> Doug earns an income stream from LBO by sending people PDFs in
> exchange for $x. If he didn't have copyright
> then some dufus somewhere could just put the PDF on a
> free website and presumably far fewer people would
> subscribe to LBO. Right? Or am I wrong about this?
My guess is that it woudn't change things much. Just because Doug has the copyright doesn't mean it gets enforced; so your hypothetical dufus probably exists already. Where are Doug's Men With Big Sticks enforcing it? More to the point, don't you think that the kind of people who subscribe to LBO would pay for it anyway; and those who would pirate it wouldn't buy it if that was the only way to get it?
I think even the New York Times is learning: put your stuff behind a paywall and you'll see two things happen:
1) Subscriptions go up 2) Readership goes down
Whether that's good or not has yet to be decided.
# "Know your rights, all three of them"
/jordan