AnnotationsSharing

The central question in this book is that, if we assume that users are allowed to share, how can money be made from that? Until this date, nobody came up with a satisfying answer. Currently the policy is to criminate sharing, but sharing is a human behaviour, that can't be stopped.

The harmful effects of libraries on the economy is never proven, but some people believe that scarcity is a necessity. However large companies are loosing control now that distribution is virtually free.

Sharing allows for a many-to-all kind of distribution, which stimulates production by everybody. Also people will focus their attention, upon what you decided to share. It is a myth that naive users can share thousands of files since the upload bandwidth is still limited.

A virtue of sharing is that it promotes cultural diversity, because a high variety of works is made available. Sharing is more successful at this than commercial companies. Works that are not provitable anymore can still be shared. However it does depend on the infrastructure, because BitTorrent allows less for diversity than eDonkey

There are a number of reasons why traditional distributors are against sharing. They lose control over distribution and what is popular as well as their rights. Fear may also be a motivator. Distributors dislike a "long tail market" since it is harder to make a profit on less popular works.

Removing scarcity will not make the economic system collapse. Judges agree with this vision. The music industry has not shrunk, only partially because distributors are working with less musicians.

The music industry wasn't profitable to begin with. The author suggests to make a commons, where people will share out of ideology, but will get rewarded out of the commons as well. Kickstarter like platforms are supposed to insure funding. However companies that manage to ease the information overload effectively may also earn money.

Giving access without permission to share is one way that companies are looking at the issue of making profit. iTunes and Spotify use such strategies. Fascilitating artist-fan and fan-fan relations together with live events make up for loses.

Compansation schemes are labor intensive and governments will get flooded if this becomes policy. Artist who want to share will not make money and it's insufficient for digital native works, because it's unclear how much they should get compensated.

You can also decide that society will carry the burdens as a whole. Questions arise how much society needs to invest and who gets what share.

Ever since content could be seperated from carriers the laws have been about protecting copyright and not serving all individuals. It will take time and effort before these laws can change again. A flat rate contribution where money gets invested back into the industry is best according to the author.