Within 50 years copyright will exist is a very limited form. When we FINALLY dive head-long into the information age. (rather than teetering on the edge of it)
Which is somewhat ironic, considering people have been saying that for 50 years, and it's only gotten worse.For instance in the 1950's a copyright was only good for 28 years. Then in 1976 it was "life of the author + 50 years", in 1990 commercial lending of copyright materials was outlawed, in 1998 it was extended further to "life of the author + 70 years", in 1998 the DMCA practically outlawed fair-use of intellectual property.
In 50 years time there will be no such thing as intellectual property rights for consumers. No matter what you buy, it will remain the property of the legal entity it was originally purchased from. Only outlaws will be allowed to enjoy the stuff they buy, as they chose, and only a handful will have the means and resources to reverse engineer the DRM that protects it (and not get caught, obviously).
Fahrenheit 451 anyone? How about Equilibrium then?
Doesn't take a math genius.
Well content providers are fairly short of math geniuses. Seen XBox live? If you watch every episode of "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report", which is only one hour of Comedy Central's daily line-up, it will cost you more than a Cable subscription that includes Comedy Central (plus probably another 300 channels you couldn't care less about). This of course on top of the monthly fee you already pay for your Internet subscription (which is probably fairly significant if you're watching HDTV in real time) and the fee you pay for XBox Live. Add it all up, and anyone with even the slightest mathematical aptitude (never mind a genius), is going to come out in favor of the old distribution networks. Every time.