[IP] Amateur-to-Amateur
Begin forwarded message:
From: Dan Hunter <hunterd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: November 17, 2004 11:56:01 AM EST
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Amateur-to-Amateur
Dave:
The readers of IP might be interested in a new paper that Greg Lastowka
and I recently released. It's about copyright, and we try to draw
attention to the significance of amateur production of content as a
counterweight to all the wailing and gnashing-of-teeth over
filesharing. We suggest that amateur production is more significant
than previously recognized, and that excessive focus on the protection
of music industry and copyright incentives is socially retrograde.
Paper available here:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=601808
Abstract follows. Comments (offlist) always welcome.
best wishes
Dan.
----
Title: Amateur-to-Amateur
Authors: Dan Hunter (Wharton, U.Penn) & Greg Lastowka (Rutgers Law)
Abstract: Copyright, it is commonly said, matters in society because it
encourages the production of socially beneficial, culturally
significant expressive content. However our focus on copyright's recent
history blinds us to the social information practices which have always
existed. In this article, we examine these social information
practices, and query copyright's role within them. We posit a
functional model of what is necessary for creative content to move from
creator to user. These are the functions dealing with creation,
selection, production, dissemination, promotion, sale, and use of
expressive content. We demonstrate how centralized commercial control
of information content has been the driving force behind copyright's
expansion. However, all of the functions that copyright industries used
to control are undergoing revolutionary decentralization and
disintermediation. Different aspects of information technology, notably
the digitization of information, widespread computer ownership, the
rise of the Internet, and the development of social software, threaten
the viability and desirability of centralized control over every one of
the content functions. These functions are increasingly being performed
by individuals and disorganized, distributed groups. This raises an
issue for copyright as the main regulatory force in information
practices, because copyright assumes a central control structure that
no longer applies to creative content. We examine the normative
implications of this shift for our information policy in this new
post-copyright era. Most notably we conclude that copyright law needs
to be adjusted in order to recognize the opportunity and desirability
of decentralized content, and the expanded marketplace of ideas it
promises.
_________________________________________________
Dan Hunter
Robert F. Irwin IV Term Assistant Professor of Legal Studies
The Wharton School
University of Pennsylvania
662 John M Huntsman Hall
3730 Walnut St
Philadelphia PA 19104 USA
ph: +1-215-573-7154
fx: +1-215-573-2006
Research at http://ssrn.com/author=243354
_________________________________________________
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