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Originally Posted by bill_mchale
First of all, I agree with you that DRM is silly and stupid (I am sure if you have read some of my other posts, you would see that). I also agree that new standards need to apply to digital publishing and to copyright. That being said, if producers of content cannot expect "payment of any kind" for their work, then there will cease to be new content to share.
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I don't think writers will stop writing, money or not. I can't NOT write, no matter what I say or any of my darker moods and little tempter tantrums I might have. Asking me not to write is asking me not to breath or feel or think, it's impossible. I believe there are a lot of writers exactly the same, who are passionate, who eat, sleep, breathe and shit words every single day. Using myself as an example, I realized a long time ago I wouldn't see any money from my work. It's awful to admit that, but while I spend most of my time as a hopeless romantic, I'm also realistic enough to know what lies ahead for me, and for many others too. We will have to write because we have no other option. We will have to write because that's what we do, who we are. I wake up with a story in my head. I listen to a piece of music and I'm already halfway through a story that I NEED to tell. This isn't something that would stop whether I was making minimum wage or a billion pounds a week. So the most, the very MOST I can hope for is a readership. People who like how I see the world and want to see the world in that way also.
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I am just curious, how many authors do you think will write a dozen or more books in a career if they can expect no steady income from it? Every author that chooses to publish obviously wants readers; at the same time however, I think the number of serious authors who don't care about income is vanishingly small (Just as the number of people period who don't care about income). More than a few authors, including some very well respected authors have admitted that paying the rent was a major incentive for them to finish their book.
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The sad fact is that most authors don't make enough to pay the rent even now, and there's plenty more who were brimming with talent who never even got the chance in the first place to get paid for what they write (markets, PR, blah, blah blah). At least now, at least with digital publishing a writer might find an audience. A writer might find someone who loves their work (isn't that what all authors are after anyway, in the secret parts of their heart?)
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I am perfectly willing to abandon copyright if a reasonable system is established to ensure that authors are fairly compensated for their work. Perhaps we need every download server to be registered so that we can track exactly how many unique downloads occur for every artistic work and then have a national arts tax (perhaps a surcharge to your monthly ISP bill) that goes to compensate artists based on how often their works are downloaded. That being said, I don't see too many people who want to abandon the free market for a state controlled system... at least not in the United States. Until we are willing to make that change, we will need some form of copyright and it will need to be enforced.
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Bill
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Taxes are a good incentive. I believe a lot of writers, and I'm thinking specifically of Europe here, would welcome a national taxation that would provide a living wage if they continued to contribute to the artistic output of a nation. I'm not sure how it would work, but it's possibly a step in the right direction for those in Europe. As far as licensing goes, I like Creative Commons which gives the creator and the audience equal, and fair rights to the material being used.