But How Will the Artists Get Paid?
From USPP Wiki
While it is not in our interests to completely nullify the power of copyright laws (as a party, we believe that copyright laws need major reform, but still can serve a use to the general public), this article offers a view of what things may be like if that were to happen.
Purpose
One of the most common questions any USPP member will be asked is "how will the artists get paid?" Artists, in this context, refers to any creative works author. This is an attempt to answer that question in an in-depth manner.
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[edit] Without Copyrights, How will the Artists get paid?
There exists a few misconceptions that a large portion of the general public hold which this page will attempt to answer. These misconceptions relate to how creative works authors would maintain an income in a system through which noncommercial distribution of their works is legal from the day of first distribution. These misconceptions are as follows:
- Without financial incentives, no one would be creative
- The only way to ensure the financial incentives would be through a copyright exclusivity restrictions program.
Both of these theses are incorrect. However, in this paper we will only address the second one. We will assume that a creative works author has made a creative work, and we will make three points relating to the question "How will this works author get paid?"
- First, we will assert that however he gets paid, it shouldn't be through Copyright. That's not the purpose of the Copyright system.
- Second, we will make the case that People Buy Things. We won't go into why -- perhaps no one really knows -- but they do.
- Third, we will explain how works authors will make money from their work however they choose to.
[edit] Not Through Copyright
In the 1780's, when the Copyright system was first implemented by the Founding Fathers, the idea of open distribution was but a dream. The limiting factor in the spread of idea was cost. Sending a scientific journal across the Atlantic took months, and as such, discoveries in the scientific world took years to propagate the globe. This was, to say the least, not very conductive to progress, was it? Anticipating the problem, the Framers of the Constitution wrote Article One, Section Eight, Clause Eight: "Congress has the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
(As a slight aside, the Constitution also mentions Piracy, two clauses later: "To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;")
You'll notice something noticeably absent from clause Eight: Any mention of intrinsic "rights" to exclusivity. Copyright restrictions are to be put in place, as the Founding Fathers put it, only for "the progress of science and the useful arts." We can safely assume that in 1790, a huge impediment to progress was the time and expense involved in distributing discoveries around the world. So, in 1790, the best way to encourage progress was to encourage distribution- and the best way to encourage distribution was to allow for limited copyright exclusivity.
The reason even Twenty-Eight years of copyright was necessary in 1790 (28 years was the original maximum Copyright term in 1790) was because the expense involved in preparing, printing and distributing a scientific journal at the time would have been no small cost. As such, the Framers allowed for a financial incentive to distribute the work. However, like the Pirate Party, they recognized that after a reasonable period of time, these restrictions should go away. Once it had been distributed, the work of copyright was done.
* Section needs finishing
[edit] People Buy Things
In a society where a significant portion of the population has expendable income, things will always be bought. Whether it's fast food, electronics, or, yes, music, middle-class Americans are always ready to make a millionaire out of the entrepreneur who caters to their tastes.
That's why Madonna has three houses and a pool in Beirut rather than making a normal wage from her profession. People are willing to pay any amount of money to feed their desires.
Additionally, most people grow to understand that by directly funding artists instead of large companies, artists benefit from their work more readily, and they get to enjoy the fruits of their labors far more.
[edit] However Artists Want
Artists should be involved with the methods used for promoting their work. They should know how they are going to get paid. They should, in short, learn the business of marketing. This is something that many artists miss: by releasing music for free, they ultimately benefit by the exposure. The artist Eminem released his first major album to Napster--against the wishes of the recording company--and his album sold to the multi-platinum level in a matter of a few months. The fact that this was not well-covered shows that the media not only despises the new system, rather they refuse to take advantage of a potentially new income stream.
This means that the recording companies don't have a problem with distribution; they have a problem with their business models.
[edit] The Music Industry
The real income generator for the music industry (for example) is, and has always been, live performance. Music artists make more money in live performances than they ever would selling CD's. The main benefactor to CD sales are the executives and middle managers of the companies that distribute them. It's the artists who should benefit most from their work, not the companies who manage to convince them that the only way to achieve national or international exposure is to sign with a major label.
Our model would give artists the choice as to how they get paid, and in what venues they may permit the recording companies to take on their behalf. It would also help to ensure that an artist's work is safe from harm, and gives the artists the exposure needed to be able to sell out their venues.
[edit] Hollywood and the Film/Television Industry
Artists should be able to decide what happens (and what does not) with their own works. This includes artists in Hollywood, who should have the right to choose how, when, and where their works are distributed. Furthermore, the old saying goes that duplication is the highest form of praise. This means that those who spread the work of an artist should in turn be able to contribute back to that artist directly, rather than making the studios enough money to continue giving upper-level managers annual salaries in the millions of dollars. The real money should be in the talent used to produce the work: writers, directors, and actors. Producers should make money, but that's really where their rights should end. Producers should be merely investors.
[edit] Books
Authors would be able to continue their traditional role in publishing, though publishing houses are going to have to change their distribution roles. Under current digital rights management, authors cannot cite a book they're borrowing from an electronic library. Archives such as those maintained for Project Gutenberg are plain text, and very much allow referential sourcing. Current systems are inadequate to the task of truly innovative writing.
Publishers, however, would need to increase their margins to authors in order to succeed. With so many well-known publishers folding in the past two decades, this seems counter-intuitive. The secret is payment for quality. Better authors (regardless of stature) would garner higher percentages of the proceeds from sales, while authors who produce poorly-written works would garner lower percentages (since these will typically be more difficult to sell).
Authors, in this case, would benefit from being able to have more ready access to publication, and the publishing industry would benefit from being able to sell to a wider audience. This is win-win.
[edit] Software
And then we get to the software industry. The creation of great software is an art form (I'm sure nearly every programmer out there would agree that it's a creative process that doesn't always make sense at the beginning of the project, even when the end result is known). However, patents were never intended to be used to protect software. You see, until the 1980's, when a Supreme Court decision<ref>Citation and reference needed.</ref> was made to permit the patenting of mathematical formulas (allowing software to be patented), all software in the world was free. It was freely distributable, the source code was often available, and though far less complicated than today's software, it was still so complicated that the logic often escaped those who were not immersed in the computer culture of the day.
Today's software is treated as though you're leasing a car. The EULA is not enforceable in a court of law, because it is an extortionist tactic: you must agree to the EULA after you purchase the software, before you're permitted to use it. And if the package is opened, you can't return it because someone might have duplicated the disk in order to make a duplicate, and thus the license would ultimately be invalidated. Thus, if you decide you don't want to agree to the EULA, you're stuck. And if it's an expensive product (such as those by Adobe or Microsoft), you are simply out the money. What do you do? You don't own the software. You own a plastic disk. The data on it still belongs to the company who produced it.
Under our system, the EULA would be eradicated. There's no need to make people agree to abide by it. Authors would be permitted to adopt, integrate, and contribute their software. End users would actually own the software on their own computers, and be able to do with it what they see fit. Most people that we've spoken to about the EULA didn't realize that the EULA typically doesn't permit ownership of the software.
Additionally, we would encourage the release of source code from all programs into the public domain 5 years after a product's release. This not only encourage innovation, it makes possible much of what is necessary to learn what flaws a program had. One of the strengths of this system is that the more eyes that look at the code, the more ideas there are generated. Software would essentially become antiquated after a 5-year period anyway. Very few programs that continue development have gone longer than 5 years without a release.
Authors, then, would have direct access to their own distribution channels and streams. They could be paid directly. There are items in place that help with figuring out multi-author arrangements, but it would ultimately be up to the software's creator, rather than a large corporation, who gets to play a game and how much they'll pay to be able to play it.
[edit] Payment in Full
This kind of "honor system" works when people realize that they get screwed when they don't support the artists. If there's no money to be made, then artists won't produce anything. If someone else does it better, then innovation is the natural result (or, if innovation isn't forthcoming, moving along to something else, which is also productive). This kind of system has been proven to work with technologies such as BitTorrent and SourceForge. People donate money because they like the product and want to see it continue development.
[edit] The Losers
There are some who will lose out under the new system. All but the largest music distributors are likely to feel a significant impact. However, much of this can be easily chalked up to the price of change: most are already struggling because it's far easier to order a CD from Amazon than it is to go clear downtown to Brotha Henry's Music and get a copy. Not only will you be able to download the CD to enjoy for yourself, you are essentially supporting the artists who made the works, instead of giving recording companies the lion's share.
Resilience is something of a phenomenon where businesses are concerned. It's going to take a lot of resilience to survive. The real question is whether or not corner music stores will become a thing of the past.
