Intellectual Property pirates haven't won, thanks to a win-win!

Futurist Alan Kay once said, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."

My previous two blog posts decried the mentality that many people now see it as "okay" to steal music, movies, TV shows, and other intellectual property that others worked
hard to create and produce. I was beginning to think that since David Bowie said more than ten years ago that this kind of thing was going to happen, I became really upset. The NY Times piece is from 2002, but he's been thinking this kind of thing for a long time. The idea that creative people would non-consensually give away the things from which they now make a living was horrifying to me—and probably to many of you reading this.

But, it's a reality. Complaining about it won't make it go away. So what do we do? Crawl up into a little ball and die? I think the major record companies may be on the way there. But the rest of us—those of us who are small enough to "turn on a dime" can adapt.

I wondered how the internet service providers allow illegal traffic to pass through the conduits they set up—their little piece of the internet through which their customers get high speed access. There has to be some variety of accessory-like crime. I'm still not sure if I was right, as those with significantly more money/resources than I have chose not to test that, but instead, to get judgements against housewives.

I was beginning to resign myself to the idea that musicians, actors, authors, comedians, and so many other creators of works that enhance our lives would just have to make less money, or think of new ways to make a living. I knew there had to be some ways to prove the naysayers wrong. Yesterday, I found something that will help. This may be only a beginning, but it shows promise, and comes from someone who understands the challenges, and has the brains to help realize his vision.

Gerd Leonhard—a media visionary, hailed by the likes of The Wall Street Journal—said in his
book The Future of Music , and in many other places, that there is a way for creative people to make money other than live performance, and selling their recorded wares at gigs.

Do his thoughts carry over to creative works other than music? Damn right they do.

Gerd's new book is called Music 2.0. I haven't read it yet, but I will soon. It looks like a repurposing of existing material. Repurposing is a very a good thing, by the way.

I haven't met Mr. Leonhard yet, but I already like him a lot. If you create for a living, read his work. He likes you too, wants to help, and has some pretty good ideas on how to do so.

Although Leonhard and Bowie disagree on some critical points, they agree on some important things as well. Bowie's been expressing his views publicly about this subject for a long time, and Mr. Leonhard's been at it longer.David's an astute businessman, but Leonhard's coming at it differently. I'm rootin' for the (relative) underdog on this one, and think he may have something. I'd like to do whatever I can to help the cause of musicians making more money from their creative works.

Leonhard has shown that a "Download fee" assessed and added to every broadband subscription in the world, in addition to miniscule shares of web advertising revenues could go a long way toward letting what are now stolen works generate revenue for their creators. YouTube, Google, and so many others make a lot of their money selling advertising and "serving" the ads they sell.

An article in the UK's The Register highlighted an experimental model on a very small scale—80,000 people—on The Isle of Man in Scotland, in which the internet service provider assessed a small download fee, and added it to the monthly bill for broadband service. The assessment would be about $1.50 US per broadband connection per month. For that $1.50, a broadband customer would get unlimited downloading of music, movies, whatever copyrighted media are out there. It'd all be nice and legal, no one gets harassed, creators of art get paid for their work, and everyone gets to enjoy the fruit of creative artists' labors, while allowing them to create more.

If a YouTube page were tagged (labelled on the inside) as containing copyrighted and licensed intellectual property, and the Performance Rights Agencies such as BMI , ASCAP, SESAC, and now (thank God) SoundExchange—the first performance rights organization to pay attention to spoken word artists' broadcasts, webcasts, streaming media plays and narrowcasts—were to be the authorized representatives to license and collect royalties on the web, they could make money money for artists, distribute a whole bunch of it, and keep a nice taste.

It's a win-win. Google and other search engines could serve music as easily as it serves ads, and serve MORE ads as it licenses the content it serves. This isn't going to happen overnight. But it can happen.

There is much more to all this, and I will be investigating it as deeply as possible in the coming months.

Please send feedback. I'd love to know your thoughts on this matter!!

In future posts, I'll concentrate on repurposing, and why it's a very good thing.