> Which would no longer be protected from others obtaining copies of the film and showing it.

We already live in a world where piracy is rampant, and yet rarely if ever are theater-quality copies of movies available. People have to record the movie with a camera to get it out there before the home video release.

Studios manage this by using proprietary formats and blacklisting theaters who fail to control their copies correctly. And theaters have a vested interest in those copies not getting out as well because that would cut into their revenue.

It does not at all depend on copyright protections for theater exclusive showings to exist.

> Which then can be legally streamed by anyone else immediately.

Yes but that relies on a competitor taking the time to rip their copy and upload it across all of their servers. That takes time so for live broadcasts like where an episode of Game of Thrones goes live and everyone wants to see it, they'll be behind the ball.

We already live in a world where you need merely search for and download the torrent to achieve the same thing you're saying will run rampant without copyright. This is already the way it works, but people still use streaming services because they're convenient and offer exclusive things they can't get elsewhere.

> Yes, and anyone else can take this role of curation. Curation is cheap compared to creation.

Wow you mean consumers won't have to buy ten different services to view what they want? That would be amazing!

> Yah, so once someone breaches contract everyone downstream can have the content.

Yes, just like our current world. Any contract with end users would be impossible to enforce just like copyright is now.

> This is a good thing.

What you're saying is that the fact that someone who has had no interaction with the creator, agreed to nothing with them, and caused them zero harm can be liable to the creator and even criminally liable is a good thing. Incredible.

> People have to record the movie with a camera to get it out there before the home video release.

If a party who got a copy illicitly could commercially distribute it in competition with theaters (i.e. someone who has profit motive) I think you'd have a lot more of this.

> Studios manage this by using proprietary formats and blacklisting theaters who fail to control their copies correctly. And theaters have a vested interest in those copies not getting out as well because that would cut into their revenue.

So you're effectively conceding that if we squash copyright, we'll have a whole lot more reliance on DRM and proprietary exclusion. I'm sorry, I think that's worse-- I'd rather give authors protection for their creations for a limited time (maybe 20 years + another 20 years with a steep renewal fee paid? or 20+10+10+10) than deal with that.

> Yes but that relies on a competitor taking the time to rip their copy and upload it across all of their servers. That takes time so for live broadcasts like where an episode of Game of Thrones goes live and everyone wants to see it, they'll be behind the ball.

I might have bought this argument in 1990, but what fraction of people watch content live anymore?

> This is already the way it works, but people still use streaming services because they're convenient and offer exclusive things they can't get elsewhere.

Sure, but I could curate a nice copy of everything on Disney+ for half as much if it wasn't legally prohibited.

> Wow you mean consumers won't have to buy ten different services to view what they want? That would be amazing!

So you are conceding that commercial services will no longer be viable in charging for content.

> Yes, just like our current world. Any contract with end users would be impossible to enforce just like copyright is now.

It nicely tamps down commercial infringement and the associated high-quality curation which would render monetization of content unviable.

> What you're saying is that the fact that someone who has had no interaction with the creator, agreed to nothing with them, and caused them zero harm can be liable to the creator and even criminally liable is a good thing. Incredible.

"Zero harm" is debatable, and it depends on your philosophical stance about this.

Note that criminal liability generally involves commercial infringement, too.

I believe that people should be able to profit from things they create. That's the idea with copyright: they're entitled to an exclusivity period in exchange for the work eventually belonging to society as a whole. It's the latter part where we've lost our way: terms are way too long.