[A2k] P. Aigrain's new book:“Internet & Creation : how to recognize non-market exchanges over the internet while funding creation”

[Manon Ress]

"The creative contribution is not just a beautiful name for a flat-
rate fee. It is a motto for bringing together the two sides of article
27 of UHDR, in a world where they can no longer be separated. This was
the approach proposed in the Paris Accord of 2006, and every reader
can now act to turn it into a reality."

The book is in French but there's an English summary.

More here:

http://paigrain.debatpublic.net/?page_id=171&lp_lang_view=en

quote:
“Internet & Creation : how to recognize non-market exchanges over the
internet while funding creation” has been published in French on 28
October 2008 by InLibroVeritas. See the French page for details. An
English-speaking version adapted for global readership is in the
works. An English summary can be found below.

Internet & Creation aims at giving a contemporary implementation to
the rights defined in article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, whose 60th birthday we just celebrated. Article 27 defines two
complementary objectives : the right of each person to freely
participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts
and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits; and the right
of each person to the protection of the moral and material interests
resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of
which he is the author. This article leaves entirely open the means by
which these rights are to be implemented. However, the next article in
the Declaration states: Everyone is entitled to a social and
international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this
Declaration can be fully realized.

On the information technology and Internet era, the fulfillment of
these rights seems closer at hand than ever. Never was so great a
number of people endowed with the means to produce, access and share
cultural works, public expressions and knowledge. But both rights of
article 27 are very poorly served. We let a small group of interests,
and the way of thinking that they promote, unduly restrict the means
by which we try to serve these rights. We pay lip service to article
27, but we deny it the concrete environment of realization that
article 28 calls for.

Internet & Creation stresses a concrete meaning for both rights and
discusses how they can be implemented together. It affirms the right
for all individuals to share cultural works that have been published
in digital form between themselves without profit, in a non-market
sphere of exchanges. Where this sharing is stigmatized as piracy by
some, the author describes it as a long recognized right that has now
become possible to implement at a much greater scale. This is an
object of enthusiasm, but calls for an an adapted framework of
implementation. Meanwhile, at the end of a period where mass cultural
industry have briefly dominated the distribution of cultural works,
the material interests of artists and producers of knowledge at large
are very poorly served. The rights that were defined for their benefit
have now been captured by a few large corporations who maximize their
profit on each work by limiting the number of works that will in
practice be exposed to the attention of the public. As such limitation
is almost impossible to preserve in the internet age, they intend to
turn the Internet into something else, a new channel for centrally
controlled distribution of consumer works. They will of course fail,
but much harm can be done in the process of this failure.

Internet & Creation defines a complete framework for putting in place
a mechanism to give us all the best of the internet potential for
culture. This framework consists of:

     * A precise definition for the non-market sharing of digitally
published works that it proposes to recognize. The precise definition
makes sure that the channels that provide the greatest part of
remuneration to creation will not be harmed by peer-to-peer exchange.
     * Putting in place a creative contribution that will be paid by
all internet broadband subscribers. A framework is proposed on how to
define the amount of this fee. Its product would be used half for the
remuneration of works that have been shared over the Internet, and
half for the funding of the production of works and the creation of an
environment for their dissemination and quality recognition by all.
The level of remuneration aims at guaranteeing that the creators will
not be negatively impact by the recognition of sharing.

Internet & Creation discusses all aspects of the overall proposal:

     * Its legal basis as a licensing to end-users (in contrast to
other proposals of licensing catalogs to distributors or ISPs)
     * The setting and evolution of the creative contribution
     * How the economy of the production of works can remain balanced,
including for works such as movies
     * The governance of the distribution of the remuneration and of
the funding to creation
       International aspects in situations where the proposal would be
implemented initially only in some parts of the world
     * A non-intrusive (in privacy) usage observation for the
remuneration, based on the a large panel of voluntary Internet users
and statistical techniques to make it resistant to fraud and efficient
to measure the usage of works of lower (but still deserving) popularity
     * Paths towards putting in place the proposal.

A key element in the book proposal is to install a situation where
contributors to creation and users of works work together for a common
good: culture and its sharing by all. The creative contribution is not
just a beautiful name for a flat-rate fee. It is a motto for bringing
together the two sides of article 27 of UHDR, in a world where they
can no longer be separated. This was the approach proposed in the
Paris Accord of 2006, and every reader can now act to turn it into a
reality.
end of quote