Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Taxpayer Support: I rather hope not
Author: Patrick Connors Posted: 8/28/2000; 8:03:41 PM Topic: Creative Works And Human Nature Msg #: 20439 (In response to 20387) Prev/Next: 20438 / 20440
The title of this post says it all.Yes, direct payments to creators will require a clearinghouse and standardization. No, I don't agree that government should be directly involved. We already have a commercial banking system and nearly enough high-level standards in place to handle the technical end of a user-to-creator payment system.
As part of my day job, I maintain a claims clearinghouse in the healthcare industry. A private banking clearinghouse would be relatively easy to do technically, but the better business approach would be to use the existing financial clearinghouses.
However, I'm not here to discuss the technical approach, as much as to see what ideas may shake out to change the social approach. Maybe to look at the business model.
For example: What's a good subscription model for music? Obviously, the composer and the performers should be paid, perhaps the delivery agent should be paid; the colearinghouse will grab a transaction fee - am I missing anybody?
But how often should they be paid? If I listen to the same recording nightly for a week, should I pay each time, or does the first download set a cookie (or the equivalent) and start the clock running on a subscription? Or is it one download per computer? Or do we try all these models and let the market sort them out? I think we'll need a flexible pricing standard; one which will let the artist set the price - and modify that price - and be consistent across all copies of a work.
And what about those computers at the office? This sort of scheme will lead to expansion of blocking software. If I'm running a business, I don't necessarily want to be billed for the employees all downloading Beethoven symphonies. We're talking site licenses for music (which is already being done by ASCAP and BMI, but not very efficiently).
But keep the government out of the loop as much as possible (at least until tax day...)
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