" from reprinting my stories with someone else's name and putting me out of business. Without copyright, there would be no royalties. Publishers would pay a pittance for stories, if they paid anything at all, and the only competition would be which publisher could better market whatever they printed.
So why do I despise copyright?
Long ago, stories were not owned by anyone. The notion is alien to us, now. Many a child has wondered how someone could have made up and written down stories about the Exodus, and told people it was written by Moses. Who put together the sayings of Jesus and claimed what he wrote was by the Apostle Matthew? We cannot conceive that stories were not someone's property, that Jim's retelling of John's story is not a valid, original telling of a story. When Jim and Sue and Danny tell the story, the best story is the one of highest quality, not the one closest to the tale John told. Especially, the characters belonged to the listeners, and others would take a character they liked and spin new tales about him.
This sort of public story-embellishing still goes on. "Fanfic," it is called, and it is illegal in America. People create their own tales about Captain Kirk, Darth Maul, Sam and Frodo, and legions of other, lesser-known media characters. The people reclaiming their mythology. Interestingly, in Japan this is viewed as a celebration of professional work, and a breeding ground for the professionals of tomorrow. In America it is held to be theft, even though it is done gratis.
It is sad that stories have become commodified, that they are property bought and sold, instead of passed person-to-person. I wonder if there can't be some middle ground, where authors can publish their work without fear of it being republished as someone else's, but where people can still retell it, expand on it, and bring it back in a new form.
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