andrewducker | Copyright WAR!

Copyright WAR!

[Poll #1832597]

The first option, of course, makes it harder for people to earn a living from writing, music, television, etc. There's definitely a tradeoff here. If everyone torrents the next season of #Your Favourite TV Show# then there won't be a next one unless Kickstarter _really_ takes off.

Note: Voting for the third option without offering a solution which is technically feasible in the comments will merely cause giggling.

Threaded | Flat

I wouldn't necessarily object to a locked-down payment system that makes piracy for financial gain virtually impossible.

Really, the fair way to handle this is to impose a small surcharge on monthly Internet subscriptions that is then given to the various large companies that hold 99 percent of the copyright on things that are pirated - who are then obligated to split it amongst their artists based on a rational formula.

For example you could probably find a statistical correlation between how a film does at the movie theater and how many times it is mostly likely downloaded and determine the percentage of the surcharge split based on that. Same could be done with music.

I'm willing to guess that most Internet users would be willing to pay an extra $5 a month if it meant never having to worry about getting sued/fined.

I think I’d like to go for the SEWIWEIC option.

Of the two options I’d prefer this third one. That we move away from paying for content and therefore indirectly paying for the creation of content and move towards paying directly for the creation of the content.

I think the scheme works something like this.

Potential content creator makes a pitch

”Who’d like to see my movie about dinosaurs fighting giant transforming robot cars – here are the details. It’ll cost $250 million and I want to make 10% so it’s yours for $275 million.”

Or

“Who wants a new design for a sofa bed that you can make on a 3D Fabber? I’ll do it for £1,000.”

People make a binding contingent offer to financially support the project.

You could if need be divide the project up into stages. (Who is prepared to pay $10k for me to write a script for a dinosaur robot car movie? Who is prepared to pay $1m for my project team to sign up key actors, directors and other artists? Etc.)

Only they get access to the content. (Actually, you could post production access part of the deal. Some projects would have really tight DRM)

Once the project has sufficient funding the project goes ahead. (There may need to be some kind of insurance product built into this to refund money for projects that fail or go over budget.)

The content comes with no copyright beyond that which has been explicitly agreed to as part of the project bidding process.

At some point it will leak onto the internet and become public property. How quickly it leaks on to the internet I think would be a function of how many people were involved in the original bid and what DRM they signed up to. Your unique design for a new sofa bed is more likely to remain private if you have the only copy on your home server than the big budget film with millions of backers all of whom have put in a fiver.

I think the combination of getting the content you want, getting it a little bit ahead of other people and being a patron of the Arts might make this a workable model for creating content.

It’s certainly flexible.

Kickstarter to the Max.

An other alternative is that we socialise content creation as we do for the BBC. I like the BBC and I think it does great stuff. I don’t think it is as biased as other media. I’m not sure I’d like all of my content to come to me through one channel. Although I think this is inevitable.

Can I just say first that I despise piracy as despicable acts of theft, murder, and kidnapping on the seas.

Digital bootlegging, however, is something I am much more comfortable with, and have yet to have seen conclusive evidence that it is overall harmful (perhaps it is to larger, more successful content producers, however it can act as powerful advertising for smaller content producers, and it seems to even the playing field somewhat). The people who primarily complain about digital bootlegging are often the same people who are already ruining the industries (e.g. the big music labels, and film studios), and whose rhetoric is so low that it stoops to equate copying of files to theft, murder, and kidnapping.

As for the open/locked down Internet, I would prefer an open Internet that makes free sharing of files easy and convenient, but with digital tip-jars for the content makers, so we can more easily get the money to the people responsible and bypass the middlemen. While some people are inherently selfish and won't tip, I think many would be quite willing to give what they can.

Anyway, that might be naive, misinformed, non-cited, idealistic, or whatever, but it's how I feel, and hopefully it isn't too offensive to people.

I think there is a difference between Radiohead and some new band you’ve never heard off. (Also, they didn’t publish how much they netted from this arrangement did they? So it could well be that they didn’t raise enough for the exercise to be worth their while. Or repeated.)

Are there any more high profile or low profile examples?

I think there is a difference between a face to face interaction and the anonymous internet which, I think explains why buskers might make a living selling theatre and recording artists might not make a difference on the internet.

Charities are more like a kickstart scheme for future work. When I give money to a charity I'm not paying them for work they have done in the past. I'm paying for them to do work in the future.

I’m not saying that you’re wrong, that it can’t work.

I think the transition would be very, very messy and patchwork.

I strongly dislike how people talking about this issue tend to immediately start talking about content creators making a living. I think it's an assumption that you should be able to make a living from creating some kind of media and some of the models discussed work well for situations where whatever they are creating is either getting them money which is a nice extra for their time spent, or if it's funding the creation of further content but not actually paying for them to live (and something else does that). You're essentially making a deliberate appeal to emotion when talking about content creators making a living, and I think it skews and distorts the argument in certain ways.

I suppose that if you only go to see decades-old big stadium rock bands or Rihanna, Lady Gaga et al, for example, it might be surprising to you to be in a situation where you go to a gig and one of the band isn't there because he couldn't get time off work, or if the band only tours during school holidays.

If paying for content online is easy and feels like good value, then piracy will be irrelevant. iTunes, Kindle, Netflix, and Spotify, show that users are willing to pay for digital content. Common factors are a focus on software with a decent user experience, good device integration, and an honest relationship with the customer. There is no doubt what one get when one buys something from iTunes or Kindle, or when one subscribes to Netflix or Spotify.

I like our current heterogeneous approach to paying for digital content. Some people may like to rent individual films or subscribe to a music service; I prefer to own music and books, but am happy to subscribe to Netflix for television and films (such good value! works so well on the Apple TV!)

The idea of mandatory licensing feels horribly illiberal — I can’t see how a one-size-fits-all solution could work for the way people consume media. What would it need? Some sort of central copyright registry? Wouldn’t that be bureaucratic and costly? I’m sure it would favour large publishers over small content creators, which seems a backward step as digital distribution makes it easier than ever to self publish. And would licensing it apply to music, television, films, books, newspapers, magazines, photography, and software?

Threaded | Flat

no subject

no subject

Something Else, Which I Will Explain in Comments

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject