Do we need to break this balance？

Here are a few points from David's article this week:

• Copyright law places artificial limits on our ability to use technology to share educational materials. This changes these public goods into club goods, once again making them difficult to share.
• Open educational resources are far better aligned with the core values of education than materials published under an all rights reserved traditional copyright. This closer alignment creates opportunities for less expensive, more flexible, more effective education.
• Because of their close alignment with the core values of education, adopting OER in place of traditionally copyrighted educational resources provides unique opportunities and benefits to faculty and students. Instructional designers, faculty, and other educators and administrators should develop a basic understanding of OER.

From everything I've learned this semester, I quite agree with all of the above. However, I am not here today to talk about the content of those ideas. Do you notice a common point in all three of these ideas? Right! They all talked about OER and Copyright. In my opinion, David's three points give me a feeling that Copyright is the enemy of OER. I don't know if I'm the only one who feels this way. Is Copyright really bad for OER? Do we need to break the balance between them?

Before I begin to explain what I think, I'd like to talk about a tactic used by emperors in ancient China. (Right! I'm going to start talking about Chinese culture again! XD). The emperors of ancient China were fond of using a tactic called the 权衡之术 (the art of balancing) to stabilize their empires. To achieve this balance, the emperor often appointed several powerful ministers to the state rather than just one to help the emperor manage the state. The idea is that these equally powerful ministers will keep each other in check so that no one becomes dominant. If one man had too much power he might threaten the position of the emperor, and this is not what the emperor wants to see. For this reason, only by keeping these ministers in check with each other can the country develop peacefully.

I think OER and Copyright can be seen as such a balance, and I personally don't want either of them to disappear or decline. There is no doubt that OER can bring many benefits to our teaching, but Copyright can also be a great incentive for creators to create high-quality resources. I think the co-existence of OER and Copyright seems to be a benefit for learners. Imagine that two stores are competing all the time. They are trying to beat the other by offering better promotions than the other. Who is the biggest beneficiary of this competition? Right! The biggest beneficiaries are consumers. Similarly, OER also needs Copyright to make itself more perfect. At the same time, in this competition, we will be the biggest beneficiaries.

Now, do we need to break this balance? Please tell me what you think:)