Copyright T-Shirt

[Guillaume Ponce]

> Everyone puts their work on some high capacity central servers which
> are available to all citizens who create an account on the servers.

That sounds interesting: a public infrastructure for freedom of
speech, expression and publication.

But wait a minute.  Haven't we yet got such a thing that everyone
(well, not everyone, but many many individuals) can publish on?  It is
called Internet.

The big difference is that there is no central autority that can count
downloads.  But having no central autority is - to my opinion - one of
the big features of Internet.  Just to be able to count the copies
downloaded, someone have to be - more or less - in control of this
central server.  That's a big power for big brother.


> After operating expenses, the pot is divided up based on the
> relative proportions of copies downloaded. The artists get
> recompensed fairly, people get their entertainment and there's a
> strong competitive element for producing the best quality of output.

I strongly disagree with this.  TV has proven that bigger audience
certainly does not mean better quality.

We, in France and Germany, have one cultural channel called Arte.  It
is the only channel I really watch for it has the best programms
(documented, with intelligent comments...) that can be seen at least
in France.  But, infortunately, it is very far for from having such a
large audience as other channels that surf on the wave of so called
"real" TV and trash TV.  It is not self funded.  It is a public
channel funded with money from taxpayers.

In a system based on audience, and supposing it would not be censored,
the bigger share of income would probably go to the porn industry,
followed by more "conventional" entertainment.  And a very little
share for scientific publications.

This would be an incentive for someone like Newton or Darwin or
Einstein to become a pornstar or a catcher or a boys-band singer
better than a scientist and I don't think that this well fits what is
the most usefull for the public good.


-- Guillaume Ponce
http://www.guillaumeponce.org/