Without copyright, almost none of the content would get produced, especially in this digital age of zero-cost copying, and “they” (the companies) wouldn’t exist.

I don't think that's true. Copyright isn't more than a few hundred years old. Humans have been making and performing creative works for thousands of years.

Did Shakespeare or Chaucer need copyright? What about da Vinci? And the cave painters of Lascaux?

Sure you may argue that copying had costs back then and doesn't today. Maybe that's the only difference but maybe it isn't. I think creativity and art are human compulsions. Not mere commercial endeavors.

All this to say: it would be a very different industry. But it wouldn't cease to exist.

We had way, way less, and less polished, entertainment a few hundred years ago. Without copyright, you would mostly only get productions like what now exists as fan/amateur projects. Virtually no creator would be able to make a living from it, other than from stage shows (theater/opera/music concerts).

> All this to say: it would be a very different industry. But it wouldn't cease to exist.

Copyrights are such constrained monopolies, though. More or less on the same level as how Nike has a monopoly on Air Jordans, but not on shoes in general.

One of the most interesting things about media consumerism is the extent to which people fail to realize that watching something else is always an option.

Nike here would have also bought adidas and new balance and vans and toms, such that most stores only sell Nike monopolized brands

watching nothing and going outside or barefoot is the real alternative

Same with sunglasses, and glasses in general. One company owns everything.

Copyright is the cancer of the human culture. Always has been.