You're committing a genetic fallacy. The Illiad survived to this time because it was one of the best writings from that ancient period. Making such a comparison is about as useful as comparing Arcangelo Corelli to Britney Spears. Instead, let's take the very best writing from this era and compare it to the very best rating of that era, volumetrically. Self interest motivates people to write, and so instead of having one great piece of work in 500 years we have tens of thousands per year. Now, is most of what's written trash? Sure. But that's because we're swimming in a sea of content. Whatever survives this era and his remembered later, aside from the artificially boosted trash, will surely be of great quality. Also, I mean what's to stop somebody from writing something great and putting it into the public domain? Unless you're trying to compel others to give you stuff for free, I don't really understand the argument… It's not like copyright rules prevent you from giving away your work for free. Perhaps copyrights should be reduced in length, and certainly they should not be extended for the benefit of one corporation (like was the case for Disney). But getting rid of copyrights all together would just reduce the amount of written content to cheaply produced trash in the odd masterpiece Also, I mean what's to stop somebody from writing something great and putting it into the public domain? Unless you're trying to compel others to give you stuff for free, I don't really understand the argument… It's not like copyright rules prevent you from giving away your work for free. Perhaps copyrights should be reduced in length, and certainly they should not be extended for the benefit of one corporation (like was the case for Disney). But getting rid of copyrights all together would just reduce the amount of written content to mostly cheaply produced trash and then the odd masterpiece.