Here's what I think of it, in a nutshell: a little goes a long way, and more than that is too much. I like the fact that copyright lets me sell rights to my publishers and film studios and so on. It's nice that they can't just take my stuff without permission and get rich on it without cutting me in for a piece of the action. I'm in a pretty good position when it comes to negotiating with these companies: I've got a great agent and a decade's experience with copyright law and licensing (including a stint as a delegate at WIPO, the UN agency that makes the world's copyright treaties). What's more, there's just not that many of these negotiations -- even if I sell fifty or a hundred different editions of For the Win (which would put it in top millionth of a percentile for fiction), that's still only a hundred negotiations, which I could just about manage. I hate the fact that fans who want to do what readers have always done are expected to play in the same system as all these hotshot agents and lawyers.
