[pp.int.general] Welcome all form Poland

[John Nilsson]

On Tue, 2007-03-06 at 18:41 +0100, Rick Falkvinge (Piratpartiet) wrote:
> It might be a good starting point, but I'd still want to raise a word of
> caution here, as those levies confirm that the content aggregation
> industry somehow has a _right_ to receive public money, regardless of
> whether their business model is viable or even contributes to society.

OTOH it might be a great starting point. As I proposed in the Swedish
forums, by using the public opinion that artists has a right to receive
money maybe it can be successfully suggested that the underlying
principle of copyright shouldn't be a right to control just a right to
get paid.

That is, instead of arguing for a shorter term of control, keep the
current term but argue for a shift from a right to control to a right to
get paid. This might be a equally bad system from an economic
perspective, but it might be a plausible paradigmatic change in policy
to demand royalties rather than abstinence.

The current system of contracts and right arrangements would be kept
intact except for the paradigmatic change of what these rights
constitute. Usage (and thus file sharing) would be free because any
percentage out of nothing is still nothing. But usage for financial gain
(i.e. advertising based radio) would require royalties to be paid to the
rights holder. The freedom movement gets most of the requested freedoms,
the generall public get to keep its current view of art and wealth
distribution and the current institutions for rights management get to
keep doing whatever it is they are doing.

Once this policy is in place the discussion about the relative
efficiency of the system should become much easier as the philosophical
arguments about property rights and such would loose their grip over the
debate.

-- 
Med vänliga hälsningar,
John Nilsson,
Piratpartiet
e-post: john.nilsson at piratpartiet.se
Jabber: john at milsson.nu
MSN: john at milsson.nu
Mobil: 0704-197869