Solution to Copright and the Pirate Economy

The copyright and pirate issue comes up some much in forums about why it is wrong. The thing you don't often see is solutions to the problem. What is the balance between keeping consumers, artists and large companies happy?

To look at what is wrong with copyright we firstly have to look at why copyrighting was first brought into play. It was first put in to encourage innovation. It provides an incentive for people to create media. The problem now is that it is going against what its original purpose was for. It goes as far to say that maybe it does the opposite.

For example Microsoft are buying up most patents and copyrighted material and simply sitting on them so no one else can work on advancing the initial ideas that have been put forward. Do people not think that there should be a law saying that you can only buy a patent if you intend to use it? Microsoft probably say they are going to work on it when they get time but this behaviour by creating barriers of entry to the market should be stopped.

In music it creates a disincentive because if write one good song and make enough money in it what is the incentive to go and create my next song?

Who's fault is it that people are spending so much time downloading music illegally and what is the incentive for people to put music they have bought or got hold of online for free? The answer to this is a two way system. If I have an album someone else wants and they have an album I want then if we both upload our albums then we both get one more album. The incentive is relying on peoples good nature. If a large proportion of people stopped uploading then the whole online music sharing economy would crash. I would say the problem you are getting now is that there are so many people free riding and not contributing anything. The music industry as a whole did not see this move coming which is why we are in the problem we have now. If the music industry had picked up on this after they saw what happened to Kazza then they could have used the growing trend to their advantage.

My solution to copyright is that copyright should be limited for 5 years for music and film. The first 5 years is when companies make the most of their money usually which is why it is a good cut off point. It also stops artists from writing one song and sitting on the assets. It encourages them to write more music because they know they cannot live off this one song for the rest of their lives. It takes copyright back to its orignial purpose to encourage people to create more media for everyone. By stopping large companies creating unfair barriers to entry and sitting on patents and intellectual property it encourages more people to work on them because they have an incentive to make money as well. By doing these more music would be written and more software would be developed.

How do you stop people sharing music? Firstly it was CD lending and its moved on. The music industry figures on money they say they are loosing are ridiculous. Some go even as far to say that one song downloaded counts as an album sale gone down the drain. Most money made from music is tours and royalties. If they create an incentive for sites to host their music for free by the site offering them royalties on how many times the song is downloaded? The money for this would come from the extra people visiting the site to create larger advertising revenues possibly

This is a very simple theory and has many holes in. Please comment and feel free to say how you feel or if you have any other solutions.