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Post-copyright: Digital Cash and Compulsory Licensing?
gojomo writes "AaronSw offers a compelling idea: use anonymous transferable digital cash to allocate the monies collected for creators in a compulsory licensing scheme, to avoid some of the potential problems outlined by other compulsory critiques. LawMeme calls it a "Proto Whuffie" but expects fake artists to sign up for the loot. I might call it "voucher socialism" -- but that's not necessarily a bad thing."
...Who things that "Proto Whuffie" would make a great party drug?
The Human Cow - bringing you scrumtrelescence since 1995
Paying them directly ignores the fact that they need marketing to be viable. This scheme could allow 'fake' artists and other undesirables to leech off the public. Ultimately, and perhaps ironically, the very scheme we've been railing against might be what we've been searching for all along: pay the middleman, who ensures the artists are promoted and paid in the end. The only damaging aspect to this are downloaders who compulse artists to let their music go for free, which helps nobody.
I never vote for anyone. I always vote against.
-- W.C. Fields
This only pays based on CD/DVD burning - whereas most usage would occur when downloaded MP3's are played on the computer itself. I know I haven't burned more than a handful of CD's, instead using my PC as jukebox...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
The next virus/malicious web script will repeatedly play artists' music on your PC, artificially influencing your "vote" for where the money goes.
-- No sig for you!
I've got a socialist streak this wide {holds arms out as far as they reach}, but as soon as I read "a tax on IP addresses and hard drives" I flinched like an anarcho libertarian. The idea's a non-starter
This is an excellent opportunity for the RIAA to leverage a private currency. They could control the cost per unit in US$, and actually charge sub 1 cent prices for certain independant artists, to encourage sales.
There was a good bit on Kuro5hin about this a little while back.
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
Why should I pay any tax on DVD drives, writable media, ISP service, etc. if I never have and never will download any artists material? All of these items which might have this proposed compulsory licensing fee have legal uses unrelated to the theft, use, or enjoyment of "artists" copyrighted material. For example, most of my HD space, DVD backups, and internet bandwidth is consumed by my own digital pictures.
If people want music, then they should pay for music. Hidden taxes that penalize all for the misbehavior of some seem like a very bad idea.
I guess if this goes through, I will have to sign up as a licensed creator of digital photographs and then assign all these "artists" tax dollars to myself.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
"the idea for our compulsory licensing system is this: we tax Internet connections and CD/DVD burners a small amount and send the money to the artists. In exchange, they let us download their songs and movies off the Internet. The problem is how to decide which artists should get the money without losing privacy, accuracy, or security."
For this to work, you'd be sending your money to the RIAA/MPAA member companies, not the artists (since artists certainly don't hold any copyrights anymore).
This scheme is essentially another take on the Canadian CD Levy process (presume guilt, put a levy on blank CDs, give levy money to copyright holders). Given that the $70+ million collected so far for the Canadian CD Levy has yet to be distributed because distribution isn't clear cut, I can't imagine an even more complex system working.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
I stopped reading right here:
:P
If you've listened to one Britney Spears song day and night for the past month and nothing else...
Any human being that would subject themselves to this kind of torture can't be anything but clinically insane. As such, his plan has to be almost as looney.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Why do we need all this. Centralized system, government intervention.
Copyright is no an absolute given god right. It is a temporary monopoly granted by all the people to an individual so that he can make a living doing what he does (music, software, books...). At no point was the copyright intended to prevent people from viewing or listening to the material. The purpose is to give the author some mean of profiting from his work.
In this sense the current situation is not that bad. If you are a scrooge and do not want to pay anything you try to download for free and you get what you get. Quality is pot shot and you do not give anything to the artist. If you are a bit more reasonable don't want to spend hour downloading and want a bit better quality you use a service like Apple iTune Music Store and the artist get something. No need to change anything expect to send the RIAA packing.
I think we should re-think the whole idea of "art" and "intellectual property" from the ground up.
Once upon a time, rich people subsidized art. Everyone got to enjoy some of it - Italian fountains come to mind, and the Sistine ceiling, etc. Some was enjoyed only by the owner and his friends - Mona Lisa et al. (Can you tell I'm of Italian origin?)
The patron paid the artist, often subsidizing his entire existence. There was no charge to the public for public art - the masses enjoyed it freely.
Why would it be impossible for wealthy people or masses of poor people like me pooling their resources to again subsize the very creation of art?
When enough of us are hungry for a new song from Norah Jones, we pool our resources and negotiate with Norah, her band, and the techs necessary. They make the music, we pay them, we enjoy the music, we share with the rest of the world. Same for visual arts, literature, etc.
Or, even better, artists support themselves (as most do anyway) by working at other jobs until they demonstrate that they create something a lot of people want. Along the way some patron or patron-group might subsidize some things. Eventually, they are creating and giving away their art - BUT making money by private engagement, much like ex-politicos make their money speaking at a half-million a pop.
You'd get all the music, art, drama, literature, etc. you want - free. But if you want to see/hear the person perform live, you pay for it. Can't make a living that way? Nonsensense. Bill Clinton is making money for the first time in his life (he claims) just from opening his mouth and posing for pics at group gatherings. Already it's claimed that musicians make their money, not from CD sales, but from concerts.
The internet makes most of the middlemen unecessary. The internet makes much of the marketing cheaper. Let's start all over with an internet-based art model and stop trying to fit it all into old paradigms.
Disclaimer: I know this idea is chock-full-a-holes, but my point is that we don't have to "tweak" the old system. It's time for a totally new system. And not just a new system of "payment" but a totally new way of thinking about the relationship among artist/patron/public and about how artists can profit.
computerlady - a brand new Slash-daughter - alone, but no longer invisible, in the
it basically outlaws any open source.
,there have been "artists", "Mages", Actors, writers, painters, etc... forever. and 99% of the human history on this planet there has been no copyrights and no tight controls over your "intellectual property" and it did not hurt the human races artistic development at all.
If my mp3' player must talk to my cd drive to the outside servers about my special "string" then me writing my own mp3 player that doesnt do this inane dance makes me an instant felon.
Or how about My OS that doesnt do this BS they dream up? It also would be illegal?
How about telling the artists and money grabbers to simply shut the hell up?
if you aren't writing music and performing to entertain then you are in it for the wrong reasons.
Cripes
All of this is just the loud whining of the greedy no talent types.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Why isn't there just the simple argument for limited term, non-transferable copyrights? The artists would be able to profit from their artistry for 10 years, and then we can all trade their music like crazy after that. The RIAA couldn't bilk the money from the artists because the artists couldn't give up their copyrights to the publishers, and instead the labels would serve their rightful place as marketers and distributors.
10 years is about right. (I work hard on a song, from a couple of months to even 2 years to get it just right.) Record it, sell copies of it. 10 years later the copyright expires and I stop collecting royalties on a song I wrote a decade earlier.
The two main problems with the current system are that (1) the labels control the musicians through indentured servitude by copyright transfer and (2) the labels control the music choices through narrow distribution channels.
Limited term, non-transferable copyright. It just makes sense.
MORTAR COMBAT!