Lessig Blog Archives

From the last set of interesting reactions to my proposal for an Alternative Compensation System, I�ve culled a few especially sharp-edged objections. After trying to address them, I turn to the difficult question of what sort of regime is likely to emerge in the entertainment industry if we don�t move toward an ACS.

Valuation Problems Excellent question by Cory, echoed by Erik: �It doesn�t seem that this system addresses variation of value to the consumer. The Economist, for example, can charge a significantly higher yearly subscription fee than Entertainment Weekly, because its relative value to its (I suspect) smaller subscriber base is much higher. How does this system support niche items of high value to their niche?� It�s quite right that my proposal contains a mechanism for incorporating only one of the many variables that give rise to differences among recordings in terms of their value to consumers � namely, duration. (Click here for the relevant portion of Chapter 6.) But that seems to me acceptable with respect to music and film, where differences in value are not very great � as reflected in the fact that, in the current, market-based system, CDs and DVDs of all types sell for very similar prices, and the cost of admission to theatres varies little with the content of what�s shown on the screen. The same cannot be said (as Cory�s example notes) for print media, software, or games � which partly explains why I haven�t proposed incorporating such materials in my plan.

Why not rely on voluntary contributions? Ian�s post, and the FairShare proposal to which he directs our attention, presents this common argument in a novel and unusually attractive form. My response: Your efforts to reinforce, by creating opportunities to invest in promising artists, the willingness of music consumers to donate money to their favorite musicians is commendable, but I see two problems. The first is the notorious reluctance of consumers to make voluntary contributions to creators. People tip waiters partly because it�s a well-established social custom and partly because they are in face-to-face contact with the waiters and would feel ashamed to snub them. Neither constraint operates on the Internet. The unfortunate result is the failure of PayPal etc. to generate significant revenues for artists. The second worry is that, if current trends continue, it will be less and less feasible for musicians to make money through sales of their recordings. (Some observers � including, for example, Jens in her thoughtful post � celebrate or at least accept that outcome; others lament it. But it seems hard to deny.) The result is that, in the absence of an ACS or some other substantial reform initiative [more on this below], over time fewer and fewer investors in your system will recover any money, which will make it resemble ever more closely a pure busking regime, which hasn�t worked thus far.

Big Government Several posts emphasize the hazards of letting a government set up and run such a system. I agree that the dangers are serious � and are discussed in some detail in Chapter 6. Awareness of those risks partly underlies the proposal made at the end of the chapter for a voluntary Entertainment Coop, which would resemble a government-run ACS, but would rely upon subscriptions, rather than taxes. (If you�re curious concerning how such a system might be constructed and what might prompt people to sign up for it, check out this summary.) But, as by now should be apparent, I am less despairing concerning the ability of a responsible government agency to manage such a regime than are several people who have participated in this last round of discussion. Government-run collecting societies in Europe and judicially supervised private collecting organizations in the U.S. (ASCAP and BMI) are far from perfect, but they are not disastrous either. Certainly, composers are better off in their presence that they would be in their absence. I�ve tried, in my book, to identify their defects and suggest ways in which they could be corrected. In the end, I find efforts of that sort more promising than any of the alternatives.

Other Options Speaking of alternatives, if we don�t move toward an ACS or an Entertainment Coop, what is likely to happen? Most likely, one of three things:

1. Unauthorized copying continues to increase, and consumers increasingly rely up materials obtained (free) online for their entertainment needs. The film industry, in its current form, collapses � perhaps replaced by small, independent studios, financed by donations from corporations, foundations, and government agencies. Musicians continue to make recordings (inexpensively, using the rapidly improving digital recording technologies) but don�t earn any money from them, treating them instead as advertising for their performances.

2. The record companies and film studios, dismayed by the prospect of #1, persuade Congress to reinforce the copyright system substantially � for example, by adopting the INDUCE Act and sharply increasing criminal penalties for unauthorized reproduction of digital recordings. We see a protracted �war on piracy� very similar to the longstanding �war on drugs.�

3. Alternatively, the record companies and film studios persuade Congress to adopt some version of the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act � which requires the manufacturers of all consumer electronic equipment to embed in their products technology that recognizes and respects watermarks, and to remove from their devices all analog ports.

I�ve already explained in prior posts why I think #1 is an unattractive outcome � though plainly I have not persuaded everyone. That said, #1 is the least probable of the scenarios. The record and film industries are sufficiently powerful, and the majority of Congressmen are sufficiently sympathetic to them, that, if the fundamental transformation contemplated by #1 seems imminent, we will see legislation of type #2 or type #3. The merits and demerits of those routes are explored in Chapter 4 of my book. Before addressing them, I�d be curious concerning whether anyone has a different forecast.

A sufficient number of interesting responses have been made to my original post on Alternative Compensation Systems that I thought I�d start a new thread. I can�t hope to address all of the themes that have been raised, but here are a few:

(1) Porn. Lots of people currently pay for access to pornographic films. If an ACS were instituted, some of the money raised through taxes would also end up in the pockets of the creators of pornographic films distributed for free online. Should we be troubled by this outcome? In my view, no. Arguably, we should be troubled by the fact that porn is so popular. But channeling money to pornographers through an ACS doesn�t seem any worse than channeling money to pornographers through the market.

A possible retort: �I may not be entitled to object if my neighbor buys porn, but I certainly don�t want any of my tax dollars going to porn.� The response: If you consume an average amount of recorded music and film, and if the sampling system used to manage an ACS accurately estimated the frequency with which specific recordings were consumed, then your tax dollars would go only to the artists you patronize. In other words, you would help pay for porn only if you watched porn. (For the same reason, your tax dollars will go to Britney only if you listen to Britney.) Admittedly, for this argument to hold, it would be crucial for the sampling system to work well, but we�ve already addressed this issue.

A final (and more powerful) retort: �The problem is not that my tax dollars would go to pornographers, it�s that legislators would refuse to establish a system in which any tax dollars went to pornographers. In other words, when instituting an ACS, they would insist on excluding from its coverage all pornography. We would thus start down a very dangerous road � in which government officials made judgments concerning which artistic works are meritorious and which are not.� I agree that this is a serious hazard. It�s not inherent in an ACS. But it highlights how an ACS might be distorted in the course of legislative implementation.

(2) Cross-subsidies. In an ACS, people who consume little or no recorded entertainment would pay the same amount as people who consume a great deal. It�s frequently argued that that�s both unfair and will lead to various economic distortions. This argument has a good deal of bite; such cross-subsidies definitely constitute one of the drawbacks of the system. The problem is mitigated by the fact that (under my version of the idea, anyway) only broadband accounts are taxed. (Thus someone who truly uses the Internet only for email and to check the weather can avoid paying the most substantial of the taxes.) The problem could be mitigated further if we used �Ramsey pricing� to set the tax rates (an issue discussed in more detail in Chapter 6). Finally, it could be reduced sharply if, as �.ant� suggest in his or her post) the ISPs upon whom the tax is levied charged high-volume subscribers more than low-volume subscribers. But the problem cannot be made to disappear altogether. Is it a fatal objection? In my view, no. The amounts of the taxes are modest. (The largest of them is the (indirect) tax on broadband subscriptions � which, in the first year in which the system were in operation, would be roughly $5 per month.) We tolerate vastly larger degrees of inequality in many other domains. (Think, for example, of public schooling, which is funded in the U.S. primarily by property taxes, borne in equal amounts by homeowners with no children and homeowners with many.) Bottom line: the overall savings of the system seem sufficient to justify a modest degree of inequality in the distribution of its burdens.

(3) Derivative Works. One of the greatest advantages of an ACS, in my view, is that it creates a sensible mechanism for dealing with composite recordings � rap songs that include samples of other recordings, modified or expurgated films, mash-ups. In sharp contrast to copyright law, an ACS regime would authorize persons to rework existing recordings, refashioning them into new products � provided they complied with two conditions: (a) they identified the owners of the copyrights in the original works when they registered their new works; and (b) they gave credit where credit is due. When a modified work were downloaded or streamed, both the creator of the original work and the modifier would get a share of the resultant revenue. (For considerably more detail concerning how such a system would work in practice, see Chapter 6.) The net result would be to liberate the transformative cultural activities the potential for which is perhaps the most important of the many benefits of the Internet, while continuing to compensate fairly creators of various sorts.

(4) Who Gets Paid? There are very good reasons, suggested by Kristin in her post, for requiring that at least some portion of the payments from an ACS be distributed directly to artists, rather than paid to the intermediaries (e.g., record companies) to whom the artists have assigned their copyrights. (Those reasons are explored in more detail in Chapter 5.) But there are two related catches: moving in this direction further decreases the already small probability that the major intermediaries would support the plan; and it would also increase the likelihood that the system would be challenged successfully as an unconstitutional �taking� of private property without just compensation.

For yet more objections to ACSs � and responses to those objections � check out the pertinent portions of Andrew Orlowski�s recent speech at the �In the City� Convention � available at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/23/orlowski_interactive_keynote/page7.html.

That�s probably enough on this issue. Tomorrow, I�ll venture some comments on an equally divisive topic: price discrimination. Thursday or Friday, if all goes well, I hope to veer in a different direction, discussing the current crisis involving the distribution of drugs in developing countries.

Thanks to everyone for your comments thus far.

Terry Fisher

Several of the interesting and challenging responses to my original post focused on the merits and demerits of my contention that an alternative compensation system (ACS) would be superior to the copyright system as a way of compensating the creators of recorded entertainment that is distributed online. I had originally intended to save discussion of that topic for later in the week. But it�s understandable that people want to take it up now, so here goes�. I�ll begin with a very brief summary (taken from the Introduction to the book) of my variant of this idea, then address a few of the more serious objections to such a system.

First of all, it�s important to emphasize that I�m not the only person who has proposed an ACS. The pioneering treatment is Neil Netanel�s. Among academics, Jessica Litman, Raymond Ku, and Glynn Lunney have all contributed importantly to the project. The general idea has been in the air for at least a century. Certainly, several of the people who have gone before me would disagree with some of the comments set forth below. With that caveat, here�s the summary of my own version:

�The owner of the copyright in an audio or video recording who wished to be compensated when it was used by others would register it with the Copyright Office and would receive, in return, a unique file name, which then would be used to track its distribution, consumption, and modification. The government would raise the money necessary to compensate copyright owners through a tax � most likely, a tax on the devices and services that consumers use to gain access to digital entertainment. Using techniques pioneered by television rating services and performing rights organizations, a government agency would estimate the frequency with which each song and film was listened to or watched. The tax revenues would then be distributed to copyright owners in proportion to the rates with which their registered works were being consumed. Once this alternative regime were in place, copyright law would be reformed to eliminate most of the current prohibitions on the unauthorized reproduction and use of published recorded music and films. The social advantages of such a system, we will see, would be large: consumer convenience; radical expansion of the set of creators who could earn a livelihood from making their work available directly to the public; reduced transaction costs and associated cost savings; elimination of the economic inefficiency and social harms that result when intellectual products are priced above the costs of replicating them; reversal of the concentration of the entertainment industries; and a boost to consumer creativity caused by the abandonment of encryption. The system would certainly not be perfect. Some artists would try to manipulate it to their advantage, it would cause some distortions in consumer behavior, and the officials who administer it might abuse their power. But, on balance, it is the most promising solution [to the intensifying crisis in the entertainment industry].�

Here are five worries/objections often raised by skeptics of such a system � followed by efforts to address each:

(1) Does such a system �scale� internationally (see John Allsopp�s post)? This is definitely one of the weaknesses of an ACS. If adopted in only one country (say, the U.S.), it would �leak� across national boundaries � in the sense that French artists whose creations are downloaded in the U.S. would be paid portions of the tax revenues collected by the American government from American consumers, while French consumers would gain free access through the Internet to the creations of American artists, and American artists would not collect anything from French taxpayers. To be sure, American artists would be no worse off under such a regime than they are at present. Nevertheless, awareness of this aspect of the system would contribute to the already substantial resistance of Americans to the adoption of such a regime.

Is there any escape from this bind? Modification of the pertinent international treaties (most likely, the TRIPS Agreement) to force other nations to adopt similar regimes is extremely unlikely in the near future. Harmonization thus would have to occur through voluntary adoption of ACSs by other countries. Chapter 6 of my book explains: �The success of the system might prompt countries other than the United States to institute similar systems. Each would impose taxes on its own residents� ISP subscriptions and purchases of electronic equipment. Each would establish a registration system, permitting copyright owners from every country to register audio and video recordings. (Ultimately, these separate national offices might be superseded or supplemented by a global registry for digital works.) Using schemes like those outlined above, each country would estimate the relative frequency with which those recordings were consumed by its residents � and would then distribute its tax revenues accordingly, to both domestic and foreign registrants. An interlocking set of national regimes of this sort would cure the third of the three major disadvantages of a tax-and-royalty system noted in the previous section � namely its tendency to leak across national boundaries. All of the national regimes would continue to leak, of course. But the leaks would occur in both directions � and would fairly reflect the extent to which consumers within one country were relying for their entertainment on works created by artists in other countries.�

(2) Would artists really be compensated in proportion to the frequency with which their creations are consumed? Skepticism on this score takes two very different forms. Some people (like Jeremy Williams of Warner Bros.) worry that too much money would be channeled to minor contributors to the stew of entertainment products, leaving the studios with too little income to support high-cost modern productions. Others (like John Allsopp in his post) have the opposite concern � that the enormous number of artists whose works are downloaded in small numbers will not get their fair shares. The ability of the system to assuage both concerns depends on the quality of the sampling system used to count consumption rates. In Chapter 6, I devote a fair amount of space to a discussion of how one might design an effective sampling system. In brief, here are its essential features:

�[T]he Copyright Office [w]ould randomly select a set of entertainment consumers who were willing to allow the Office to monitor what they actually listen to and watch. The imperfections of the Nielsen model could be avoided (or at least mitigated) through the following [three] related adjustments. First, the process of gathering data concerning consumers� habits could and should be automated. Software � distributed as �plugins� for playback devices or bundled with peer-to-peer file-sharing applications � would automatically record the registration numbers of the songs and films that sample members heard and watched (all the way through) and periodically transmit that information to the Office. Sample members would thus experience no inconvenience and would have few opportunities to misreport their choices. Next, the size of the sample employed by the Copyright Office would have to be vastly larger than the sizes of the samples used by Nielsen. This would be essential to enable reasonably accurate estimates of the frequency with which each member of an enormous array of songs and films were being consumed. It would be feasible because of the low cost of the automated reporting system. [Third and finally, to] persuade a representative set of households to permit their consumption patterns to be monitored, one would have to provide them credible assurances of privacy. In other words, they would have to be persuaded that the data the Copyright Office gathered concerning the frequency with which they watched particular films or listened to particular songs would be aggregated when determining the amounts of money paid to artists, would be discarded after each monthly accounting, and would not be made available to any other public or private entity�.�

But the proof concerning the efficacy of such precautions is in the pudding. At the Berkman Center, we�re hoping to build a sampling system along these lines � and then to try it out in conjunction with a voluntary Entertainment Coop. One of our major goals is to address the legitimate anxiety that, under an ACS, artists of different sorts would be either underpaid or overpaid.

(3) Won�t unscrupulous artists and third parties �game� the system, artificially inflating the number of times their works are supposedly �consumed� and thus depriving deserving artists of their fair shares of the ACS fund? The primary answer to this serious source of concern is that, once again, a great deal depends upon the quality of the sampling system used to estimate consumption rates. A secondary response is that the �gaming� problem is most serious with respect to downloads and is much less worrisome with respect to streamed works. As we shift, increasingly, from a world in which people create permanent collections of audio and video recordings to a world in which people listen to �streamed� songs and watch �streamed� films, the �ballot-stuffing� problem will diminish.

(4) Shouldn�t ISPs, rather than individual consumers, pay the taxes necessary to run such a system? Yes, and/but they would undoubtedly pass a substantial portion of the tax on to their subscribers.

(5) Wouldn�t consumers end up paying just as much for access to entertainment under an ACS as they currently do under the copyright regime? If so, we will have accomplished nothing more than substitution of a creaky government bureaucracy for a creaky copyright system. This, in my view, is the objection most easily met. Even if the distribution of digital recordings over the Internet fully displaced the current mechanisms by which recordings are distributed, consumers would end up paying much less under an ACS than they currently do. Specifically, even using highly conservative assumptions, the average American household would end up paying no more than $250, roughly half of the $470 the average household currently pays for access to recorded entertainment, and would receive, in return unlimited amounts of ad-free music and movies. That seems a gain dramatic enough to warrant seeking solutions to the hazards and complications discussed above.

I�m hopeful that other aspects of the system will emerge in the course of the discussion, but those seem like enough for now.

Larry has kindly offered me the opportunity to host his blog for a week. My plan is to use the opportunity primarily to catalyze a discussion of the current crisis in the entertainment industry and what potential solutions to it are both attractive and practicable. I recently published a book on the subject: Promises to Keep � Technology, Law, and the Future of Entertainment. The Introduction, which lays out the argument of the book as a whole, and Chapter 6, which has proven to be its most controversial piece, are available online. The book itself can be purchased through any online bookstore.

I thought I�d begin by briefly summarizing the argument of the first chapter, and then ask whether, particularly in light of some recent articles and developments, the argument holds up.

Here�s the argument in a nutshell: In combination, three technological developments � digital recording and storage systems, compression/decompression systems, and the Internet � have created dramatically new ways of making, keeping, sharing, and enjoying audio and video recordings. Full exploitation of those new techniques would have many social and economic benefits: large costs savings (enabling consumers to get more entertainment for less or artists to be paid more); greater convenience and precision in the ways that recordings are delivered to consumers; a sharp increase in the number of musicians and filmmakers who can reach global audiences and make decent livings; enhancement of the diversity of materials available to the public; and a dramatic increase in the number of persons who participate in the making of culture (a trend for which I use the term [not of my own invention] �semiotic democracy�). The same developments, however, pose three serious dangers: corrosion of the systems by which artists and intermediaries have traditionally made money from their recordings; threats to artists� �moral rights�; and destabilization of the cultural icons in reference to which we partially define ourselves. The chapter concludes with the claim that we ought to strive, through a restructuring of the legal system and associated business models, to capitalize on the opportunities created by the new technologies, while minimizing the concomitant hazards. (The rest of the book then goes on (a) to argue that we�ve failed to achieve that goal thus far and (b) to sketch some ways in which we might.)

Before addressing the particular ways in which I and others have tried to solve the crisis, it might be helpful to consider whether my characterization of the crisis is fair and balanced. One potential line of criticism would point to the recent paper by Oberholzer and Strumpf, �The Effect of File Sharing on Music Sales (http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf) (which appeared after my manuscript was set) as evidence that I have seriously exaggerated the extent to which the new technologies (in this case, P2P services) have, at least thus far, threatened traditional business models. Another potential line of criticism would argue that moral rights (artists� interest in the integrity of their creations and in being given appropriate credit for their creations) are overblown � either in general or with respect to digital recordings, of which unlimited copies may be made. I�d be curious to hear reactions on these or any other pertinent issues.

Two unrelated procedural points: First, unfortunately, on Monday I will be on planes from roughly 1:00 am to noon Eastern time � and thus, unable, during that period, to respond to comments. But thereafter, I�ll be back online. Second, it may be impossible, given the importance and imminence of the election, to keep a conversation going this week about online entertainment. If so, I�ll have to adapt in some way.

Terry Fisher