The Culture vs. Copyright Project seeks to create an environment where artists are free to create and be compensated while the compensation would depend entirely on their talent, brilliance and significance of their work. In our view this requires unrestricted access to any and all cultural phenomena for authors, the general public and business.
Moreover, these freedoms are crucial for development of the culture and civilization in general and for the contemporary knowledge-based economy and social life in particular.
The book Culture vs. Copyright, first, is a baseline research of the true impact of the “exclusive Right to … Writings and Discoveries” on “the Progress of Science and useful Arts” (US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8). Second, it develops some preliminary solutions to the problems caused by exclusive rights.
In order to further our goal, it is necessary to do at least the following:
Research:
- Analysis of existing laws and treaties in the field (for instance, the DMCA, COICA, ACTA, etc). The best method, in our view, is scenario/multi-factor modeling.
- Research of the historical events around the inception of copyright laws around the world (for example, the state of the publishing market before and after the Statute of Anne, or the first French, or American copyright laws, etc.).
- Study of the factual impact of exclusive rights on the free market economy.
- Analysis and clarification of the relationship between exclusive rights and political, social, legal and economic concepts.
- Case studies. Collection and analysis of real life stories which show the effects of open and closed licenses on authors’ incentives and business.
- Statistics about artwork sales dynamics, depending on licenses.
Authors’ Support:
- Development of a legal framework based on the Authoright license, which would establish the normal relationships among authors, the general public, business and works within the current legal systems.
- Creation of a repository of authorighted works