Thread: My idea for replacing the current copyright system

My designs and drawings are currently covered by copyright laws.

What happens to me?

Means would be developed to determine how big a slice of the pie you would receive.

Originally Posted by unclassifiable

Means would be developed to determine how big a slice of the pie you would receive.

How about the 100% I get now?

You now get 100% of a much smaller pie.

Originally Posted by unclassifiable

...artists are funded via public money...

I doubt your system is even theoretically feasible, but if it was,
The Public already has too many reponsibilites and debts, and
cannot affort one minute or penny more time and expense.

I say keep after violators, raise the penalties for infringement,
and include stiff jailtime for the assholes.

The idea is insane, for so many reasons.

Copyright law doesn't exist to ensure that a person gets paid for what he's created. It exists to keep people from stealing something to which they have no right.

I'm a photographer. I have thousands of photographs on the web. These photos, despite being on the web, belong to me. I own the copyright. I can sell the rights to them if I wish, or I can license them. I, however, get to decide who gets them and who does not, and I've declined requests for photos for any number of reasons. Someone simply wanting a photograph is hardly a sufficient reason for them to have it.

Like Tsquare, I get 100% of the money generated by what I create. Not only do I get 100% of it, but I get to decide how much money that 100% is. I don't want the government deciding how much money my work is worth. That's up to me and my customer. In the last two weeks, I've licensed six photos for a total of about three grand. You know how much of that three grand I get?

Three grand.

Your "incentive for creativity" gets shot to Hell if I get only .001% of that.

I get to set my pricing, and someone else gets to decide if they want to pay what I want.

That's about the best arrangement I can think of...

Originally Posted by USViking

I doubt your system is even theoretically feasible, but if it was,
The Public already has too many reponsibilites and debts, and
cannot affort one minute or penny more time and expense.

This could easily be done without raising taxes.

I say keep after violators, raise the penalties for infringement,
and include stiff jailtime for the assholes.

I think that the system will have even less success with this than the "War on Drugs." At least one generally has to do things like interact with other people in order to obtain illegal drugs.

Originally Posted by Steve

The idea is insane, for so many reasons.

So what do you call the status quo?

Copyright law doesn't exist to ensure that a person gets paid for what he's created. It exists to keep people from stealing something to which they have no right.

1) "keep people from stealing something to which they have no right" effectively means "prevent others from benefiting from one's work without payment."

2) Copyright laws were written long before the Internet Age began. Who cares what a body of laws is "about" if that body of laws is all but unenforceable?

I'm a photographer. I have thousands of photographs on the web. These photos, despite being on the web, belong to me. I own the copyright. I can sell the rights to them if I wish, or I can license them. I, however, get to decide who gets them and who does not,

This is not true for any of your photos that are on a publicly-accessible part of the Internet (or even privately-accessible). What the law says is irrelevant if it is not enforceable.

and I've declined requests for photos for any number of reasons. Someone simply wanting a photograph is hardly a sufficient reason for them to have it.

Irrelevant. If someone obtains your photos without permission, there is close to a 0% chance that you'll be able to do anything about it.

Like Tsquare, I get 100% of the money generated by what I create. Not only do I get 100% of it, but I get to decide how much money that 100% is. I don't want the government deciding how much money my work is worth. That's up to me and my customer. In the last two weeks, I've licensed six photos for a total of about three grand. You know how much of that three grand I get?

Three grand.

Your "incentive for creativity" gets shot to Hell if I get only .001% of that.

I get to set my pricing, and someone else gets to decide if they want to pay what I want.

That's about the best arrangement I can think of...

.001% of some number can easily be much greater than 100% of some other number.

The RIAA and the MPAA are fighting a losing battle, but it's mostly their own fault.

The RIAA in particular has forced through laws that bring about absurdly high charges for piracy that actually accomplish the opposite effect of what they intend by helping the public to sympathize with culprits.

Any reasonable organization would support a system that the public could recognize as being fair in its punishment and accurate in its apprehension of culprits, but the current system is anything but that.

Being fined thousands of dollars per song is exorbitant to the point of ridiculousness, and the vague nature of prosecutions of file sharers has led to some pretty embarassing results for the RIAA. One grandmother infamously was brought to court over downloads her granddaughter had made on her computer without her consent. She apparently wasn't even that familiar with what a file sharing service was.

Cases like that only undermine their own goals, but they could've fixed things much earlier to prevent this.

What the recording industry did behind the scenes to somewhat rectify the issue is take a slice of artists' revenues while they tour. In the past, this was unheard of. Promoters and recording studios were separate industries and separate entities. Nowadays, the lines have blurred, and artists often end up getting a much smaller portion of the pie than before.

With the advent of the internet and affordable programs for home recording, even getting a record deal isn't necessarily needed anymore, and the studios seem to see the writing on the wall. This has caused them to act more desperately in their anti-piracy measures, but in the end, the consumers still seem to sympathize with the pirates.

If they really had a more progressive way of looking at this, they would focus less on anti-piracy efforts and more on charging less per CD. People have less and less reason to buy a physical copy of an album when they can download songs separately and legally from places like Amazon and Itunes. MP3 players and Ipods are the "record collections" of today, and with this in mind, changes in copyright laws aren't needed so much as changes in marketing physical products. CDs should provide bonus material that can't be downloaded, like posters, for example.

The problem is not the copyright laws, its the mode of distribution.

Digital distribution cuts the manufacturers out of the loop. Understandably, they don't like this. But the fact of the matter that the IP owner and consumer is much better served by allowing people to download, manufacture, and use however they see fit.

Originally Posted by Commodore

The problem is not the copyright laws, its the mode of distribution.

Digital distribution cuts the manufacturers out of the loop. Understandably, they don't like this. But the fact of the matter that the IP owner and consumer is much better served by allowing people to download, manufacture, and use however they see fit.

The main reason that my creative work is all licensed under the Creative Commons Share-Share Alike system.

Originally Posted by unclassifiable

So what do you call the status quo?

What do I call the "status quo"?

I call it three grand in the bank, that's what I call it...

1) "keep people from stealing something to which they have no right" effectively means "prevent others from benefiting from one's work without payment."

You truly are a master of the obvious.

But it's more involved than that. I, as the owner of a copyright, retain the right to grant permission to someone to use my work. Your idea would take that right away from me...

2) Copyright laws were written long before the Internet Age began. Who cares what a body of laws is "about" if that body of laws is all but unenforceable?

They're not unenforcable. I've had plenty of people lift my photos illegally. Sometimes all it takes is a simple e-mail to get them to takle it down or to pay a usage fee. Other times it requires a lawyer get involved, and I'm happy to do that, too.

Yes, sometimes people steal photos. I had it happen with a guitarist who gained a minor level of popularity a few years back. I was shooting a festival (for the festival promoter), and one of my photos of this guitarist was on the festival website. Well, the guitarist (or his people) took the photo and put it on his homepage, and they used it in a photo collage of a CD liner. I was happy to let them license the photo, but their opinion was the same as yours.

Mine opinion differed.

The court's opinion differed.

I successfully sued him for licensing of the photo, and for usage on the CD. There were also punitive damages. The judgement was five figures.

So, don't say the laws are unenforceable, because they are quite enforceable...

This is not true for any of your photos that are on a publicly-accessible part of the Internet (or even privately-accessible).

Wow.

It's pretty clear that you don't have the first fucking clue what you're talking about...

What the law says is irrelevant if it is not enforceable.

No, it's really not...

Irrelevant. If someone obtains your photos without permission, there is close to a 0% chance that you'll be able to do anything about it.

The only person who would believe that it's unenforceable is someone who's too big a pussy to go after the person stealing the photograph.

I can assure you, I am not that person.

I have been successful 100% of the time I have pursued it...

.001% of some number can easily be much greater than 100% of some other number.

What would that three grand I collected have been under your plan?

Sorry, but things work well the way they are. I certainly don't need the fucking government telling me what my images are worth. That's up to me and my customer.

Period.

Given the position you've taken on this, you're either someone who wants to download whatever the fuck you want for pennies, or you're someone who's created something which is worthless, and you're not making any money because nobody wants to pay you for your work...

Let's cut through all the crap...

This 'plan' serves only to punish the talented and rewarding the mediocre.

Which is almost a textbook definition of socialism.