I think this Guardian article is relevant:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...t.digitalmusic
It talks specifically about music piracy but it pertains to most models where technology disrupts copyright.
Quote:
whenever technology makes it impossible to police a class of copyright use, we've solved the problem by creating blanket licences.
The record industry itself was the first beneficiary of this system: when the US sheet-music publishers sued the record-makers for selling recordings of their compositions, they were given a simple solution: anyone is allowed to record your music, provided they pay you a set fee for it. And when the record companies objected to the radio stations playing their discs without compensation or permission, the answer was a blanket licence for records played on air. It's the tried-and-true answer to the problem of copyright-disrupting technology:
* acknowledge that it's going to happen;
* find a place to collect a toll;
* charge a fee that's low enough to get buy-in from the majority;
* ignore the penny-ante fee evaders;
* sue the blistering crap out of the big-time fee-evaders.
This is the shareholder-value-maximising answer that actually brings revenue into the pockets of artists and record companies.
|
I don't know anyone who hasn't recorded some stuff from the TV (and what exactly is the difference between recording it on your video recorder, or on your PVR, or just pulling it from P2P?), or swapped some music with friends, or installed some software at some point with questionable legality. Does that mean all my friends are criminals? From the RIAA and MPAA standpoint, it certainly does. I cannot agree.