I have a right to keep someone from stealing my 'intellectual property'. That said, I am not quite sure what constitutes the theft. If I voice my ideas to any third party and they take it and run with it, have they stolen from me? I certainly chose to voice said ideas.
If it's ideas then we are talking about patents. Copyright applies to direct copies - (e.g. you right a book and someone reproduces that book without your permission)
I think one can adequately protect oneself by refusing to provide a manuscript to a publisher/literary agent without an agreed upon contract that the publisher/literary agent will not go on to sell it while cutting the author out. Once that book is published though, it is made public property. If other publishing houses then want to reproduce and sell on their own, they should be allowed to do so; after all, this will only increase the publicity and notoriety of said author and allow him/her to publish the next work with the larger, more lucrative publishing house.
So if you write your one great novel and contract with a small publishing house. They contract with you and put it on the market. It sells some copies then Random House copies it and floods all the bookstores with their version. 90% of sales go them. That's cool? What if someone makes it digital and plasters it all over the web? You make zero dollars since no one buys it. Tough cookies? Should be free to anyone just because?
I also think that copyright laws have stifled the integration of literature. Think about all the stories revolving around the Greek and Roman gods, the Bible, Vampires, Dracula, Frankenstein, etc. If the original stories had been copyrighted, other authors would not have been allowed to build off of such themes as they would be stealing and/or plagiarizing another's intellectual property.
Authors do not have to copyright or can copyright but give permission for full distribution. Copyrights expire.
I see a great utilitarian argument for copyright and patent law when it comes to pharmaceuticals; pharmaceutical companies invest a lot of money in research and development in order to provide new drugs and new cures for diseases. To continue to operate and provide these benefits, they must be compensated fairly well and the only way to do that appears to be by given them control over the product for a period of years. Of course, this has also produced an incentive to constantly modify drugs to continue selling them at high-costs, this appears to be a waste of valuable resources (instead of slightly modifying Tavist, how about these brains are set to try to find cures for HIV and MDRTB), and it leads to a higher cost of prescription meds for those who need them most.
To split hairs - this is patent protection, not copyright protection.
Maybe by removing the industry protections in the form of copyright and patent law and trademarks, a reduced salary for the medical field comes in to play. That reduced salary would eventually result in reduced costs of medical education and those that went in to medicine would be more concerned with actually helping others than with earning money.
There is pretty convincing evidence that without patent protection, many innovations never leave the lab because of the inability to reward the risk in the development/commercialization of that innovation.
I am not sold on the idea that the lack of copyright law reduces the incentive for creativity; hell, most of the bands that earn the most money are those bands that have been labeled as 'sell-outs' and have left any and all creativity behind them.
