Meanwhile, creativity—far from being stifled without more copyright laws on the books—is currently thriving. There’s been a market increase in the amount of movies, music, and books produced over the last decade, as this comprehensive study done by CCIA and Techdirt’s Mike Masnick shows.
That's a poor argument for loosening copyright restrictions - it makes it seem as if the status quo is OK. I personally think existing copyright terms need to be significantly shortened, and that a legal challenge might succeed on the basis that Congress is empowered to grant copyrights for 'a limited time.' Insofar as copyright terms exceed the average human lifetime, they are effectively endless for all but the longest-lived members of society, promoting a creative gerontocracy.
Technological advancement (eg: music software, cheap HD cameras, etc.) and significantly better distribution platforms (eg: the internet) can account for an increase in production... they need to account for that, otherwise its kinda nonsensical to say what they say.
But then, it seems this is ideologically driven from the beginning.
It is much like the "studies" in the 1990s, published by microsoft (and you see them now from google) that say Microsoft (or android) is winning. (despite, for instance, Samsung never giving sales details, and when they were forced to by the recent lawsuit, it turned out they were pitiful... so you have press claiming huge sales to further and ideological position that "Android is winning" (and thus "open" works, even though Android is no more open than iOS) using essentially made up data and then other sources repeat it to the point where large numbers of (frankly, uninformed) people believe it.
...even though Android is no more open than iOS...
Wait a minute. We all know from reading your comments on which side of the Apple/Google divide you fall, but how on earth do you come to that conclusion? Can you download and redistribute the complete source code to iOS?
That's a poor argument for loosening copyright restrictions - it makes it seem as if the status quo is OK. I personally think existing copyright terms need to be significantly shortened, and that a legal challenge might succeed on the basis that Congress is empowered to grant copyrights for 'a limited time.' Insofar as copyright terms exceed the average human lifetime, they are effectively endless for all but the longest-lived members of society, promoting a creative gerontocracy.