The decision is not entirely on the author. Jurisdictions have to decide how much they are willing to spend and how far they are willing to go to enforce copyright, potentially forever.
Technological advances are going to make it very hard to enforce copyright.
> Technological advances are going to make it very hard to enforce copyright.
Alternately, technological advances are going to make it much easier to control everything a person has access to, constantly monitor everything they access, and identify/punish those who access unauthorized material.
I currently mirror many terabytes of content onto external hard drives. I have loaned copies out to many people, who have made their own copies. I will continue to loan to anyone who asks.
What technological advances do you imagine preventing me and others from doing this?
Storage will continue to decrease in cost. It will only get easier to duplicate these libraries. What happens when they fit on a phone or a thumb drive?
> What technological advances do you imagine preventing me and others from doing this?
DRM "Trusted Computing" and spying at the OS level mostly. Your friend will plug in the external hard drive. Their OS will immediately scan the contents, upload filenames/hashes to a server to compare them against anything they consider illegal or unacceptable. Any attempt to play media will require your computer to connect to the internet to verify that you have a valid license for it. Your friend's OS will be 100% cloud based (Windows360 SE) making every device basically a dumb terminal and anything they do on their computer could be watched and analyzed in real time for signs of illegal activity (and market research). Your files may not even be accessible at all for your friends since the OS could stamp each file with an ID and remote attestation could prevent any unauthorized computer/user account from viewing the files. You can't authorize all your friends computers without de-authorizing your own. Limited number of authorizations per year. Any attempts to access unauthorized content could be logged and reported to authorities.
Very soon you won't be able to buy a computer with a modern processor from either Intel or AMD that doesn't include code written by Microsoft designed to prevent your computer from booting at all unless it's got Windows installed. Currently they allow you to toggle a switch in software that will let you bypass that restriction, but no promises that it'll stay that way (https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-pluton-secure-processo...) and (https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/59931.html)
DRM is in every browser, and even in the HTML5 spec.
Every computer/monitor that supports HDMI already has DRM included in it designed to prevent you from making unauthorized copies of high quality video content. Like all DRM it's illegal to bypass that.
Starting with Windows 10 (although a windows update later added it to 7 and 8) Microsoft collects your filenames. Apple already wanted to scan their customer's personal files for illegal content.
We're much much closer to that reality than I'd like. There's already very little hope of getting away from DRM.
I believe that the default path on Windows will impede copying of some content.
I remain entirely unconvinced that I will somehow be stopped from putting together unencumbered Linux machines. I am unconvinced that anyone can prevent me from enjoying and sharing the terabytes of content I already have. I am unconvinced that HDCP strippers will stop working for existing content. I am unconvinced that people around the world will be entirely prevented from copying new content.
I really hope you're right. If they start adding more user-hostile stuff in CPUs and firmware it may not matter what we're using for an OS. Intel and AMD are basically the entire market and having just two companies with that much control over our computing freedom is a problem.
HDCP strippers will probably keep working, but committing crimes like circumventing DRM only gets riskier as our computers log and report back connected devices, what we're doing on them, and companies can buy up our purchase histories.
I do admire your optimism, but I've seen our freedom increasingly restricted over the course my own lifetime too. For example, the idea that Microsoft was overstepping their boundaries and taking inappropriate liberties with our computers has been around since Windows 95, but there was a time when I never thought we'd see a day where MS was openly snooping on user's personal files or plastering ads all over their OS yet here we are.
Don't underestimate surveillance capitalism and the desire companies and governments have to restrict what we're able to do with our own devices.
I am not just optimistic. I am actively working to ensure that I have general purpose computing available. The world is more than Intel and AMD. Tech at the level of Raspberry Pi is not going to go away. What Windows users do is irrelevant.
Technological advances are going to make it very hard to enforce copyright.