Planesdragon's Journal: The time has come for a change

Time and time again, I hear of the RIAA or the MPAA struggling to protect their profits, with the only real retort from geekdom being "adapt to the times." Unfortunately, we're dealing with lawyers and managers shrilling for high-rolling rock stars and the drug-addled rich men who fund them. I mean, after the comments I keep hearing about the lack of creative music, I'd expect it to be a no-brainer for /.'ers to realize that the industry is simply unable to come up with a really new idea--just like MS is unable to come up with a new idea for making money by writing software, or the British Royalty was unable to come up with a new idea for running the world.

Soapboxing aside, I like to think that the /. crowd is full of plenty of smart folks, and I think that between the half-million of us we can come up with some workable models that keep everyone happy, from artists to producers to lawyers to listeners. I've got an idea, I'm sure you have some more--please share, and maybe we can get these ideas in the hands of someone in a position to do some good.

I'm sure that we all know how and why copyright came about. Long after Shakesphere got his living by being the main medium for his plays (a theater), and Homer was the sole medium for his epics (a travelling storyteller), the printing press made it possible for any strong-armed fool with enough money and muscle to work a printing press to perfectly copy even the most magnificent works of literature through the crudest of means. To keep control in the hands of the authors, the national governments of the time created a "copy right", which gave a writer the right to control who could and who could not make copies of their work for a limited time.

Now, this legal mechanism has done well over the centuries; while it doesn't stamp out all small-time copying, it makes the ability to make copies cheap enough or in a high enough quality something that makes so many waves that the author & the cops can find the infringer / "pirate" and take them to court.

Of course, this all changed with Napster.

We all live in the "information age" now, where anyone and everyone can make perfect copies without expending any additional moneies, without any great technical expertise, and without worrying about being singled out by the rather overstressed authorities because everyone else is doing it.

In my opinion, copyright as a "per-copy" fee structure has outlived its practical implementation. While control of the right to copy is still a good thing, and a fine way to control a creative work that has no real physical form, it's been hacked so far from its original purpose that it's blurred in with trademarks and patents in a way that no one ever intended.

I think that a much, much better model would be to move from a "ownership of a copy" model to a "right to have a copy" model. Instead of buying the White Album every time a new format comes out, we should be able to buy the new format and just put it on the new medium. If a CD breaks or a book gets wet, we shouldn't have to buy a whole new copy of the software or replace the textbook--we should be able to simply burn a new CD, or print a new book (or for textbooks, never print it at all in the first place.)

Rather than buying a copy from someone who has paid for the right to make and sell a copy, we'd pay for the right to have a copy and then get our physical copies from wherever we feel like.

Picture, if you will, the cost of an average CD: $20. If that CD costs $1 to make, and the retail system takes $10 out, we would be able to pay $20 for a new CD in the music shack, and then make as many copies for the use of ourselves and our household as we like. If a copy breaks, we can pay $11 to the music shack to get a new store-bought copy. If we want to give our music to a friend, we could just pay the publisher $9.

Glossing over the nightmare of privacy advocates and hacked user databases as problems that can be solved or ignored, I like this model a lot. I think it would work just as well for novels or software or textbooks as my example shows for music. It's ethical, reasonable, doesn't unreasonably alter the landscape of the copyright-based industries, and fits in exactly with how people think that they should be able to use copyable things that they buy.

(Side note: The triggering event that would cause a "publisher cost" should allow for borrowing of media; some "permanent aquisition" which is another one of those snags would be the difference between borrowing a book from a friend and illegally copying Quake IV amongst your entire clan.)

I like your idea.

[eugene ts wong]

It really does seem to cover all the rights & incentives.

After all, just because I upgrade from record to cassette to CD, doesn't mean that I can listen to more of the same music @ the same time. All I am trying to do is make a copy to get with the times. If I want to have a copy of a new song, then I can pay whoever for the media, & pay the artist directly.