Ascalon:
>The idea of giving the creator certain rights is to encourage them to produce more artistic works. This in turn benefits the public. The law was not set up primarily for corporations to prevent access to works but to primarily to encourage proliferation of art. This was seen as of benefit to the community as a whole and it is a subtle yet very important distinction<


I agree that the *result* of copyright is the encouragement for the production of further material.

Of course, the act does not spell out its intent. All we have is the act itself. It states:

Subject to sections 107 through 121, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

From this, I stand by my original post that the act is about property rights, not the betterment of society. The community benefits are simply a side effect.