Okay,
@LordsFire, you seem to want to have this debate with me, so I'll have this debate with you.
You make incredible assertions like this, and don't substantiate them in any way. You act like people have to use your ridiculous premises in order to argue with you, when it's statements like this that people are disagreeing with in the first place.
Okay, what "ridiculous premises" are you actually arguing against? Because I think you're all over the place. For instance, you seem to think copyright is justified because "without it, the big companies will just steal from the little companies." However, they already do that and more effectively thanks to copyright systems. Folk music is often pilfered by companies, as seen in the example of "Happy Birthday to You", a folk song that is now copyrighted by AOL/Time-Warner, which aggressively polices its use. The American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) also threatened kids' summer camps because they used songs like "This Land Is Your Land" and "Ring Around the Rosie" in campfire gatherings. So, the copyright system already threatens "the little guy." This is the first among the many things you overlook in your defense of copyright.
Empirically measure?
The USA is the engine of creative production in the world. When it comes to science, music, movies, literature, the USA outproduces literally every other nation in the world. That's a pretty damn good chunk of empirical proof that copyright protection, patent law, and all of that matters.
Here's the question: is it the engine of creative production because of copyright or in spite of copyright? I say "in spite of copyright." You say "because of copyright." Either way, looking at the volume of entertainment products coming out of first world countries like the U.S. isn't going to cut it because there are a LOT of different factors besides copyright that go into why the U.S. produces the amount of stuff it does. It'd be like saying "oh, Japan has stricter gun laws and less crime. Clearly, there's a connection here!" You wouldn't accept such reasoning from a gun control activist, so why are you using that same kind of logic here?
Here's a more logical explanation: copyright as an idea emerged out of Enlightenment liberal thought, particularly the ideas of Thomas Hobbes. This Hobbesian idea of the author as the owner of original ideas was mixed with the Romantic conception of the genius artist in the nineteenth century to form the basis of the modern ideal of copyright. The rise of Enlightenment ideas coincided with scientific and technological advancements, advancements that allowed for the increased prosperity. From this increased prosperity came the rise of fandoms which in turn allowed authors to profit from their stories like never before. These new profits were compounded by copyright because copyright allowed authors to have a monopoly on all stories that were remotely similar to theirs. They justified this later by claiming "copyright is the only way I earn profit!" when in reality, they never knew a world without copyright, so they'd never know this. At all.
You want a directly tangible example?
Me, myself, personally. I have original material e-published, that has earned me money. I never would have taken the time to do that if it weren't for the fact that I can earn money off of it. I would have just kept older drafts of the same material on my hard drive, and left it at that. There, empirical evidence.
You admitted when you agreed with me that Disney profited from stories in the public domain, aka those stories whose creators either weren't alive when copyright as a concept was invented or never bothered to copyright the song in the first place. But if that's the case, why couldn't every story maker just use things in the public domain and profit from it? Doesn't that give up the lie that you can't profit from stories that you don't own? Disney doesn't own Aladdin, even if they copyright their specific version of the story.
But sure, let's grant that you wouldn't make
as much money without a monopoly privilege. So? Am I supposed to be sympathetic to you for that? Why would I want rent-seekers to make more money?