‘Economist: Copyright is dead’
A TeleRead-style library approach could serve not just society at large but, along the way, writers and publishers. After all, while no cure-all, it would help reduce the incentive for piracy and make copyright a more realistic concept in this digital era. So what happens if there isn’t a TeleRead, a well-stocked national digital library system? Well, without TeleRead in mind, Paul Sweeting (photo), editor of ContentAgenda, offered this clue-:
“No wonder they call Economics the Dismal Science. At the Internet Video Policy Symposium in Washington yesterday (co-sponsored by Content Agenda), a chorus line of academic economists postulated that content owners face a far more difficult challenge than they know in monetizing their content on the Internet, and that the odds that we can build our way out of the current debate over how to manage scarce online capacity are virtually nil.
“The most enthusiastically glum was Gerry Faulhaber, a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and the former chief economist for the FCC. According to Faulhaber, copyright is a dead letter.
“‘Copyright is a very big issue in the legal world today, but in the business world, when you talk to consumers about protecting copyrights, it’s a dead issue,’ he said. ‘It’s gone. If you have a business model based on copyright, forget it.’”
Detail: I’m not suggesting that TeleRead replace bookstores all other sources of books. To protect freedom of expression and diversity of content, we need different models.
(Via Very Interesting People list.)
March 22nd, 2008 at 6:04 pm
What models do we need?
Really, I keep seeing people wave their hands and chant ‘change business model, change business model’, but it would be nice if someone would sit down an enumerate the business models that are possible for authors in a world without copyright.
March 22nd, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Bryan, I agree. That’s the point. I’m looking for ways to keep copyright alive in ways that are more respectful of human nature than present arrangements. - David
March 22nd, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Bryan says that it would be nice if someone would sit down and “enumerate the business models that are possible for authors in a world without copyright.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has an article that presents short descriptions of several potential payment methods. The suggestions do not assume “a world without copyright”, but they do try to take into account the proliferation of peer-to-peer file distribution networks.
Payment strategies include:
Voluntary Collective Licensing
Individual Compulsory Licenses
Ad Revenue Sharing
P2P Subscriptions
Digital Patronage and Online Tipping
Microrefunds
Bandwidth Levies
Media Tariffs
March 24th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Social DRM, the Death of Copyright and the Fallacy of Piracy…
There is some really great debate over on the TeleRead Blog concerning DRM, copyright, and piracy. As the TeleRead blog has grown, David has added new columnists (disclaimer: including Wiley publisher Joe Wikert) which has really added to the conversa…