So I was watching this presentation by Larry Lessig
http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html
About how to manage copyright in the digital age . . . And I have a suggestion.
Right now the real issue that is holding back a lot of potential business is the old style of monetization that is used by most music and movie sellers. Their general approach is to withhold use of their product, especially on youtube “memes,” and use of pop music as background etc.
I say, why not do what ASCAP already does?
For instance, right now, if you want to record a “cover” of a pop song, you can go right ahead and do it. BUT you need to register your use with ASCAP, and pay both a fee on each physical CD and the owner of the song gets added fees from ASCAP any time your version gets played in an elevator somewhere. These fees are standard across the board. (There is a company called Harry Fox that keeps track of all this stuff.)
SO . . .
Let’s say we create 2 levels of youtube. One is free, for the other, you pay an annual fee of say $40. For free, you can upload your own backyard hijinks. For the paid version, you can take any movie or song and use it, change it, edit it, whatever . . .but you report that use to youtube, and they pay the copyright holder a set fee (there is no limit on how much stuff you can use– the fee to the copyright owner comes out of the collective pot, just like ASCAP payments to composers).
Then if there is ad revenue, youtube again pays the copyright holder per view (of course we’re talking .004 cents) . . .
This way, instead of constantly saying “you can’t have it,” or always looking to monetize per download in what is really a rather clunky limited system, you are selling the song, not just to end users, but to the huge market of RE-users . . .
This new paradigm shift is almost mirror image of Hollywood in 1954 realizing that there is more money in selling its movies to television networks (i.e. re-users) than in hoarding them and showing them in movie theaters.
This wouldn’t be that hard to do; it would be a massive profit center; and it would de-criminalize the digital mashups that are now so much a part of our culture. Everybody wins.
I solve more world crises before breakfast than most people do all day 🙂 –
JL
©) Justin Locke (altho you can re print it all you want for 7 cents)
