Copyright at BYU

Creative Commons Photo "Copyright"

I recently attended a copyright conference put on by our very own Professor Burton. I thought the conference was very interesting. But the thing I found most interesting was when Professor Burton and one of the other panel members started arguing about a certain aspect of copyright. The other panel member was saying that copyright necessarily protects the owner in terms of letting them make money for their work. Professor Burton was pointing out how this seems good on the surface, but in actuality making your work so exclusive can severely limit the exposure to wider audiences, which will in the long run bring you even MORE profit (but in roundabout ways).

My first reaction was to agree with the panel member. I have tended to think the free access model only profits more mainstream endeavors and hurts the niche people. But the more I think about it the more I agree with Professor Burton. The people who have more niche products might need to become better at allowing access to there work. Perhaps more inventive systems need to be put into place that adequately help people look at a variety of things, not just the already popular things.

In the music world there is already enough piracy going on. It probably wouldn't hurt to create a system that encourages or at least makes a fan feel that if they enjoyed the music, they should pay. Kind of like tipping. There are some systems out there that have attempted this, but so far nothing has really caught fire. It can't be as straightforward as saying "pay what you want for the album, or pay nothing at all...it's up to you" because the majority of people will just take the free music. I'm not sure but I know the answer lies in psychology and aesthetics.

Do you know what to do?