For the record, there is no formal registration process for an item to be protected by copyright. There is, however, a formal process necessary to enforce your copyright. But under the 1976 Act, this may be done at any time, and unlike the 1909 Act, failure to comply with registration formalities does not mean that you cannot some day exercise your copyright. IAL.
This article and much of this discussion comes up real short. While I have seen some reference to Coase, which is the obvious reference to make, I have also seen a reference to The Tragedy of the Commons. Big points for both.
But the real Coase article to take a look at is "The Marginal Cost Controversy". The points are not entirely applicable, but he discusses some important aspects of price theory.
Basically, over time the price of a product has a tendency to approach its marginal cost, the cost to make each new product, unless there is some sort of external intervention. A perfect example is drugs. The only reason more effecient producers don't spring up is that there are artificially strong property right enforced by the government. The same goes for software. Just look at the market in pirated software in countries that do not have the same patent laws as the US and our friends. And again for music, literature, etc.
So now we get to my personal information. Lessig hits the nail on the head when he recommends a strong property interest in personal information. More generically, a strong property interest in data is the only way that corporations will be able to make money reselling my personal information and yours. Corporations will declare that they have "added value" or some such thing to protect the data they have collected. How do you think direct mail companies make money? Just to make sure, these coporations seed their data with false information to ensure that their lists to not leave their control. So why should a corporation have a property interest in my information and not me? I don't care how much value they added when collating my data with other private individuals. I added a lot of value and it took me my whole life to assemble the data, not a few cpu cycles to build the data warehouse.
The only way to make money on a product that is not a scarce resource is not artificially enforce the scarcity. And the only way to do that is through the force of law or some sort of regulation.
As for a solution, perhaps some sort of syndication scheme where you license your personal information and corporations pay per use, just like Ricardo Montalban get a check every time Fantasy Island is re-reun.
And just like the Antioch sexual harrassment policy, a whole new way of thinking will spring up. At Antioch, if memory serves, people started propositioning each other by saying "Do you want to initiate the policy?" And you will see software solutions that implement the property rights assigned to personal data.
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For the record, there is no formal registration process for an item to be protected by copyright. There is, however, a formal process necessary to enforce your copyright. But under the 1976 Act, this may be done at any time, and unlike the 1909 Act, failure to comply with registration formalities does not mean that you cannot some day exercise your copyright. IAL.
This article and much of this discussion comes up real short. While I have seen some reference to Coase, which is the obvious reference to make, I have also seen a reference to The Tragedy of the Commons. Big points for both. But the real Coase article to take a look at is "The Marginal Cost Controversy". The points are not entirely applicable, but he discusses some important aspects of price theory. Basically, over time the price of a product has a tendency to approach its marginal cost, the cost to make each new product, unless there is some sort of external intervention. A perfect example is drugs. The only reason more effecient producers don't spring up is that there are artificially strong property right enforced by the government. The same goes for software. Just look at the market in pirated software in countries that do not have the same patent laws as the US and our friends. And again for music, literature, etc. So now we get to my personal information. Lessig hits the nail on the head when he recommends a strong property interest in personal information. More generically, a strong property interest in data is the only way that corporations will be able to make money reselling my personal information and yours. Corporations will declare that they have "added value" or some such thing to protect the data they have collected. How do you think direct mail companies make money? Just to make sure, these coporations seed their data with false information to ensure that their lists to not leave their control. So why should a corporation have a property interest in my information and not me? I don't care how much value they added when collating my data with other private individuals. I added a lot of value and it took me my whole life to assemble the data, not a few cpu cycles to build the data warehouse. The only way to make money on a product that is not a scarce resource is not artificially enforce the scarcity. And the only way to do that is through the force of law or some sort of regulation. As for a solution, perhaps some sort of syndication scheme where you license your personal information and corporations pay per use, just like Ricardo Montalban get a check every time Fantasy Island is re-reun. And just like the Antioch sexual harrassment policy, a whole new way of thinking will spring up. At Antioch, if memory serves, people started propositioning each other by saying "Do you want to initiate the policy?" And you will see software solutions that implement the property rights assigned to personal data.