Bruce Lehman, the man who led the development of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA, 1998) has now decided that that policy hasn't worked out well (link to another Bryan blog). But I wanted to quote this one other, breathtaking observation, which speaks to the history of information:
"The cat's out of the bag... Our attempts at copyright control have not been successful... We are now in, if not entering, the post-copyright era... ."
Many of us have been making that argument for years, and it's still a controversial idea. But it's amazing to her Bruce Lehman say that.
Lehman also thinks we're going back to patronage. Meh, I'm not sure I see that as the dominant mode. It is happening in some ways.
(via BoingBoing)
I'm hoping we're going forward to a new kind of patronage - direct public patronage rather than the delegated royal patronage model. When people can easily, directly say "I really like this content creator, I want him or her to keep making new things," and then use their wireless or wearable device to instantly give him or her a little bit of patronage while also signing up to hear more about that person's work later - there's a new patronage model. For web content and software it's already starting to be there. I'd like to see it out in the world, though, for sculpture and music and architecture and other art.
Posted by: Anne KG Murphy | March 26, 2007 at 11:26
Anne, when you say "public," do you see a role for governments and/or nonprofits in adding to patronage?
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | March 28, 2007 at 20:12