More and more as technology progresses it is becoming difficult to curb violations of laws formulated to protect intellectual property. And more and more it is becoming obvious that the protections now in force are providing real barriers to human creativity. I do not have any solution to providing adequate compensation to originators of useful ideas but it seems to me that this compensation might be better served by a radical new approach for society to provide open information for the new technologies to utilize the current flood of creativity and yet compensate originators adequately without destroying access to these new ideas for further development. It would be worthwhile for open discussion on the possibilities.
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I don't understand the problem. The RIAA has been greatly concerned about copyright violations on music, but legal distribution methods seem likely to resolve that problem.
As to compensation to originators of useful ideas, there has never been any compensation for ideas alone. Nor is it possible to determine who is the legitimate originator. My impression is that ideas are worth less than a dime a dozen. They become valuable when somebody implements than and produces something suitable for patent or copyright.
Ideas also become valuable at a site like this, where they generate traffic. Beyond that, anybody who thinks they have a valuable idea could offer it on E-Bay. The free market is the economic standard for determining value.
The useful distribution of original material is very much impeded by laws designed to protect the financial potential of innovative material. What I am interested in is some alternative recourse for financially rewarding creative output outside the market place. This would thereby break the blockade against free distribution of creative material.
The free distribution of creative material is being impeded by copyright owners who want financial compensation for their work. They are using the laws to prevent people from taking their products without paying for them.
It is the same with beer. The free distribution of beer is impeded by brewers who want to get paid for their product. They use laws as needed to prevent people from taking their product without paying for it.
There are three general sources of payment for creative work or beer: the market, governments, and foundations. Foundations offer quite a bit of support for creative work and they are often open for proposals. And for contributions. And governments and always ready to consider suggestions about how to give things away. (They will thank you for your suugestion and assure you that such ideas are under consideration.)
If you are thinking about work that has demonstrated market value, however, you don't get to move the issue out of the market place. The people who own the rights will compare any alternative payment scheme to the price they can get in the market.
Just like with beer. You can offer free beer, but only if you have the money to buy it from the brewer.
The lack of free beer does not impede civilization to any large extent.
Seems to me that since all great civilizations have had some form of beer that lack of free beer may indeed impede the growth of that civilization.
And having witnessed free beer in action on a few occasions I will add that free beer does stimulate conversation that leads to new ideas. Granted, these ideas may not necessarily be good ideas, but the thought process has been stimulated just the same.Free beer also leads to free music. Not necessarily good music, but if you have had a reasonable dose of the free beer you likely won't notice too much. ;-)
From your post I gather you have attained a generous source.
New technologies have simply made traditional means of distributing music or other "intellectual property" obsolete- this means that recording companies and publishing houses will have to scramble to find new revenue streams, as musicians eventually realize they can sell their music online directly to consumers for a fraction of the price charged by "record" companies, and as authors realize they can self-publish online- or as movie directors realize they can reach markets diectly themselves without the bloated movie distribution industry.
...and free beer is a welcome thing in any society.
Teach ethics (the methods of evaluating ethical outcome) to every person on the planet, once a year for the next 50 years. Create an infrastructure where ethical consideration and oversight become the norm.
Implement a method to capture, track, relate, allow branching, provide refinement, and compensate everyone involved based upon ethical relationships. ISO 9002 might provide the backbone for such a system.
http://www.praxiom.com/iso-9002-1994a.htm
http://www.ethics.org/
I would like to see everyone's ideas used in as many different circumstances as possible and compensated for ethically. I believe it is an extreme waste to consider a person's value based upon their overall strengths. I know a person who can't find his way home from work, literally, and he only lives 2 blocks from his work. Yet he designed most of the companies new products.
The more well rounded a person is, perhaps the more thier ideas can be applied; but make no mistake, the creative thoughts and intellectual property of all persons is largely wasted. Mostly because they weren't captured and organized in such a way to be broadly related.