Can Creators Get Paid for P2P File Sharing?
While the entertainment industry litigated and lobbied, many observers concluded that p2p is an exciting technology with one significant downside: how to pay authors & artists for their work. The file sharing wars inspired widely divergent proposals for fostering online distribution and paying authors and artists. We’ll consider leading alternatives, including digital rights management, compulsory licenses and levies, voluntary collective licensing, and voluntary user payments. We’ll focus on nuts & bolts, rather than debating the file-sharing wars. We’ll ask which proposals could work. What are their practical advantages & drawbacks? How do they measure consumer demand? How do they affect privacy? Moderator: Jessica Litman, Wayne State Univ. Law School. Panelists: Ted Cohen, EMI; Sarah Deutsch, Verizon; Eric Garland, CEO, BigChampagne, LLC; Daniel Gervais, Univ.