[pp.int.general] 3-step usage rights / forced licensing model

[Pasi Palmulehto]

Good morning.

Here are some thoughts that have been circulating between myself and a
couple of active members.

I'm not saying, by any means, that what I'll present is a perfect idea,
neither does it represent an official stand of the Finnish Pirate Party.
Rather: this sounds good to me but are there any problems? There usually
are a few when something sounds too good.

The idea might be called "3-step usage rights" (I will not use the term
copyright, since it doesn't fit here anymore) or forced licensing
(sounds nasty).

The main idea is to remove all restrictions from private non-commercial
use of currently copyrighted information (I will not say file-sharing
since it's only a part of it), to remove limitations from creating
derivates, mash ups, mixes and such, except from a small compensation to
original creators from actual sales, and finally, after a bit longer
time, to move the work into public domain.

I'll start with timeline story.

xx - Birth of work (Hasn't yet been released, no-one can really use it
yet)

0d - Release of work. Anyone is free to use it non-commercially for
private purposes. Creator of work has (or has been granted) 5 years
exclusive usage priviledges.

5y - Work is 5 years old and it becomes free for any commercial use.
Creator has no rights to deny it from anywhere, but creators will get
compensated from the price the work is sold. For example, say a record
label will make their own collection CD including the work. Record label
must then pay a 10% (total) fee for the creators of the price (not
profit) of the CD. In cases where the compensation cannot be
realistically estimated from the price, an option of a bulk compensation
could be considered. Mash-ups and remixes, where the used parts are not
significant or critical for creating a new art work, do not need to pay
the fee (in Finland we have citate rights, I think fair use includes
about the same).

20y - At this point the work has got enough protection for making some
profit for the creator, or if it hasn't...it probably never will. The
work will move into public domain (in Finland PD would still retain some
"moral rights", most importantly one close to CC-by, or the right to be
recognized as the original creator, which I think is good.)

Teorically, the last step could come to effect after longer time since
there are no more limits for who can use whose art, but personally I
think there is no need for more than 20 years.

I'll go through the last part very quickly - I hope the point is not
lost.
All this could be pretty easily achieved with a works database
(databank) what would include every artistic work that the creator
wishes to be potentially compensated for. If the work isn't entered
there, all the above protections will not apply. The database would work
pretty automatically:  it would list every work, allow searches and
sorting by popularity, and work as a payment gateway (company ->
database -> creator).
In this model, copyright societies (as they call themselves) could still
exists if writers, performers, transformers ;) or photographers want
them to. They would see that companies pay for using works and they
could also deal with the databank by updating info of works instead of
artist (if artists want so). But overall, they wouldn't be as crucial
anymore (as for now, you can't really even get a CD for sale on
supermarket without being a customer of a copyright society).


Okay...one big messy post, please give some feedback - pros and cons.
The main goal is to liberate the use of works of art - commercially and
non-commercially. The secondary goal is to ensure income for creators.
Performers are much lower on priority here, since they have effective
profit mechanisms that are not under any viable threat.


-- 
Pasi "Scoffa" Palmulehto
Leader of Finnish Pirate Party