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Artistic Freedom Vouchers Proposed
Corvus writes "Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research has written a paper proposing a system giving everyone a voucher which they could use to support the creative artist/writer/etc of their choice, as a way of avoiding the intrusiveness and inefficiency of the current copyright system." I'm sure I'd use mine on MC Chris.
We already have a system of vouchers which can be given to artists, who in turn can exchange them for goods and services. Those vouchers are called "money."
This idea is a silly, feel-good proposal that will not compensate artists in a reasonable way. Instead, people will assign their voucher to a friend, whether or not they'd ever pay for any of their music. Cash is a very effective way to compensate artists, and consumers choosing to use their own cash (not some free voucher that every taxpayer will subsidize) is the best way to allocate these scarce dollars.
Music consumers like these "compulsary licensing" schemes because it means that non-music listening people will be forced to subsidize their favorite things. Seems like a good idea. Let's require poor kids to pay $10 a year so the rich kid driving his dad's Ferrari doesn't have to spend an extra $100 a year on his music.
It's nothing more than a naked political grab, and the EFF is losing mainstream support because of their regressive stance.