A MODEST PROPOSAL. The end of copyright law as we know it.

[iconoclastNYC]

WHEREAS all humanity benefits from the wide availability of art and knowledge

WHEREAS commerce is secondary to the pursuit of human knowledge.

WHEREAS an monetary incentive for artists is necessary to stimulate the creation of new art.

WHEREAS the accessibility art or knowledge should never be limited by financial ability.

WHEREAS it is a founding precept of our country that copyright should be limited as to not limit the ability of humanity to benefit from the arts and sciences

WHEREAS "illegal" file trading networks provide great utility to millions

WHEREAS copyright law in regards to the Internet presents great delemeas

WHEREAS the utility of the internet as whole could be severely compromise by uniform and stringent adherence to conservative interpretations of copyright law.

WHEREAS artificial scarcity that COPYRIGHT laws engender is a violation of free market doctrine

I PROPOSE THAT the Democratic Congress of 2006 ESTABLISH the United States Creative Commons endowment funded by a progressively indexed quasi market based tax levy solution.

Nationalize the entire art and information industries.

Every movie, tv show, magazine article, book, painting be available to anyone to copy. Everything is public domain. The Library of Congress creates the file trading network to make this happens. With a combination of modern P2P networks and old style (illegal) Napster server-client networking this project is completely feasible. The popular stuff would be out on the P2P networks and the rare stuff not found on the P2P cloud could reseed the P2P network via a Napster type query.

The National Endowment for the Arts fund is funded by a special tax item on your income tax. The audit logs of the Library of Congress database would determine monthly royalty checks paid out of the endowment to the original artists. Of course the formulas would be very complex but would provide unbelievable advantages to what we have now. Right now artists only have that limited time to hit something out of the park. Therefore you have to be very popular early on with your artwork to see any money from this. The centralized system would favor longevity. You could also use the system to subsidize artists who would not be able to have careers under the current system. Another advantage is that this installs a progressive system for the consumption of media. A millionaire can afford to buy 1,000 cds a year. A college student cannot. The poor should not be priced out of the art market (I only mean copies, obvious i'm not saying poor people should be able to get their hands on a Van Gogh. We're talking about artificial scarcity here.

The advantages to this system are great. It would only take political will to free the entire culture from the limits of commerce.

[Trillo]

1. If, say, a writer has no copyright to advantage,

then they can't sell first publication rights, unless they can keep absolute secrecy with their writing: then, how do they sell it? Where is your point #3, the monetary incentive, in this instance?

On edit:
The government will pay royalties? What happens if there's a single party in control of all three branches, and your particular art is out of that party's favor? Would a pseudo Diebold-like mis-algorithm be used in the calculation and payout?

I'm not very "trust"ing of the government these days....

[iconoclastNYC]

3. In Essence

They've sold it the minute it is registered with the National Library. SO in this case the writer doesn't have to worry about secrecy or selling the rights. They have the rights. There is no publisher. It is published. If people download it then they get compensated automatically for it.

Now the issue may be that they don't want it immediately accessible because they plan to do a big marketing push. Ok so they can do that.

They might need money for that book tour or ad campaign. Well they can either self finance that or they can borrow money from the capital markets to pay for it. They could put it on their VISA.

But guess what? they still get all the rights to their work. Unlike the current system where middle men come in and front the money in exchange for the majority of the profits. IN this capacity they are little more then legal loan sharks.

Artificial scarcity is needed in a non-internet enabled world. The internet allows for a better compensation system for artists and zero scarcity for art. Its a win win for everyone except the loan sharks.

[Trillo]

11. If an artist may self-finance a marketing campaign,

then doesn't this disadvantage them to the deep corporate business class (also think corporatist-meaning government) that could blitz market only what they wanted to? Also, hasn't the U.S. government historically underfunded arts? Where's the funding for this new system to come from, especially given that * has bankrupted the country?

What if the algorithm is like Technorati's, in the sense that they refuse to index all sites and refuse to communicate when they are queried.

One point of yours that I do agree with is that copyright laws are now written to be of benefit to the rights owner for too many years. They seem to be of greatest benefit to those entities that can live longer than a real human. Today, some authors write novels and it may take them a lifetime to sell them, while the general public generally thinks if you've written a novel, you're wealthy.


Sorry bout the timing of that prior edit of mine.

[iconoclastNYC]

17. You raise a valid point

This law would have to have a good implementation that would be imperative.

To address your concern the entity created would be a public-private entity designed to be non-partisan. Think along the lines of how the supreme court works. Long or lifetime appointments.

I dont think the distribution formulas would need to be changed but once every 10 years......stuff like that to make it hard to bend the administration of the system to the political winds.

[wtmusic]

2. disaster

in my modest opinion.

[iconoclastNYC]

4. One word replies ROCK

Thanks for that critique! Very constructive.

[wtmusic]

9. that did kind of suck, didn't it

especially after you put all that thought into the post.

Been through the copyright discussion many times here, although I admit funding the National Endowment is a new twist.

Who's going to decide who gets the money? What if we don't like their choices--our tax dollars have to pay for lame art?

The free market economy is the best thing that ever happened to art. More artists are making a living than at anytime in history. IMO it's an antitrust issue. It's no coincidence that the "golden age" of pop music was the 50's and 60's when there were thousands of little record companies hungering for talent. Then the companies started to coalesce into larger and larger companies--and the music got lamer and lamer.

[iconoclastNYC]

13. Thanks for your reply.

Your point about media consoldation is an excellent point and one that my system addresses in turning each artists into his own corporation with the National Endowment being the "back office" for them, collecting royalities (ACAP is a precendent here) and the Library Of COngress serving as the role of distributor (via the Internet/P2P messh hybred)

Who decides who gets the money? Yeah thats a political nightmare. Especially when the conservative point of view is pulling in the opposite direction. But here is where i think this helps liberalism. Tell people this law makes it impossible for a record company to sue them becasue there kids download a song. Message: "Republicans (who oppose this bull want the RIAA to be able to sue you!" You can go on and on...Republicans would oppose on idealogical grounds like they always do but i think it can be sold. YOu have to get the artists on board and maybe it starts out as an OPT in system for artists. ITs a huge peiece of legislation and i have no background in law or public policty...i'm just a dreamer who reads a lot about copyright/reform online.

Who says what is lame art? I think right now the test is...whats popular. Maybe that gets 1/2 of the total funding.....1/2 of the funds are spent on popularity. Maybe there are local state and national boards that judge works based on artistic merit...who knows...you could think up lots of mathmaticall formulas to feed into the royalty payment system. hard to get your hand around but its easy to do technically. the systems for radio royalties are not exactly easy to figure out either but its what we have now.

a challenge in selling the system is that you have to explain that what we have works but it doesn't work well. it creates artificial scarcity which is in violation of the laws of supply and demand. artists need to be compestated. my system does that in a better way and the end result for the consumer is they can consume more art. if the rich paid as much as do for PHYSICAL art as they do for reproduction mass market art you could vastly lower the price of art for everyone. Also if the revenue lost to piracy were recouped as in my system, the price of art would be lower. I can't find a scenario where anyone except the people who hold monopolies over distribution currently lose.

Well one......Republicans who wrongly view this as communist.

[wtmusic]

29. A noble proposition

Your biggest hindrance will be momentum. It will never come about in one fell swoop--start with increased funding, or a special fund in the National Endowment for popular art, music, dance, writing--and see if you can draw talent away from the private sector.

I'm a songwriter who gets checks every quarter from BMI and record companies, including money for stuff I wrote 20 years ago. I support the RIAA because without a system like yours in place, aspiring songwriters have virtually zero chance of making a living. Artists' contracts typically include provisions where the have to recoup all expenses for making a CD and promoting it. That means new artists usually see nothing from their percentage of CD sales. Mechanical royalties for the songwriters (usually) end up in artists' pockets--the record company can lose the copyright if they don't pay up.

[ISUGRADIA]

5. How do printed books work in this idea?

[iconoclastNYC]

15. Well.....

You have the notion of EBOOKS and then you have EBOOK printers that print and bind a PRINTED copy of an ebook for COST+PLUS. Which i guess would be $3 a book? The author got compensated the minute another copy was created in the P2P cloud.

[shockingelk]

6. Uh, I'd maybe agree if ...

... "patent" was substituted for "copyright".

As humans, we are unique in that we imitate each others behavior excellently. How to make better drugs, better transportation, better keyboard layout, better non-stick surface.

Reproducing those types of innovations are qualitatively different than making duplications of artistic works. I believe an individual or group ought to be allowed to solely profit from one time unique creation (novels, songs, movies), but one individual/corporation perhaps ought not be given exclusive rights to an invention which benefits all equally.

[iconoclastNYC]

10. Patent to me is less critical then

Copyright. I mean....what my system does is make it easier for art to be consumed esp by the poor, and creates a system where more artists are compenstated for thier work. It cuts out the middle men who do little more then speculate on artists, give them seed capital, and then reap huge profits on the HITS. So every good artist is subsidizing the publishers BAD BUSINESS PICKS on the not sucessful artists. Now does that seem fair? No of course not.

The thing is that copyright is fundamentally flaw even before the Internet and now the Internet has opened up this huge can of worms and the "entertainment" industry is ready to take away the little rights we do have in order to protect thier cartel on distribution. Its unamerican, its the opposite of libertarian values, its bad for the culture and for the future of humanity and its a violation of the idealist core values that our country was founded on (but turned away from.)

And yes patent law is screwy too....way screwy...but i think my concept is easier to understand in terms of consumption of consumer art....the system could apply to patent law too tho.

[shockingelk]

22. There's nothing stopping artists now

There's nothing stopping artists from distributing works on their own terms now other than contracts they may have decided to sign.

What you suggest is saying to artists, "These are the confines in which you must work."

It's not good.

[iconoclastNYC]

30. I disagree.

And there are plenty of restrictions on artists now. First of which is that they sell out to a record company or publishing firm and forgo the majority of the profits that result from thier work.

The entrenched monopoly on distribution makes it highly improbably that individual artists are going to move to direct distribution.

A system like I propose would enable the artist to cut out the middle man and everyone would be able to enjoy art. It also solves piracy.

The current copyright system creates artificial sarcacity so that copyright holders are compenstated. There are other ways to ensure that copyright holders are compenstated that are better for everyone. Mine being one of them.

[shockingelk]

32. Well

And there are plenty of restrictions on artists now. First of which is that they sell out to a record company or publishing firm and forgo the majority of the profits that result from thier work.

You're speaking of small acts here. It's easy to get BMI/ASCAP. Nothing stopping bands from doing that on their own now.

If the band wants publicity, they are free to sign contracts with labels who have the publicity connections. But they don't have to. They can find it on their own.

I ran a small record label in the 90s. Bands paid for pressing, I paid for publicity and got the distribution which they either wouldn't have at all or would have had the distribution headaches I took on for them.

Your plan would seem to prohibit artists from making the choice they did with me.

And what about visual artists? I know lots who would be pissed as hell at being obligated to let others sell copies of their photographs or facsimiles of their paintings. Your plan would seem to require artists to forgo the right to make one-of-a-kind works or limited edition prints.

[Neil Lisst]

7. WHEREAS, uh, NO.

But you have a future as a publisher in China.

[iconoclastNYC]

8. If this system is communist

Then so is GEICO...for cutting out the middle man.

I'd like a real critque please.

[Neil Lisst]

16. I'm serious. China ignores copyright laws and publishes ...

... whatever it feels like.

Copyright laws do not stop anyone from reading a book. The protect the investment the writer and publisher have in bringing the book to market. Your proposal would be the death knell of modern communications.

[iconoclastNYC]

18. I'm guessing one the followinge is true

1. You didn't read my proposal
2. You lack the capacity to understand it
3. You had an immediately emotional rejection of it because of your existing biases

I think this because:

1. This law replaces copyright law with something better. It doesn't say...we'll just not enforce the laws (which is what China does). Any comparison to China here is so wrong as to be laughable.

2. It protects the "investment" the writer has in his artwork. He/She is paid royalities for each and every copy of his work. Under the current system this is not the case at all. And under the current system artists are deemed successful by one metric: units sold. This system would allow for more flexbility in the manner in which artists are compestated.

3. It eliminates the need for a traditional Publisher. It would peform the distribution and royaly collection functions of today publishers at reduced cost to the artist. The internet allows everyone to be a publisher, this system allows everyone to be a publisher and get paid for it.

4. Death knell to modern communications? Say what?

I think you should reread my proposal.

[Hissyspit]

12. Ironically, this is probably closer to the "Founding Father's" vision of

copyright then our current system, where we have corporations that became corporations throught the use of freely available creative ideas (folk tales, etc.) and then shut their own ideas off to any use in free artistic expression (I'm talking about Disney, in particular).

[iconoclastNYC]

14. Yes I suppose

Thats a great example that can be pointed to for a "Deriviative works" exemption to copyright law, a much narrower reform then I'd like to see.

[Neil Lisst]

21. The founding fathers provided for Copyright in the Constitution.

And one of the first acts of Congress in 1790 was the law protecting copyright.

[Hissyspit]

23. I didn't say they didn't. I know that. I said this idea is probably closer

to the original intent of those copyright laws than what we have NOW. The copyright law revisions of the 1990s are much more strict and intrusive on academic and artistic freedom and expression and have been lengthened in time span more than probably the "Founding Fathers" ever would have wanted. The revisions were designed to protect corporations more than anything.

[Neil Lisst]

24. true, but what the founding fathers intended is irrelevant

What they intended has little bearing on where we are now. The law changes as the nature of intellectual properties changes. People want protection for their efforts, and our copyright laws help to do that.

[Hissyspit]

25. No. There couldn't possibly be any corruption in the law-making process.

I am glad that you are secure in feeling that we have EXACTLY the copyright laws that we should have in this country. The same way we clearly have exactly the right foreign policy and exactly the right bankruptcy law and exactly the right fiscal policies and exactly the Patriot Act we should have.

Anyway, I wasn't addressing any of that. I simply said that it was ironic that the poster's proposals were PROBABLY CLOSER in nature than our current laws regarding copyright to the original intentions of the 'irrelevent' "Founding Fathers," who wrote the principles embedded in the Constitution to which any copyright laws passed by Congress must conform.

The "Founding Fathers" were pretty smart folk, and recognized the importance of the FREEDOM of the marketplace of ideas as contributing to a healthy society.

[Neil Lisst]

26. the founding fathers left out the bill of rights

Copyright was covered in the original constitution, but free speech had to be added.

I like the founding fathers, and a number of them were great thinkers, but when they met in Philly in 1787, they were there to protect PROPERTY RIGHTS.

[iconoclastNYC]

31. You shoudln't get protection for more than a limited time.

And Congress has extended it and extended it again and again basically because it was cheaper for Disney to lobby congress than to come up with new works to replace the revenue lost due to thier copyrighted works being trasnfered to the public domain.

Copyright law hurts consumer and benefits the very few artists who manage to make something that is commericail viable.

The copyright industry is prepared to strip you of your rights in order to fix the problem of PIRACY (which can never be prevented)....a radically different approach is needed.

[iconoclastNYC]

19. Correction.

I said Nationalize the entire art and information industries.

I should have said : "Nationalize the distribution and royalty-collection of all copyrighted works."

I'm thinking that the world "Nationalize" and "entire" are why some people are making comparisons to China.

Additionally i should probably think of more attractive word than Nationalize which has bad connations anyone to the right of Ralph Nader.

[Dogmudgeon]

20. Why would artist compensation be complex?

There is already a system of mechanical royalty payments. IIRC, every instance results in a 7.5-cent payment; 3.75 to the artist and 3.75 to BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, or whatever performing-rights organization the artist is signed with.

This is strictly for recorded audio, but it would not be difficult to adapt it for literary and video works.

--p!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

27. Yeah, that's exactly what I want.

Make it fundamentally impossible for us to import any material from elsewhere, and give control of everything else to the government. Can't wait until the next time the Republicans are in power and they can do what they've done to PBS for EVERY SINGLE PIECE of media in the country.

What planet are you from?

[Solon]

28. Better Idea...

While yours is noteworthy, from a practical standpoint it is somewhat unworkable. I have a couple of proposals that cover MOST if not all of "IP" laws. First, recind the law that doesn't require the copywrite symbol for copywrited works. Let me put it this way, if I took your post and reprinted it somewhere, anywhere, even if credited to you, you could still sue me for copywrite infringment, even though that damn "C" isn't at the bottom.

Anyways, thats first, second is to eliminate the "Mickey Mouse" law, he and all other works from that time period should have been public domain decades ago. Second, Copywrites can only be assigned to individuals, not coporations, so that when the author or creator dies, then the copywrite will actually expire in like 70 years or so. No more this "copywrite xyz company" but instead "copywrite Mr./Ms. Smith".

Third, revoke the Digital Millenium Copywrite Act(DMCA), its stupid and unenforcable anyways. You know that the guy who revealed to the world the dirty little software from Sony on his blog, violated a federal law to do so, right?

Fourth, review the standards for patent application and implementation at the USPO, its broken. In two instances this is particularly important, the first is the whole idea about patenting living things, genetically engineered animals and plants. A dumbassed court ruling allowed for this, because the judges didn't know shit about biology, no surprise there, the Patent office at the time knew of the danger, but had to relent, so now we have a system where patented plants and animals are becoming increasingly commonplace, this includes patenting parts of the human genome. I'm just wondering when Big Pharma will start demanding certain people to pay for licenses to have kids, that is the road in which we are heading.

The second thing are software patents, which make absolutely no sense considering that they are already copywritable, but then again, derivative work is protected under patents only. This is doubly stupid when you realize that it is only math and logic questions that are answered by ANY program on a computer, translated from binary to human readable data. Hate to break it to people, but math is the language of the universe, and is discovered, not invented, its the basis for science. Not to mention that some companies(IBM) have abused this system so badly that it is a joke, basically they intimidate smaller companies into paying licenses that companies like IBM didn't earn in the first place. So now we have a system where the big companies buy up all the software patents, and lord over small companies, stifling innovation in the process. Also, some of these patents are ridiculous in other ways, like Amazon.com's "One Click Purchase" patent. Stupidity run amok.

[ReadTomPaine]

33. Brief aside, but "A Modest Proposal" was meant as satire by Swift. n/t