We read about it every day: record levels of piracy are threatening the very livelihood of those who try to make a living by hawking their intellectual property -- be it music, movies, books or otherwise.
What's more, despite huge efforts on the part of legislators and enforcement agencies, the levels of piracy continue to climb -- or so we're told.
From this, one could easily draw the conclusion that copyright is a concept whose time has passed.
The reality is that modern digital technology makes it so easy to copy almost any kind of copyrighted material that today, many people consider it their right.
So, if we acknowledge that copyright just isn't working as well as it used to, what are the options?
It would seem that the most practical and widely implemented option is that of a media tax.
Some countries (such as Canada) are already levying a media-tax on all forms of media that could be used to hold potentially copyrighted material.
Right from the start let me say that I don't believe that media-levies are a good idea -- but let's look at it from an objective perspective.
Firstly, if the media levies were set appropriately, the whole model of music and movie distribution could be changed dramatically -- probably with a huge improvement in revenues for all involved.
Here's how it might work...
Every device and piece of media capable of holding music, video or whatever, would carry a levy/tax which would go into a central fund and be held on behalf of content creators.
When a consumer (that's you or I) decided we wanted the latest Jason Beebo album or Bruce Schwartzenstalone movie, we would simply go to a licensed site on the web and download that music or movie, completely free of charge. That's right -- 100% free!
The download would be registered and the content owner would receive a payment from the central fund.
How simple, how convenient, how wonderful!
Why would anyone then "pirate" stuff when they could legally download it for free anyway?
Of course there are flaws in this strategy...
For a start, unless content creators came to the realisation that they might no longer be able to pocket tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for a few weeks studio work then the levies charged on media would be prohibitive.
Secondly, there is always the possibility that people will still feel it a challenge to cheat the system by simply copying a movie/music from a friend rather than downloading it from a licensed download site.
Thirdly, in such a setup (including the existing media levies imposed by some countries) the non-pirates end up heavily subsidising the pirates. Those who buy a DVD-R/RW, CDR/RW, SD card, USB drive, hard-drive or whatever with the sole intent of storing nothing but their own data will be effectively subsidising the music pirated by others.
And finally, what's to stop any content creator from repeatedly downloading their own material so as to bump up the payments they receive?
Okay, so it's a great idea in theory but utterly flawed in practice.
Any attempt to restrict peer-to-peer copying (as opposed to "official downloading") would require DRM and we know that's not going to work.
It's also patently unfair that people are forced to pay for something they may not want, need or use by way of having data-users subsidise music/movie downloaders.
Of course this doesn't stop the crazy Canadians from deciding to extend their current media levy system to even more devices and media. What's worse is that from what I've read, the artists who are supposed to be the benefactors of these levies have actually received very little in the way of compensation -- the vast majority of the taxes collected to date having been "consumed" by the bureaucracy and infrastructure put in place to administer it.
So, maybe we're stuck with our old-fashioned copyright laws for a while longer.
Like democracy -- it's a lousy system but it's better than any of the alternatives yet devised.
What's more, despite huge efforts on the part of legislators and enforcement agencies, the levels of piracy continue to climb -- or so we're told.
From this, one could easily draw the conclusion that copyright is a concept whose time has passed.
The reality is that modern digital technology makes it so easy to copy almost any kind of copyrighted material that today, many people consider it their right.
So, if we acknowledge that copyright just isn't working as well as it used to, what are the options?
It would seem that the most practical and widely implemented option is that of a media tax.
Some countries (such as Canada) are already levying a media-tax on all forms of media that could be used to hold potentially copyrighted material.
Right from the start let me say that I don't believe that media-levies are a good idea -- but let's look at it from an objective perspective.
Firstly, if the media levies were set appropriately, the whole model of music and movie distribution could be changed dramatically -- probably with a huge improvement in revenues for all involved.
Here's how it might work...
Every device and piece of media capable of holding music, video or whatever, would carry a levy/tax which would go into a central fund and be held on behalf of content creators.
When a consumer (that's you or I) decided we wanted the latest Jason Beebo album or Bruce Schwartzenstalone movie, we would simply go to a licensed site on the web and download that music or movie, completely free of charge. That's right -- 100% free!
The download would be registered and the content owner would receive a payment from the central fund.
How simple, how convenient, how wonderful!
Why would anyone then "pirate" stuff when they could legally download it for free anyway?
Of course there are flaws in this strategy...
For a start, unless content creators came to the realisation that they might no longer be able to pocket tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for a few weeks studio work then the levies charged on media would be prohibitive.
Secondly, there is always the possibility that people will still feel it a challenge to cheat the system by simply copying a movie/music from a friend rather than downloading it from a licensed download site.
Thirdly, in such a setup (including the existing media levies imposed by some countries) the non-pirates end up heavily subsidising the pirates. Those who buy a DVD-R/RW, CDR/RW, SD card, USB drive, hard-drive or whatever with the sole intent of storing nothing but their own data will be effectively subsidising the music pirated by others.
And finally, what's to stop any content creator from repeatedly downloading their own material so as to bump up the payments they receive?
Okay, so it's a great idea in theory but utterly flawed in practice.
Any attempt to restrict peer-to-peer copying (as opposed to "official downloading") would require DRM and we know that's not going to work.
It's also patently unfair that people are forced to pay for something they may not want, need or use by way of having data-users subsidise music/movie downloaders.
Of course this doesn't stop the crazy Canadians from deciding to extend their current media levy system to even more devices and media. What's worse is that from what I've read, the artists who are supposed to be the benefactors of these levies have actually received very little in the way of compensation -- the vast majority of the taxes collected to date having been "consumed" by the bureaucracy and infrastructure put in place to administer it.
So, maybe we're stuck with our old-fashioned copyright laws for a while longer.
Like democracy -- it's a lousy system but it's better than any of the alternatives yet devised.
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