Ending Copyright Could Save Art & Journalism
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- čas přidán 14. 06. 2024
- The soapbox I've been on for 15 years, now summarized in 17 minutes with clipart. Probably the most important video I'll ever make. ⚠️ Rough/incomplete math warning.
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Timestampssssssss
0:00 - Let's Get Philosophical!
0:45 - Copyright is ABSURD
3:08 - Creators Are Criminally Underpaid
5:11 - OH NO! SOCIALISM!!!
7:00 - Probably the most important part of this video
7:48 - The Proposal
10:43 - How much? (flat tax)
12:21 - How much? (existing US tax brackets)
13:31 - Your Taxes Already Subsidize Media Consumption
15:31 - Companies Lobbying Against This - Věda a technologie
One thing I should have made clearer:
All of this is assuming that artists/journalists/production companies/record labels would be paid per play/read/watch/download, similar to how artists are paid via Spotify, minus the marketing, profit-margin, and a lot of operating expenses unrelated to hosting the files themselves.
Would they be paid at a flat rate or would the tax be redistributed? If I only listen to the grateful dead and watch the matrix (I'm not), would my 36$ be split into those things or would my tax contribute to Taylor Swift's hegemony?
Great question. Ideally, no, Taylor would not get your GD/Matrix bucks. But I could also see some value in slowly transitioning from current models to the new and improved one if this thing were to actually get legislative legs.
The issue with a flat per-use distribution is that is removes one of the two levers creators have to break even on their investment. Currently, not only volume, but also profit per-unit can be used to try to make back the money I spent building content. This means that if I made something super-niche, but expensive to create, I can charge significantly more per-unit to ensure I make back the money I invested in the process.
I worry that by not being able to say "this is budget content" or "this is premium content", everyone is now forced to optimize for mass appeal if they want to take big bets.
An alternative would be to allow creators to set their "price" for their content, but that would encourage creators to high-ball their demands since there's no drawback to doing so. Also, this cost is hidden from users, so a user wouldn't weigh accessing single $70 piece of content in relation to 7 $10 pieces of content.
You COULD make this cost visible to users by giving them a budget for their consumption, but I'm guessing that goes against the spirit of what you're envisioning, since it would discourage people from going out of their comfort zone and trying content they're not sure they would like.
@@JoshuaMaiche Wouldn't reviews and critics help guide people into what is budget, b-rate, amateur vs quality, AAA titles? I personally avoid gauging things by their price tag even as things are, and instead rely on critical review and word-of-mouth when choosing what content I consume.
Copyright protects more than just profits. Consider the following:
People's opinions of Benn Jordan might decline should his music become the main soundtrack to, say, neo-nazi rallies. But as the copyright holder, you get to say "no" should they come around asking to use it.
The same is true of licensing for movie, tv and video game usage. By being the sole copyright holder, you get to frame how the majority of people hear your music.
If you remove that protection, anyone can use your art in ways that might turn people off to ever wanting to hear your music again.
The thing that kills me as a teacher is how sheet music is sold and distributed in the digital era because of copyright.
I remember how long it would take sometimes for my piano teachers to find certain pieces for students because of this…
At least we learned more about transcribing
@@ZonymaUnltd.Definitely a silver lining to learn how to transcribe!
Oh, god. I hadn't thought about that. How bad is it?
@@artisan002 most of the time it's $5-$10 per song, they're not often accurate, the teacher and the student both have to purchase it, you can't technically share them, and the front page of the print usually identifies who purchased the sheets, the websites you buy from usually let you print once, so if you lose that pdf you printed, you're buying it again. The biggest issue I face is that very few parents will respond when I ask them to buy things. While $5-$10 might not sound like a lot, a whole album would cost $25-$50.
@@JewettMusic Good god... That's as bad as ticket scalping. Out and out profiteering. I had no idea.
I've spent my entire career making free software, and even converting whole industries to open-source... and the results are clear: When everyone shares what they make, everyone ends up richer. The way I usually explain it to business people is: With proprietary software, you get what you pay for. But with open-source software you get what you pay for, everyone gets what you pay for, and you also get what everyone _else_ pays for. So you get a lot more bang for your buck.
You're also sharing liabilities; methods; technological frameworks; data formats and a whole boot full of everything else.
I like to explain to economic type people that open source is a demand driven market, where as your investor funded proprietary software is *supply* driven. Mostly that change in thinking is worth it because it stops people thinking open source is some charity case instead of serious business with different rules.
This!!
I've dedicated my life to making free audio resources, and if I were charging money for them only a fraction of my current audience would be able to make cool art with it.
Copyright needs to go.
Can you share how you are monetizing your career?
@@Nemion Same way as almost any other tech work, basically. The entire world runs on free software these days, so basically just throw a rock and you'll probably hit someone who uses it. And a lot of those people are hiring.
As a musician, business school graduate with an MBA from the top economics university in Russia and avid Linux user I couldn't agree more!
Working artists are forced to sell their IP for WAY less than what it's worth, so pointless middlemen can make a profit. IP NEEDS to change to protect artists.
If the middleman is so pointless, why not simply skip them? As in bandcamp vs record industry for example?
@@acdnrgmany do
@@acdnrg because you're forced to.
Many do skip the middleman, but they have positioned themselves so that they're unavoidable if you'd like to do certain things (including access huge swathes of your own audience) but they still don't provide a service. Or, at least, they don't provide a service that couldn't be provided ten times more effectively. They only restrict access to services.
@@rccli Makes sense, thank you for sharing that perspective. A middleman that doesn´t add value is optional, I agree.
@@rccli It's so easy to say that, but somehow artists still go to them. You know why? Because they DO provide a service. Artists want to be artists, not salesmen and marketers. Even they might sometimes want to be, they may suck at it because it's a specific skill that many people don't have.
It's the same in business. You CAN bootstrap your own company up. But still, MANY entrepreneurs try to get funding, because it can make a huge difference in their likelihood of being successful at some kind of scale.
The sad fact of the matter is, building a better mousetrap (or writing a good song) will NOT cause the world to beat a path to your door. Endless numbers of people have learned this the hard way. The internet just makes that even worse, because there are millions of other people out there now trying to do the same thing. The internet is a huge wall of white noise, and getting yourself through that can be a massive problem.
It does seem that overprotecting IP and preventing derivative art has the effect of impoverishing creativeness in the long run, the more we make the less we can make for it can always be compared to previous work, and sets a limit for inspiration
Deterministic Probability heh
People just underestimate how much of art is derivation. Some of the greatest artists like shakespeare would be considered plagiarists by our modern logic. You could possibly argue that more people are screwed now by exorbitant limitations than in the past by actual plagiarism.
I love when you talk about this kind of thing. Copyright abolition has been one of my greatest fantasies for ages now.
i have been 100% for this since highschool.
gatekeeping information slows development in any field.
I've read that a lot of researchers are more than happy to provide their articles for free if you simply email them and ask directly. I haven't tried it yet myself, but it seems reasonable, given that they don't get anything from the exorbitant fees one has to pay to access them.
My girlfriend works as a librarian at a university library and the money the publishing industry is earning is insane. With music the creators at least get paid. With research the reasearchers have to pay to get published.
I've done this before and it worked! Only tried it once though. I might have just gotten lucky with a kind researcher.
What worries me is this is all predicated on a substantial amount of trust to the government. Trust for them not to screw with numbers, not to punish artists along political/ideological lines, not to censor media along political/ideological lines, whether left or right, and not to favor things for one company/entity just because they donated to that candidate's campaign or something. there would have to be a strong checks and balance system. maybe I'm just jaded but I don't think the Gov would pull this off very well. but neither has private entities yet.
Yeah it's an idea but definitely would need to be based on some kind of automated system and open standard for tracking usage. I don't really trust 'checks and balances' even, so hopefully someone figures out a decent way of handling it.
They can independently, and they already and have always have treated access to it in multiple places of the world, and are ultimately the arbiter between artists and companies that ultimately screw them and always have.
The libraries of some European countries have so well developed digital libraries (you can rent music, ebooks, films and even software online in e.g. Denmark), that i'd say they're already almost there. Unfortunately I live in Austria where libraries aren't seen as a public necessity
copyright industry majors lobby a lot the EU to reduce these kind of public services...
I think Italy did something similar a few years ago - every song, book, tv show, etc is available online from a national library
Wait I live in Denmark, what software do I get and why hasn’t anyone told me??
Yeah, the pain of living in austria... at least libby works pretty well if you have a library card (still not much there though afaik )
Yes but because of the copyright shenanigans it is very complicated and you have to install proprietary software (at least in Germany).
The good thing at least for books is that the DRM is a joke and can be removed easily so that you can keep the stuff you “rented” forever.
Fun facts: In Hungary there is a tax on every CD/cassette/iPod/iPhone etc. recording device, because you'll record copyrighted material anyway... There is even a process where you can apply for exemption :D It wouldn't be a bad idea if people wouldn't have to pay for actual copyrighted material...
Same goes for fuel, there is a tax on it basically to maintain roads (at least this is how it started), which would be a great idea if people wouldn't have to pay "road tax" in addition to this... :D
Wasn't that the idea of "Music CD-Rs" for use in audio CD recorders? Of course, the easy way around that was to just buy plain "data" CD-Rs and burn them on a computer .... If that doesn't sum up the recording industry's understanding of technology in a nutshell, I don't know what does.
Same in FInland. started as cassette tax and then moved to other mediums like cd's and usb drives.
DJ's also have to pay license depending on what medium they play. Physical formats are free, mp3's you need to pay license based on amount of different tracks played.
@@nickwallette6201 The recording industry has been against technology since the Mellotron was first released in the 1960’s
Thing is if its the same thing as in austria, drm is still everywhere and bypassing said drm is still illegal even though you technically paid for it which makes those taxes "you could do bad things, so just pay upfront (even though we will charge you seperately as well) " - taxes.
That "tax" goes to the record industry, not the artists, so it's really just another way for them to do yet more rent seeking without the people who produce the thing we actually want seeing any of the benefits.
I love this idea! This is something that could fold right into The Internet Archive.
the moment you’d say “you’re household would have no advertising” an ad comes on. signal moment
Including the concept of (non) scarcity here was a really good idea. In fact, it was what got me from "I don't like the idea of yet another tax" to "I think it makes sense". Sometimes, it's really helpful to view things from a different perspective. 👍
One of the reasons I got into watching your channel was exactly because of these kinds of videos. Even though our opinions are not necessarily in complete alignment, they don't need to. It is always interesting to watch you express your thoughts and I almost always get something out of them. I obviously watch you for your music content as well but this side of your channel has always been slightly more interesting to me.
I've always disliked the current copyright laws since I was little.
I grew up in a relatively poor country, legal foreign media acces to me was unattainable/unthinkable. Where I come from, I didn't know anyone who held legal copies of almost any piece of media. If you had an account on an invite-only torrenting site, you were the coolest kid around.
To buy a single 60$ triple A game, it would cost us, in relative terms, as much as it would cost you guys to buy it for 300$.
As such, I've "sailed" all my life. I could, if I wanted to, attribute 80-90% of my knowledge, passions, skills, basically, the person I am today, to having "free" access to these things. It is highly questionable if I would have gotten back into music (am an ex-"piano prodigy") if copyright laws were truly enforced everywhere. It is also highly questionable what my political views, for example, would have been. My home country is not that progressive, to put it mildly.
I believe that without us having such "free" access to otherwise illegal forms of media consumption, there would not be as many young people that have now went on to rise above their status and make it in life.
Behind almost every computer science student in or from my country, there's a drive full of crack folders for games they could have otherwise never played. I would know, I'm one of them ;)
I also come from the perspective of a guy that really got into anime in his teens, an industry that was always behind the movie/tv show industry in terms of legal distribution. Illegal streaming was and still is one of the biggest parts that go into being an anime fan. That being said, I'm used to being put on blast for "not supporting the industry" and "stealing art/products".
There have always been weird arguments between people thinking they have the higher moral ground for upholding the copyright laws and those who do not. It makes me hopeful to see that discussions about the actual fucked system we have are becoming more frequent than debates about those who operate outside of it.
I think a lot of young people (me included) are increasingly tired of the corporate greed that keeps all these fucked systems in place.
You are one of the creators on this platform that has helped me come to grips with my role as a consumer and has opened my eyes to a few things that I did not consider before.
I thank you for that.
I think I'd actually pay a bit more for my media than I do now, but thats in part because I'm stingy and am fatigued by subscription services. This proposal really doesn't sound too bad, but isn't possible due to very powerful people losing a ton of that power in its implementation. I'm not sure how we can progress this country toward something a lot more equitable than what we have now... I'm still waiting for that revolution to happen, myself. /s
Side note: the libertarians I've known had some...pretty interesting perspectives on things that kind of rubbed me the wrong way, as a very left-leaning person. I guess I just want to say thank you for being measured and well researched in your videos. A lot of your content has challenged the way I see things in a variety of ways and has helped expand my understanding on things.
Yeah, I think it's fair to say that Benn seems to align more with lowercase-L libertarianism (a non-politically-aligned ideology aimed at maximizing freedom in as many areas as possible), rather than capital-L Libertarianism (the psychotic political group who thinks taxes are theft, roads should be privatized, and public schools demolished).
As someone who's also "far-left," it seems to me that a lot of lowercase-L libertarians are just socialists in denial haha :)
Yeah tbh this sounded more like left-libertarian philosophy to me (which was actually the original kind, but right-wing hyper-individualist libertarianism went on to stain the name in the USA).
I live in a country where the government controls much of the information people can easily access. That includes music. Also, we would trade that government for an actual bucket of sh*t, if given the chance - because it's infinitely more useful (yes, it's Hungary 😅).
So... I have my doubts about giving any politician the right to control media. I mean... There are more terrible governments around right now than proper ones 🫤.
Amen!
Yeah, I think this video didn't make it clear that this would need to be a public organization independent of the government. It still would be a lot of power concentrated into one point and the government would still be able to influence it at least via funding. See all the independent public broadcasters. They could be much more independent.
Side note: I learned to program (at 12 years old) from that Python Programming book in the background! It's a wonderful book!
As much as I despise Python as a language, that is kind of beautiful
This was a great video. Thanks Benn. Your ideas need to be heard!
Ive sent this to a few people already, don't stop with these videoes im learning so much from you.
Hey, great video, one thing I don't quite understand is how royalties would be paid out to the artists? Would it be on a per stream basis as with current streaming services albeit with a higher rate? I can't help feeling that may result in some exploitation à la Vulfpeck's sleepify. I'm not saying this current system is free of any exploitation, far from it. But how would you propose this new system reward the growth of your music but not be susceptible to people taking advantage of it purely for the sake of profit? Thanks
The problem with the current system is not how streaming royalties are payed, is usually to whom they are payed. If you talk to small artists that self publish, they usually do not complain to much about how much streams pay. The thing is, big acts have their music published by middleman like Sony or Universal that keep all the streaming earnings and pay the artists according to their own rules and not according to streams.
One of the first steps to make the art business more fair is to eliminate publishers
To me, this is the big thing that Benn left out and that leaves me quite puzzled
It's a bit infuriating how the video is only focused on the "how would you pay for it?" question that's actually rock simple to answer (but many do need it explained, so fair enough) but it doesn't get into how it actually would work for the artists.
Nationalising RIAA is the least complicated part of this entire process.
the difference is that if you did a sleepify you would be committing fraud against the government instead of a company, so they can lock you up instead of just suing you.
This is a very interesting thought experiment. I am known among my friends as a person not afraid to ask big fundamental questions that most people take for granted and I live for asking all the big questions that we may never know the answer to, so I will most certainly be pondering this question and perhaps debating it with my friends. Thank you kind sir, you have just sparked the creative juices in my brain providing me with more philosophy to entertain me for hours if not more.
Just stumbled across your channel and literally everything was right up my alley, apparently I was already subbed so past me has good taste
The iPod tax has been implemented in Sweden since the late 90s, it's called "Privatkopieringsersättning". It's HORRIBLE and drive up prices (especially in the last decades where the digital storage space has EXPLODED) on anything with storage space in it (which is pretty much anything these days).
Wow that sounds terrible, I must ask, who gets the money from the tax?
@@Lance_G it's not really a TAX per se, it's a fee that companies that create and/or import any kind of digital storage has to pay. the problem is that companies then put the price for this fee on the consumers, which indirectly makes it a tax. the money goes to COPYSwede.
In my opinion, the more pressing problem is that copyright hinders artists etc. from building upon existing IP. Your proposition does not solve this issue (because there still need to be royalties paid out), but frankly I don't know how to either.
Especially in music, it is quite easy to infringe on copyright you don't even know of. There was this guy who stored basically all possibe melodies in TET on a device and tried to declare it open-source to end this nonsense, but I don't think he made an impact in reality
How do you fairly pay out royalties? If I slam a couple keys over a song, how much should I have to put the copyright holder?
@@cd2320 In the system being proposed, all royalty payments go through the government, so you wouldn't pay anything directly.
One possible approach is that if you make a derivative work, the government would give some proportion of "your" royalties to the creator of the original work instead of you.
I think that answer is baked in. Problems I can see might include how you calculate percentage. And does everyone's percentage reduce for every new derivative work? So, a popular song would pay almost nothing to a huge number of people who all made remixes?
Overall, very interesting ideas and diametrically opposed to libertarianism, but that's either argument.
I've noodled on this problem when thinking about sampling and remixing. I think one thing that would make this more plausibly workable is to have some kind of compulsory licensing system (like has long existed for cover songs) so that an artist can't stop their work being sampled or remixed (eg by demanding a ridiculously high fee) but rather have some kind of fixed royalty free structure so if you use a sample, you declare it and just pay out based on the compulsory rate. This would get a lot easier with Benn's proposed system if we're trusting the government to register and manage the central royalty clearinghouse...
I remember watching videos you made about copyright back in like 2006 and the whole Sublight debacle / pirating call for soundtrack to a vacant life in 2008
This should be interesting
Pirate Party has similar ideas on some of the points you talked about. It is a party which isn't really on left or right but picks things from either side that they seem logical, reasonable or helpful. If you have time take a look of what they have achieved and what they would like to do next.
I was scrolling through my homepage feed, thinking to myself, how I really need to get on task for the day and then I saw a screenshot for a new Benn Jordan video. I said “God damn you, Benn!” and now here I am.
Love this thought experiment. For _this_ scale of distribution, calculating expected compute/bandwidth costs (even if heavily discounted) would be more interesting than looking at the cost of those companies to run themselves. Looking at CDN costs for some of the bigger dogs (akamai, aws, etc) could give some good napkin math.
That's true, but the thought experiment takes that into account by using the revenues of these companies, rather than their profits or payouts. The numbers already include everybody's infrastructure, management, and CDN costs, on top of development and marketing costs that would largely vanish under this scheme.
Wow. Just wow. I can’t think of anything more to add to express my admiration for how thoroughly you’ve thought this through.
If you decide to use this as the basis for a revolution, I will swim across the Atlantic to pledge my allegiance.
@@icedragon769 They include these costs as they stand _now,_ but how does that change if there isn't an IP gatekeeping? Do streaming companies still exist as pay-for-distribution services? Would that make them significantly cheaper, or do we end up paying a tax on top of our monthly subs? And if you could just share media without regard for copyright, then would streaming services even exist? Surely there's value in a well-curated catalog, but if it's a lot "Free"er to just tap into your buddy's Plex system, then that might be the way to go. And if it's not longer a legal gray-area to sell appliances that aid this, then peer-to-peer traffic would escalate rapidly. Now, how would that affect ISP traffic allocation? Large ISPs can offload streaming service traffic to local hosting (where the ISP partners with the provider to host popular media locally, thereby preventing out-of-network streaming.) If everything's peer-to-peer, that optimization goes away. Unless ISPs shift to hosting large media catalogs themselves...
This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what shifts with a change like this.
You could even go so far as wondering with Benn's "song" at the beginning would become a meal ticket, if IP were paid for by the government. Is it paid by meritocracy, or just handed out to anyone who registers their media? What if you then play that "song" in public, continuously, whether anyone wanted to hear it or not? Can you send a bill to the government? Could I earn a wage by literally tapping a piano key over and over?
I love the idea of making information free, but it definitely has the potential to upset the economic system we have today. Such things should not be taken lightly, even if they are potentially worthwhile. That is to say: Warrants discussion, not shutting it down without bothering to explore the repercussions.
One of my favorite videos of yours. I think another positive aspect of abolishing IP is having a generally healthier collaboration scene. I’ve had so many situations with musicians who were paranoid that their stuff was gonna be stolen that it just killed the vibe completely. I still have difficulty trusting any central authority with so much responsibility of managing so much content and actually allowing all forms of expression (both govts or companies like Spotify), but it seems like a better and unfortunately necessary alternative to that of letting companies take advantage of a corrupt govt that plays favorites with how laws are made and applied.
The proposal is NOT, repeat NOT, about abolishing IP!
BJ> All of this is assuming that artists/journalists/production companies/record labels would be paid per play/read/watch/download, similar to how artists are paid via Spotify
The record label (album) or production company (movie) or sometimes individual artist would still own the property rights to collect royalties deriving from government taxes, rather than from user fees.
The government would collect information about every time you read an article or listen to a song or watch a video, and use that to distribute a pool of tax money to property owners, in proportion to how much that property is accessed by users.
To make this work, solid DRM might be needed - requiring monitoring every playback on any device, so that property owners can claim their due compensation.
It's very much not about abolishing IP, but about shifting the enforcement of IP copy restrictions (avoiding unauthorized/unmonitored accesses) to the government rather than just authorizing private companies to protect their own IP, and shifting the costs from the users of each product (in some proportion to their usage), to the taxpayers (via progressive taxation).
Some person or company stealing your property (so THEY can receive the government royalties therefrom, rather than you) would continue to be as important an issue as ever under the system as described.
Excellent ideas Benn. Well researched and articulated. Thank you.
This would kill off all customer influence over culture. It would completely disempower customers boycotting. It would neuter any sense of loyalty or the possibility of a 80s type defined decade. A return of an innovative physical media with genuine customer ownership is closer to helping artists than government managed media distribution system. Could you imagine the corruption that would entail? You don’t even have to look far aboard to see what happens.
Me financially supporting artists is just as important as me being able to withdraw financial support from them. Having a gun to my head from historically the world most abusive overlordship is hysterical.
If there was a way to fast track a dystopia, it’s this.
Seen variations of this idea for a long while now, or just general pushes to abolish copyright (like Corey Doctorow advocates for), but I think they fundamentally all don't take the time to consider how this would actually increase the power of larger companies/corporations and are far more likely to make it more difficult for creators from underprivileged backgrounds to break into any industry. As capital/initial investment would tilt even more in corporate favour, the economies of scale also tilts in their favour, and marketing spend/control becomes even more of a factor for discovery. You can see how that works even with the current generative AI push going on and how that's played out, especially in the book cover market.
The ideas also sidestep the moral issues. Copyright itself is just the application of a labour right to output, where that output can't be secured traditionally. Historically (before the Berne convention) that meant creators relied on patrons and the public had little to no access to works - Copyright was the legal framework that encouraged creators to share. So you have to wrestle with that this is a removal of a human right to then compel a specific action on their labour (because there would be no opt-in or opt-out in such a system). Which is a situation absolutely ripe for abuse.
Yes exactly correct. This is fundamentally anti artist and would utterly destroy the part framework artists have to sustain any form of legal protection and income
Every situation is unfortunately ripe for abuse. I honestly haven't heard of small artists who benefit from copyright laws while I hear more outstandingly of how this large company or the other fucked someone up because they were creating derivative materials of their work out of passion or how a person is using a certain character in a way that does not really constitute a benefit or downside to the company.
Even worse, because companies effectively have a monopoly over their own IPs, the quality of the content published has been decreasing and companies continue onwards because they need to stay competitive and push out more content onto streaming services, which begs the use of their current IP libraries that they can exploit at no consequence because it doesn't matter anymore in the days of Netflix and Disney+
Meanwhile, a smaller artist can show how they improve upon the base material the company screwed up and get punished for trying to do something that is a fundamental principle of copyright (which is to inspire creativity). Whatever is done, someone's going to abuse the system and get both cheered for it and then get the privilege to abuse others with the system itself.
@@VideoGameStarChannelSupreme Everything you just stated as an example is someone who does not actually have an original idea?
You can’t expect realistically to base your entire career in any field on direct copying or imitation of someone else’s idea.
And if you were the one someone was copying, and they were directly taking money from you and undermining your ability to feed yourself, you would be thankful that same law that protects them protects you.
I mean are you an artist who relies upon ip? Because the entire basis of our existence is the fact that we cannot have our work blindly plagiarized? That is why we can host a book on Amazon and chose our books cost and Amazon has zero rights to use that book without our permission.
@@VideoGameStarChannelSupreme Unfortunately quality isn't necessarily what succeeds or gets a large audience - often it's more strongly correlated with marketing or audience capture and saturation.
As an example to think of in a no copyright system - An independent creator manages to make something amazing and it goes viral. But, they're only one person or a small team, so they can only release more once a week or every few weeks. A large corporation sees this and wants to take advantage of the virality/trend, so they put a team of 100 onto it and they can release daily. And quickly the high quality independent creators have their content drowned out by the corp content (makes it much harder to find and the large marketing budget puts the corp content first), people get tired or associate the concept with the lower quality corp content and they also quickly get bored of it (the "fatigue" articles often discuss). Which would mean an independent creator would no longer be able to slowly build an audience and would have to release all at once to reduce their risk, which could also mean only the privileged can wait that long or get the full benefit of what they created.
@@VideoGameStarChannelSupreme I don't fucking understand why every time discussing about copyright there is someone who thinks it is a horrible injustice artists can't capitalize on drawing disney IP... Why the heck is that a problem, why would any artist or art consumer ever need that?
8:28 That right there. That's why it'd never happen. There's too many massive companies that stand to lose money, and they're all probably greasing pockets to ensure they don't
The amount of cold sweat that would result from serious consideration of this among many folks and corporations could also solve any future water shortages.
As an artist, it is super easy to get caught up in wanting copyright protection since violation of copyright is marketed as another way you’re getting fleeced by someone… which is interesting when put into the perspective presented by this video. 🙂
Alas, all the big businesses would fight this because they would lose their advertising platforms. Not even necessarily the media businesses, but all the rest of the industries.
If I make a derivative work, how much of the money goes to me vs the original artist? What if in one case I simply briefly sample 1 second of the original track, whereas in another case I play the original track in its intirety but make just a few tiny changes? Who decides the split?
To build on this vagueness: generative AI takes this case, and explodes it into an even more intractable mess.
so it sounds like the main take away is that for profits should be banned from lobbying or basically interacting with government. I have to say, the idea is "simple" enough but it would need to be a worldwide thing to really take hold properly. I hate to say it, but I don't see that happening unfortunately :(
man... after some videos ,,, i subscribed... very good quality info, nice guy, very honest, cool perspectives, nice hummor.. i like your takes on the sick industry.. nightmare..
very cool work..
thank you
Superbly well written as always, Benn.
It's fun to think about. The problem with a per view payout is you bake in the same problem we already have: Everyone makes garbage content just to get views. That's the fundamental difference between something like the BBC and American television. The BBC isn't a distributor, it has a vision (though not everyone agrees with it) and has spent vast sums of money to make educational shows like nature documentaries to the point where they are unmatched in the genre. Meanwhile America makes shows like "Crocodile Hunter" and "Too Cute", which is just cat videos on TV. Same thing with dramas. The BBC will hire actors with actual talent. American producers hire models who can barely talk so they can get views and sell ads.
You clearly haven't watched the BBC recently
@@bowserwars We only get the highlights here in the US.
Thanks for making this video! I’ve found that there are two types of libertarians, right leaning ones and left leaning ones. You’ve always struck me for the left leaning kinds.
Personally I’m a progressive. I wanna see progress in society i don’t really align with any right or left, i just wanna see stuff better for all people and I’ve seen politicians on all sides hurt people and purposefully make things worse for their own benefit (or benefit of their funders).
As for copyright, I’ve been calling for the abolition of it for decades now. I dig Spotify’s model of a % revenue payout, but the share needs to be higher now (70/30 split instead of 55/45). Also owners of these media/tech companies shouldn’t be pocketing enough of the revenue to pay themselves 100M a year or become billionaires. That money has to go to the creators first.
With AI and direct deposit payment systems i think a system like you propose would be pretty easy and straight forward to do.
I’ve always felt that copyrights should expire after 5-15 years or something like it originally was, but after it expires EVERYTHING would still be under a Creative Commons license where you have to give proper credit to the original creator.
Also i once added up every major streaming service’s cost and how much it would cost to have them all it was like $125. So even at the highest tax bracket you’d still save $10/month!
Imagine if we just removed lobbying.
Also i’m curious how discovery of new media would work. I’d think if the government treated it like a utility and not be able to touch it, which then is more about who controls the algorithm?
Fantastic video Benn! Appreciate all the hard work you put into this!! Hey wanted to let you know I didn't get a notification for this one even though I have notifications turned on for your channel. I wonder if YT is suppressing this video? Or if notifications are just wonky? Anywho thanks again man, you help me feel sane 🙏
Talking about melodies, there's a project by Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin. It was featured in Adam Neely's video "Every Melody Has Been Copyrighted".
They brute force generated melodies, to help melodies be more available to everyone.
Great ideas. Cooperation is better than exploitation.
Are you describing public libraries and publicly-funded arts? Seems like something the US used to do. It would be interesting to look at historical changes in public investment in the arts and the library system, in the US and other countries for comparison. It's also interesting how the FCC was originally created to regulate broadcasting, because it was originally considered a public utility. Ultimately either the government (who we ostensibly vote for) or some unaccountable corporation is going to control distribution. Digital broadcasting has allowed private interests to become the gatekeepers of distribution now.
yep been basically thinking about this for a while, I completely agree and have pretty much reached the same model. And you can still have a market inside that system, attention market or monetary.
You said it. This is not a thing because there would be no advertising. All the media companies are really just selling advertising time.
It feels less like the abolishment of copyright and more akin to the reimagining of copyright "transfer" to a centralized distribution entity. Thus, you still earn revenue from "your" creations. However, it's that you've delegated your copyrights to the government, as opposed to for-profit organizations. Quite interesting. Yet, bear in mind that governments and bureaucracies can also veer towards dystopia. In the region where I live, during the Soviet era, painters couldn't purchase paint independently. The union was the sole provider of such materials, including paint. So, if you found yourself in conflict with the government or any of its affiliates - your livelihood could be jeopardized.
Yeah that’s exactly why this is an awful idea. The government is already dystopian. This would completely centralize and destroy the entire creation of art.
Commies don’t want to help the needy; they want to hurt the successful.
The blues, jazz, and classical music, just to name a few, would not have been created if copyright concerns were a thing.
Unrelated: Please come to the UK. I feel like I have spent my whole adult life wanting to see you perform live. I just love your music!
I've watched many videos on this channel, and didn't realize until now that Benn Jordan is The Flashbulb. Incredible.
I don't think you factored in the fact that the creative need a substantial raise, and then what are the qualifiers for creative content to receive tax money payments? Do I get to hit 5 keys on the piano as a minimalist artist then start receiving a check?
Unless you post a controversial opinion on line. Then NO CHECK FOR YOU!
Given that money is currently controlling all of the decision making (as far as those who are making a lot of it off of those who are doing most of the work) this will not happen in the US, but I do support the idea if dreams ever come true.
This is a pretty interesting take on this. I'd be interested in finding out what would be the deciding factors as to which projects/artworks/ip get higher percentages of the pie or if it's all equal. And since art is subjective, there would be people looking to exploit this by putting in less effort in their work since they know they're getting paid for it regardless. However, as an artist/musician myself, being able to have at least a solid guaranteed base salary would be amazing and could help drive more creativity for all of us.
People stream content from media.gov and the pie gets roughly divided by the time people spent consuming your content (probably not linearly).
What a legend, thank you for this
Like so many things in the US, you're already socializing it, only you give a huge chunk of the money to private companies, making the service/product more expensive and often less good. We do the same thing in Canada, but to a lesser extent. It's very frustrating.
I wish this is how things could be :/. Unfortunately the solution to this problem is giving more money to the people who made the system how it is (the government) and as long as the same corrupt people keep getting elected you know they would abuse and bastardize this system.
I would argue that Disney, the MPAA, and the RIAA had way, way more to do with how the system is today than the government. The government just allows politicians to be lobbied (bribed), making them no more than a rubber-stamp operation on corporation-created legislation.
Same principal applies to politics. 1-Companies can no longer give money to candidates and political parties. 2-Individual political donations have a very low ceiling Max $200. All the available money that now becomes available can be used to fund parties and candidates based on representation. Have a strong check and balance to make sure the money is properly spent. This will clean your corruption and no candidate will be backed by corporations.
Those subtle changes in musical backgrounds during your "probably the most important video you've ever made" are intriguing.
I've been thinking about this too since about 2007 when I got into creative commons. We've made more money from cc than from royalties from ads and stuff! Crazy considering I've have big ads! The unbelievable amount of middle men and collection agencies dragging their feet and taking big percentages is partly to blame.
The part about artists getting "paid more" is pretty hand-wavey. "Hypothetical royalty number is bigger", but this only accounts for per-listen payouts. Artists who survive by composing and licensing would get kinda destroyed if a good music editor could just needle-drop any music, ever, anywhere into a media production.
That's why he said 'consumer/retail'. Also, very few composers actually *want* to do that - they do it because they can't make money doing what they actually want to do. Every jingle writer would rather do punk ballads.
@@paulie-g Copyright law impacts way more than just 'consumer/retail'. Also, it's true that most of us don't do *exactly* what we want, but so what? It puts money in the bank and it beats selling insurance. I'll tell you what composers definitely don't want - it's to not be able to be working composers anymore.
@@SoundslikeLogic He specifically narrowed his proposal to consumer-facing media IP. We do this now - the right to play music in your home does not imply the right to play it publicly. I don't see how this proposal changes things for composers. I don't think the proposal is well thought through and it's absolutely impossible because of international IP conventions (although the US no longer cares about international law, so maybe).
Isn't the idea that that also counts as use and accrues royalties?
@@jonwatte4293 In US IP law, it's a separate right/license at least for music and film called 'public performance'.
As I understand Ancient Greeks used to *require* incoming ships to surrender any books they had on board so that they could be copied to add to the library of Alexandria. Seems to me there’s historical precedent for exactly this kind of thing, the making freely available all valuable information/knowledge, so that any inclined and in need can partake to the overall benefit of society at large… the current issue being the profiteering in the middle. I’m all for this.
The Ancient Greeks also highly lived in a completely different civilization. You are proposing it be literally impossible to make any living off of any form of art unless the government approves of your form of artistic expression. And that’s a terrible idea
15:42 that’s not even considering the private equity companies that own shares in all of those media/streaming services (BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street Corp, Apollo, etc).
“Don’t Tread On Anyone”👏👏
✋Hold on, would enjoy hearing opinions on this : One of the main points he brings up is eliminating the need for marketing media. We already have major issues with algorithms fairly recommending content and the only solution requires creators to strategize effective marketing campaigns in order to stand out, but even then the current content saturation is massive and most creators wont receive results for years. If you think there’s a lot of content/competition now, imagine lifting copyrights so anyone can repurpose/remix the entire database of all digital media😵 Now imagine all of that repurposed content + original content is all on a single platform🤯 I just feel like this would exponentially increase market saturation and decimate the visibility of creators who are not already established to a point where the only content receiving attention is just whoever has already “made it”. This extreme deregulation and simultaneous centralization of all media would only solidify a monopoly for companies/creators that already have users seeking their content. Essentially “if literally all content is free why would I spend time searching for novice creators with unestablished content when I have access to the top-tier media in every category”! Do I just not understand this at all or is anyone picking up what i’m putting down??
Like I already immensely struggle picking out a YT video or even a netflix show - the current level of information overload on most platforms is mind boggling. I cant even fathom opening the flood gates for everyone to repurpose an infinite amount of content, then collectively upload content on a single platform for every type of digitized media. How would this not regress the barrier for entry that internet marketing has provided as the web has decreased the cost and risk for creating an infinitely global and scalable business without brick and mortar struggles… And this is coming from a producer who’s dream is to be able to remix acapellas and loops without the hassle of clearing samples or getting sued LMAO
you're right, it makes total sense that low quality media producers would suffer to find a market, but I am of the belief that if you make high quality media, the (youtube) algorithm will pick it up eventually, regardless of paying for marketing. I'm also of the mind that one can make (or steal) high quality media on a shoestring budget, and this would saturate the platform with high quality media instead of low quality, high money media @@henrylar8958
I appreciate the work you put into this video/subject, and I do agree that there must be a better way than what we have currently. Given that, and it's possible that I just missed it, but it's one thing for us to pay more taxes to get all this content, and I appreciate that you broke down roughly the tax cost, but how do artists get paid for their art? I agree that artists are criminally underpaid, but within this discussion, how much do/would artists make?
Would artists get tax breaks/refunds for the amount of content they create regardless of the quality? I could put out hours of blah instrumental music (I could probably program A.I. to create it for me) and then I could claim a tax break on hundreds of thousands of hours of music.
Would artists get paid based on monitoring algorithms that calculate how much their content is watched? I could just open up an internet window and put something on a loop to watch over and over to make fake numbers.
I'm just not getting the incentive for artists to make content, film, music, whatever under this system.
Couldn't you do the loop plays with Spotify right now anyway?
@@donpetrossi I'm sure some do that already....
I think this will indirectly help artists get more money from merch, cds, vinyl, touring, and other means. Many artists only make money this way and don't use streaming services to make money. The majority of artists already don't get paid from streaming services even if they do have listeners. Maybe by switching to this method, people will be more willing to purchase stuff from artists because they are not already paying for it.
@@donpetrossi You can, but if it's found out you're canned from the service.
Absolutely genius. More, please.
Just FYI:
In Austria there is a tax on every empty media (like CDRs, HDDs, SDDs, ... ) and reproduction devices (like photocopiers and printers). Because of this, Austrians are allowed to copy and store copyrighted material for their personal use. And there is also a tax to finance state-run media, so there are no commercial breaks when e.g. watching a movie on one of their channels...
I just don't see any realistic path to abolishing Disney.
... I mean copyright.
The closer you get to the music industry the more you realize it's all just the companies with the most lawyers bullying everybody. Everything you don't like about CZcams is a result of them doing what they can to appease UMG/Warner. Well, it's also places like The Orchard (a really sketchy Sony label) creating software to automate fraudulent claims bullying smaller artists/channels.
Something being a good idea doesn't make it remotely feasible. Music would have to find a way to completely implode before it could be socialized, pretty much like the healthcare industry would need to completely implode. It might happen given that it's nothing but big companies putting all their efforts into finding more and more convoluted math to screw everybody in much the same way the financial industry hires math geniuses like they were solving the three body problem or planning a trip to Neptune.
BIG companies have gotten completely blatant about breaking the law, because it's all just a cost analysis, like you heard about in Fight Club, or like when a pharmaceutical company gets sued for $2 billion but keeps selling the drug. People are going to do the thing that they are incentivized to do.
90% of the people in the music industry (or healthcare industry, or financial industry) are doing more harm than good, but it would be political suicide to put a few million assholes making $150K+ out of work.
The problem is completely entrenched. Places which distribute music like Bandcamp/Beatport/Tidal ... Those places are all a huge mess, because selling someone a Green Velvet single is very simple, and giving them the file is very simple. More accurately, the processes to do it are completely commoditized. But managing the rights is a fucking nightmare. You need to get all the labels to give you DDEX files for each release so you can know exactly which places on the planet you can sell it or stream it. Half the time the metadata sent by the record labels is literally corrupt - there were several labels which we actually called a "firehose of shit" when I worked at a big music site. The Orchard might as well have been DDOS-ing our ingestion API. I could talk for hours about what a nightmare the databases are just because of the rights/region BS ... but ... it's also due to the fact that in 2023 the average senior developer doesn't know the difference between an inner join vs. an outer join.
And everybody wants to push people to streaming services, because we've completely run out of steam on inventing better media with better fidelity, so the industry pimps need to shift to renting you music instead of selling it. And streaming stuff can get pulled from the service whenever. We had a flag in the database called 'tombstoned' for when the label decided they didn't want you to be able to listen to something anymore. Obviously if you're a DJ you're never going to use a streaming service which requires you to depend on an internet connection AND depend on every track still being available. You're going to buy everything, download it, and make three backups. Because your music is your livelihood. But the hotshot VP of marketing still calls DJs who don't use a streaming service "legacy DJs."
But yay music. Good vibes! Who's going to Burning Man?
Minor but important point, Libertarianism is distinct from Libertarian Socialism. The former was synonymous with the latter at its beginning, but these days, basically it's Libertarianism = Anarcho Capitalism and Libertarian Socialism = Anarcho Socialism. Benn Is leaning heavily towards Anarcho Socialism
Really great video, love the idea!
The details are messy; but we have to do something so it’s 100% worth having the conversation. Agreed.
End Copyright.
End Patents.
Patent law is the number one thing stifling innovation.
Information was meant to be free. Cooperation > Competition.
Imagine if science was about cooperating again
@@Schaddn PREACH!
End Capitalism!
I don't really agree with you on the patent law aspect of things. R&D costs a lot of money (developers are not cheap). Whoever comes in after does not have to pay this cost, and so can undercut your price drastically. Apple wouldn't have lasted 10 years as a company, heck, it's the reason Phillips barely has an R&D department compared to what they used to
@@jakobvanklinken i get your point but my god Apple it's an hilarious example taking into account we are pretty much stuck with the x86 architecture aswell other hardware and software bad practices thanks to apple, IBM and other corpos outright predatory policies and movements to keep a monopoly on the market
Imagine we could only use one type of antibiotics because no one else can develop their own version
This is not an attack towards you or your argument, i was just pointing out the hilarity of using apple itself as an example and turning it to the eleventh degree for an hyperbole
If America did this what would happen to all other countries around the world not paying American taxes?
They'd have to pay for the USA content just like they do now.
@@BennJordan How to enforce this? With a VPN anyone could pretend to be in the USA.
@@franksierow5792 Well with a VPN you would already be doing that if you watched Netflix shows or movies that weren't licensed for europe, so that wouldn't really make a difference. You'd still have to get access to the service provider somehow, which in america then would be the Government so you'd have to use and ID or social securitiy number to get access, which a VPN can't provide for you without fraud
Shorting Spotify stock makes more than putting music on Spotify. I laugh so hard on that one
Between this and the Spotify video from earlier this year, I am loving your videos on the economics involved and how utterly silly and dysfunctional the whole house of cards really is. I am not that interested in music production so I don't know if I want to subscribe to your channel, but I can at least boost engagement through commenting ;-).
Cool idea, but it will literally never happen in America. If Americans can't figure out socialized medicine, (healthcare being probably the clearest case for something that shouldn't touch profit with a 100 foot pole) there's little hope for socialized copyright.
There is a very real possibility that in the future, much more people will make music only for pleasure, and not to earn a living. As more and more art is created by AI, and as it gets better and better, how are creators going to compete? Especially if the AI can produce content at a furious pace, and perhaps even copyright it? Perhaps for some, there will be a shift to live performances. It’s all a bit “What If?” right now, but it’s looking more and more possible.
I think the only part of music threatened by machine learning is corporate pop. ML is best at mass producing things that are already mass produced, and unless you live under a rock, you’d know that that kind of pop music follows the same formula and very much is mass produced. Machine learning can’t really innovate or be human so it doesn’t seem like “AI” is going to be the next big musical innovator (unless everyone is entertained by basic-ahh radio pop).
Live music isn't even the golden ticket anymore for all but the most famous artists. Even well-known up-and-coming performers are canceling tours because the expense is too high, and the risk of coming out in the red is very real.
My favorite version of copyright was when I was doing an internet search to learn what kind of poverty I am and the top 20 results are paywalled knowledge where I need to spend money to learn what kind of poverty I am 😅
The copyright "protections" have gone b beyond insanity... Several websites with guitar chords for songs have been unplugged and vanished... What kind go loss would an artist suffer if I slaughtered their track on my cheap guitar in frobt of a few inebriated friends?
Great idea. Except the corporations own 98% of US congress. First we have to get money out of politics before any issue can be solved.
Did you take into account storage costs? Same with distribution... AWS costs is a big reason why smaller/open-sourced data isnt that easily available. It's expensive to host and distribute content, ESPECIALLY video content
P2P
Sure, you pay for it now and there's a profit margin for non-creators on top.
You're overlooking the fact that technologies already exist to mitigate or even negate that altogether ...
@@BennJordan ok, just wasn't sure it was included in the initial breakdown of how much it would cost consumers via taxes
I am looking at my phone and my earbuds over there on the table and try imagine how it would be if government would create something like those...
i struggle to see how this system would work in something like the games industry/computers. developers spend years on their code and game developers spend years just making the engine for their game. its going to be hard to convince any of them to sink the time or millions of dollars into development if they know that in five years someone can just Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V on all of your work without any repercussions.
in order for a hypothetical system like this to exist , it requires someone to essentially “take the L” so that the greater good to benefit from it.
Because its a Communist idea. The only winner is the Government in this scenario.
For millennia the privileged and educated have ruled over the poor and uneducated - the game hasn't changed, it's only gotten more sophisticated/convoluted heh
sorry but the educated ruling over uneducated seems the sensible thing? why are you even putting it in a bad light, lol? and it's not even on the same level or universe as privileged/rich ruling over poor.
@@notioncreanga It's literally the same thing, Dunning-Kruger ROFLMEYERWIENER
The sensible thing would be to educate everyone instead and have an entire society of people contributing to our progression of the species ;)
Thank you for proving how effective dumbing people down has been though ...
@@3nertia you're the only one that proves dumbing down is so effective, since your logic is so flawed you can't even see it. And hey, educate everyone? good luck with that in a world that doesn't give equal chances to everyone. Try a bit more realism, man
@@notioncreanga Capitalism is the reason not everyone has an equal chance and idiots like you are willing to fall on their proverbial swords to protect it ROFLMEYERWIENER
I'm sure you'll have a *nice* day - ah, the irony of Dunning-Kruger ...
@@notioncreanga Nice "I'm rubber, you're glue" argument, by the way - very classy, for a schoolyard bully ...
I say cut out the middleman, abolish copyright, and forget about the tax. There is no way in hell that this won't be exploited by bigger companies. They will suck this copyright fund dry. As long as lobbying exists, that's basically an inevitability.
abolishing copyright without setting something up for creators to be paid is a sure way to get creators screwed by companies and conmen.
@@Arkansya As if that's not already happening and the companies already arent the ones who truly benefit from copyright.
And as long as lobbying exists there is no way in hell your proposal could happen either, so what is your point really?
You could do all of those things simultaneously by abolishing capitalism xD
@@joelambert7128 Neither could his, so while we're all saying what we want, thought I'd chime in.
Does this include independent or niche genre artists? How do those artists get compensated for the work they put into their art?
How would this treat derivative works, aka sampling, remixing?
I think one of the worst things about the copyright system as it currently stands is how the government is shooting itself in the foot with educational materials.
If a textbook is copyrighted and expensive, lots of people won't be able to afford it. Assuming it contains useful information, the government spends time and money enforcing artificial scarcity on information that would make society as a whole more productive, in order to try and give the publisher revenue that they wouldn't get anyway (since the people couldn't afford it)
You can't talk about abolishing IP without ensuring housing and health as a human right.
You can't ensure health and housing as a human right unless you ensure providing healthcare and housing is a human responsibility. Doctors don't wake up at 5 am and spend a decade in school just because they love you. If you stood by uour convictions, you'd be building houses for those in need. I'm guessing you'd rather it be someone elses problem.
umm wtf not ?
i am guessing there is a very small amount of middle-class IP income, you either make it big, or not at all, doesn't really seam like a pillar the common people.
Try to keep the bitching on topic please
Sure I can, as I have no expertise in housing or healthcare outside of my own. This is about restructuring the distribution of things that do not experience scarcity.
@@BennJordanBRAVO 👏👏
@@benjamindover4337 They wake up at 5am and spend a decade in school in order to train for their job. Doctors exist outside of the for-profit US healthcare system, right? They even exist in socialist countries. Heck, with your logic, there would be no police in the US because they are paid by the government. But there are police, they are regularly paid 6 figures, and retire with a cushy pension. People who want to help people will still become doctors. I've worked at a hospital for 20 years. We'd be fine.
I'm immensely excited about this idea. It's something I've thought about before. Building standards, safety standards, engineering standards... if governments would fund these bodies to make their standards freely available we'd live in a safer world but it would also empower individuals to innovate and create, all ultimately contributing to the economy. Extend this idea to all (most/some) media and we have something deeply interesting.
An interesting thought experiment. Thank you for doing some math. Going after everything all at once makes this hopeless, could we start with a part of it as a proof?
CZcams has started making videos play at lower quality unless they're uploaded in a 4k container (1080p 'premium') - any way you can upload in '4k' even if it's just a 1080p copy blown up with integer scaling? love your videos
Good stuff as always my guy.
Assuming there is no copyright, one of the issues is distribution channels. However! Using this model, the value-add of the distribution method-i.e. CZcams vs. Over-The-Air Broadcast vs. something else new or old-could be had by the distributor. Still, I think one weakness is the fantasy many artists, like many sports athletes dreaming of making it as a pro, that they will be the ones to get a viral hit (or be on a viral hit show) with lots of residuals and/or royalties. The reality is few do. Still, this is a fascinating idea!
Agreed. Now apply the same to medicine development. Pay big pharma directly to perform research and development to eliminate the incentive to only pursue high profit treatments.
that misplaced comma on the thumbnail is killing me
Great hypotheticals... As an independent Artist and content creator i feel eventually it will come down to someone spending hours or days to create content vs someone in a bikini falling down next to puppies... AI alone has already starting eating into my profits and i try to stay positive about the future of art and creativity but i feel eventually due to a lot of what you discuss, alongside AI advancing weekly... Creatives will eventually just partake in creative objectives because of passion and less about profit... Which can be seen as horrible or amazing... I have worked in the arts for over two decades and I already see the writing on the wall per se... I feel creatives should create for themselves and not just an audience or hopes to make profit but of course i would also love to see artists be able to pay their bills from their art... It is a complicated topic since as long as I can remember musicians, actors, models etc are dream careers so there will always someone who will undercut because they want to "make it big"... i have seen behind the curtain and it can be really complicated and definitely needs an enema... Will is happen? I hope so... In a perfect world stock portfolios would not be valued over humans... I just hope for the best...
There's lots of issues and holes with this ideas, most of which I don't really have the words to describe, but I'm somewhat interested. I think the biggest question here is - how do you decide who gets paid how much? Watch time seems to be a decent option, but I think there would have to be an option for more conscientous consumers to directly dictate where their tax goes, this would help fund smaller and more niche creations. Though, of course, this introduces a layer of complexity that also needs safeguards against fraud and the like. Second issue is that we'd need more legal distinction between copyrights (which is basically economic rights and redistribution) and moral rights (which in many systems cannot be waived or transferred) which mean the right to "claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to the said work, which would be prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation"(Berne Convention).
One thing I felt was kinda missing from this video was regarding data logistics. The only way I see royalties being paid out fairly is with something resembling DRM or some other kind of tracker, since without it you can't reasonably collect that data in any meaningful way if everyone is not only allowed to, but encouraged to redistribute content. The idea of a fully centralized media.gov sounds a little ridiculous, especially given the huge swaths of existing infrastructure (like CZcams, Spotify etc). Those proprietary platforms aren't just going to vanish, and a competent replacement would not be cheap even if they did.
Another great video, Benn! I love the idea having the government create policies that could work for creatives and the fans that enjoy it. I'd be curios as to your thoughts about how to address concerns about censorship (if you have art that speaks out against the art, could you somehow lose out on revenue?) and/or propaganda (since the artist is pro *fill in the blank* their art gets pushed out more or better supported).
It’s actually a terrible idea. If we didn’t have the governments we have now that’s one thing. But allowing any government total control over whether artists can actually make money is a horrific incentive to destroy lives and censor dissenting views.