Compulsory Licensing Confab Notes

Update: Derek Slater posts his notes.

Eugene Volokh (brief).
Ed Felten (extensive).

Ed: The afternoon discussion was about voluntary license schemes. And here an interesting thing happened. We talked for a while about how one might structure a system in which consumers can license a pool of copyrighted music contributed by artists, with the revenue being split up appropriately among the artists. Eventually it became clear that what we were really doing was setting up a record company! We were talking about how to recruit artists, what contract to sign with artists, which distribution channels to use, how to price the product, and what to do about P2P piracy of our works. Give us shiny suits, stubble, tiny earpiece phones, and obsequious personal assistants, and we could join the RIAA. This kind of voluntary scheme is not an alternative to the existing system, but just another entrant into it.

You sly dogs. When you, and the 39 other folks at that thing start wearin trucker hats, talkin' trash, groovin backstage with the likes of Moby or Madge, we say bravo. Walk a mile in the RIAA's shoes before you dis 'em. Fight em with hip. Or not.

This is not to say that a few ISPs or universities can't get together and cut a voluntary deal with the existing record companies (and other copyright owners). Such a deal would still be interesting, and it would lack some of the disadvantages of the more ambitious mandatory license schemes. Of all of the blanket license schemes, this would be both the least risky and the easiest to arrange. But it hasn't happened yet. (Penn State's deal with Napster doesn't count, since it's just a bulk purchase of subscriptions to a service, and not a blanket license that allows unrestricted use of music on the campus.)

Smart folks. Seems to me they will keep working this over until they come up with something good.

As other's post their thoughts on the Harvard/Berkman conference yesterday, I'll update.

Posted by Mary Hodder at December 06, 2003 09:20 AM | TrackBack