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+1 Annual fee starts at $10 and increases by 50% each year (or similar exponential growth function) would be wonderful. Year 2 - $15 Year 10 - ~$380 Year 20

by cwkoss 9y ago

+1 Annual fee starts at $10 and increases by 50% each year (or similar exponential growth function) would be wonderful. Year 2 - $15 Year 10 - ~$380 Year 20 - ~$22k Year 30 - ~$1.3M Year 40 - ~$74M Year 50 - ~$4B

chrismorgan 9y ago
There are certain advantages to automatic copyright for individuals, and I don’t think that a short period is harmful. How about we say ten years of copyright protection on a work, then your $10 × 1.5 ⁿ ⁻ ¹ for each subsequent year.
- cwkoss 9y ago
  Good pull request, merged to my local brain-repo :-)
Spivak 9y ago
I like the plan in theory but what's the justification for charging these huge sums of money except to be punitive? Why does a work have to somehow perpetually make more money? Why not have the lawyers show up in court and show that the company they represent is still actively using and making money on their copyright? If they are they get a, say 5 year, extension. Judges can use common sense to avoid shady behavior like manufacturing demand or trying to pass of a small number of sales as evidence and copyright holders aren't left with a huge bill.
- cwkoss 9y ago
  I believe that private ownership of culture is a cost to our society, as it restricts the rest of society from being able to use, remix and adapt that work. That cost grows as the work becomes more pervasive in the cultural zeitgeist. I think that owners of a work should repay a portion of this cost to society in return for a monopoly on that work. In an ideal world, I'd prefer some sort of "property tax" on intellectual property: annual percentage of IP's fair market value due as tax or it's released to public domain. However, I worry this scheme would be too vulnerable to gaming and manipulation as it's hard to determine the fair market price of a monopolized product. My proposed exponential renewal tax is somewhat flawed as 'cultural relevance' is only partially correlated with age of work. But, by increasing the cost of renewal each year, it would more closely model increased societal costs over time as private works become more pervasive and relevant in our culture. By imposing a time-correlated cost of retaining IP rights, it would incentivize IP owners to release non-profitable IP into the public domain instead of hoarding it.

by cwkoss 9y ago

chrismorgan 9y ago

There are certain advantages to automatic copyright for individuals, and I don’t think that a short period is harmful. How about we say ten years of copyright protection on a work, then your $10 × 1.5 ⁿ ⁻ ¹ for each subsequent year.

cwkoss 9y ago
Good pull request, merged to my local brain-repo :-)

Spivak 9y ago

I like the plan in theory but what's the justification for charging these huge sums of money except to be punitive? Why does a work have to somehow perpetually make more money? Why not have the lawyers show up in court and show that the company they represent is still actively using and making money on their copyright? If they are they get a, say 5 year, extension. Judges can use common sense to avoid shady behavior like manufacturing demand or trying to pass of a small number of sales as evidence and copyright holders aren't left with a huge bill.

cwkoss 9y ago
I believe that private ownership of culture is a cost to our society, as it restricts the rest of society from being able to use, remix and adapt that work. That cost grows as the work becomes more pervasive in the cultural zeitgeist. I think that owners of a work should repay a portion of this cost to society in return for a monopoly on that work. In an ideal world, I'd prefer some sort of "property tax" on intellectual property: annual percentage of IP's fair market value due as tax or it's released to public domain. However, I worry this scheme would be too vulnerable to gaming and manipulation as it's hard to determine the fair market price of a monopolized product. My proposed exponential renewal tax is somewhat flawed as 'cultural relevance' is only partially correlated with age of work. But, by increasing the cost of renewal each year, it would more closely model increased societal costs over time as private works become more pervasive and relevant in our culture. By imposing a time-correlated cost of retaining IP rights, it would incentivize IP owners to release non-profitable IP into the public domain instead of hoarding it.