MobileRead Forums - View Single Post

cstross · 08-05-2008, 12:59 PM

There's a fairly simple solution to the whole piracy problem, anyway -- not just books, but films and music and software too:

1. Legalize it,

2. Put a tax levy on all ISP mediated internet connections,

3. Organize a licensing agency to distribute the tax revenue to creators.

Part #3 is the hard bit, but if downloading of copyrighted media is legal, there's no reason for users to hide their activities, and so participating in a ratings scheme (to track popularity of downloads) shouldn't be problematic.

There are plenty of surveys out there that say most folks would be happy to pay on the order of $5-10 a month for legal, free, access to all the copyrighted media they can eat; pitch it at the public as "conscience money" and at the creative industries as their new, easy-to-administer revenue stream, and there you go: everybody wins, and we can forget all this nonsense about piracy and copyright infringement, and move on.

(Yes, there's a lot of detail work to sort out in order to make a system like this work, and the biggest issues are: disruptive new mesh networking technologies, and how to extend it internationally -- the internet takes little notice of borders. But I think it would certainly work better than the current mess ...)

08-05-2008, 12:59 PM	#73
cstross Cynic Posts: 86 Karma: 514 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland Device: Lots, started with a Psion 3 circa 1998	There's a fairly simple solution to the whole piracy problem, anyway -- not just books, but films and music and software too: 1. Legalize it, 2. Put a tax levy on all ISP mediated internet connections, 3. Organize a licensing agency to distribute the tax revenue to creators. Part #3 is the hard bit, but if downloading of copyrighted media is legal, there's no reason for users to hide their activities, and so participating in a ratings scheme (to track popularity of downloads) shouldn't be problematic. There are plenty of surveys out there that say most folks would be happy to pay on the order of $5-10 a month for legal, free, access to all the copyrighted media they can eat; pitch it at the public as "conscience money" and at the creative industries as their new, easy-to-administer revenue stream, and there you go: everybody wins, and we can forget all this nonsense about piracy and copyright infringement, and move on. (Yes, there's a lot of detail work to sort out in order to make a system like this work, and the biggest issues are: disruptive new mesh networking technologies, and how to extend it internationally -- the internet takes little notice of borders. But I think it would certainly work better than the current mess ...)