Copyright as an incentive
Copyright is often justified by courts and legal academics as an incentive for creators to produce. Historically, incentive has been one of the main justifications for copyright, the other being reward.
But then, most of standard copyright theory is wrong.
One of the primary functions of property - and copyright is no exception - is to make the thing in question more easily tradable on the market. That’s important because the main incentive (for for-profit actors, at least) is the ability to obtain value on the market.
The property right is not the incentive: the incentive is profit on the market. It’s just that the propertisation of the relevant asset makes for a much more predictable market and makes it a lot easier to access value on the market.
Here’s an example of what I mean.
Imagine a farmer whose sole crop is apples and who lives in a society in which there is no property. So, to protect his investment, he pays for security guards to protect his orchard. When he transports his apples to the supermarket, he pays for guards to guard his apples while they are in transit. The supermarket pays him for the apples, but then also has to pay guards to guard the apples while they are on display.
It’s a workable system, but expensive to run and, probably, unstable and unpredictable. One of the main benefits of having a society with property is that it outsources the role of the guards to the state, and stabilises the market. It makes it easier to trade in the market and, if you are motivated by revenue or profit, makes it much easier to achieve revenue and profit. (It helps that the legal institution matches what most of us think is a moral obligation).
It’s not a perfect system either: people still steal, and supermarkets still employ security guards. Is the property right in apples an incentive for the farmer to produce apples? No, it’s not: but it helps him reach his incentive, which is to make a profit.
The ability of trade on a stable market is not just important for creators, it’s also important for subsequent owners of the work (which includes investors of various types). A lot of copyright theory focuses on the creator, but equally important in a functioning market are the subsequent owners. For example, some people in the UK are lucky enough to own the land they live on. They are probably the three-hundredth owner of that piece of land: they have no idea who the first owner was, and don’t need to know.
To repeat: the property right is not the incentive; the incentive is profit on the market. It’s just that the propertisation of the relevant asset makes for a much more predictable market and makes it a lot easier to access value on the market.