I’ve been re-reading Promises to Keep by William W. Fisher III. An absolute must-read for people interested in digital rights and in alternative compensation models.
An excerpt from the inside front cover:
If the available technologies were exploited fully, the cost of audio and video recordings would drop sharply, the income of artists would rise, many more artists could reach global audiences, the variety of music and films popularly available would increase sharply, and listeners and viewers would be able to participate much more easily in the shaping of their cultural environments.
Utopia maybe. But a utopia I believe in and one I will do everything in my power to help create.
Which brings me to the point of this post. I was reminded of Canto Livre, the digital library of Brazilian music, while reading the Fisher book. I have no idea how it is doing, and would love pointers.
Is there anyone out there already creating an opensource pool of free-to-net material? Free because of three possible reasons: out of copyright; copyright owner provides it into pool free; copyright owner agrees to place in pool for alternative compensation.
Tom Maddox and Dom Sayers have recently asked me to provide free-to-net versions of stuff I own. Where can I place this stuff for posterity?
If enough people placed stuff in a pool like this, and the pool collected donations, would we not subvert the need for a tax-based compensation system?
Someone please tell me where my stuff should go. Even Google is an answer. Or Creative Commons. I just want to know where to put the stuff, a virtual place where no one can later claim copyright….