Information Technology and "Intellectual Property"

It seems so long ago now, but all the way back at the end of February, I was involved with the successful campaign to get a change of direction on the Lib Dem approach to the controversial "Digital Economy Bill".  One off the things I specifically called for in the spring conference motion was for an urgent policy working party to be established to look into issues around information technology and intellectual property.  So it is good to see that that working party is about to be formed, headed up by one of my co-signatories to the conference motion, now MP for Cambridge, Julian Huppert.  

Personally I am convinced that the current state protected system of "intellectual property" is not only unnecessary but also tends to stifle real competition, concentrating our cultural expenditure on those artists able to persuade one of a few oligarchical media giants to promote their cause.  Just so you know I acknowledge there are different "areas" under the amorphous banner of "intellectual property" and I am here of course talking mostly about "copyright" which is the more controversial area and specifically the issue the Digital Economy Act has tried to encompass.

And I think that the advance of information technology can be seen not so much as a threat, except to that oligarchy, but as an opportunity for more artists to get a more equitable share of that market.  What may today be seen as a facilitator of illegal sharing of the work of a relatively small pool of favoured, published and promoted artists could be transformed into a medium of discovery of all those many currently "undiscovered" creators.

Because let's face it, the overwhelming majority of people in the world with a story to tell or a song to sing are already not well rewarded for their creativity, whilst the favoured few achieve vast economic rents way over and above what they could have dreamed of when they switched from, say, unemployed TEFL teacher or jobbing journalist turned part time lecturer.  

There have been several "business models" for maintaining creative artists.  Many of the classical composers whose music survives today had influential, wealthy and often noble patrons.  Even today, nearly all of last year's Billboard top 40 earning musicians made by far the greater proportion (by which I mean up to 95%) of their large incomes from live performances rather than sales of recorded works.

The Internet makes the former of these a great possibility again.  Think of sites such as "Pledgebank" on which people pledge to do something so long as a certain number of others pledge something else.  This provides a mechanism for releasing creative works by subscription for example.  These modern day "patrons" would perhaps get something exclusive in return for their support while the artist could ensure they make a decent living by tailoring their offer as needed.  Serialisation may become viable and popular again - exclusive access, perhaps behind an Internet "pay wall", for fans wanting to be the first to read, view or listen to a new work - here repackaging and republication could be controlled by contract with the subscribers and in any case would be less worthwhile until the entire series had been released.

If publishers, promoters and media giants want a part of a copyright free world (and they need not be involved - with the technology required to produce artistic works getting more and more ubiquitous, low cost and easy to operate they could get frozen out) they would likely compete with each other to bid for exclusive first day launches and access to artists on promotional tours.  But rather than being able to rely on a "long tail" - since anyone could come along, copy the work and sell it in a different binding or imprint - they would make their money not by copyright farming but by actually working to find more and more undiscovered artists with whom to do exclusive launch deals.

Just because there would be no copyright does not mean that "passing off" would be acceptable.  It would likely still be adjudged fraudulent to present someone else's work as your own, and the risk of discovery and subsequent loss of reputation would be a big risk.  

There is a lot of emotive language used in the debate about copyright; such as that those who think copyright an unjust restriction on purchasers don't care about whether artists can monetise their work.  But let's face it, small, undiscovered artists have little real protection against abuse as it is.  Even if someone is caught breaching copyright, the very fact that the originator is unknown and does not make a lot of money from their work stands against them in claiming lost earnings damages.  Any one of the suggestions above ought to ensure that many more artists, currently not privileged by the support of media giants, would be discovered and be able to make a reasonable income, rather than having a few fat cats and many on the breadline.