Amateur-to-Amateur

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dan Hunter <hunterd () wharton upenn edu>
Date: November 17, 2004 11:56:01 AM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Amateur-to-Amateur

Dave:

The readers of IP might be interested in a new paper that Greg Lastowka 
and I recently released. It's about copyright, and we try to draw 
attention to the significance of amateur production of content as a 
counterweight to all the wailing and gnashing-of-teeth over 
filesharing.  We suggest that amateur production is more significant 
than previously recognized, and that excessive focus on the protection 
of music industry and copyright incentives is socially retrograde.

Paper available here: 
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=601808

Abstract follows.  Comments (offlist) always welcome.

best wishes

Dan.

----
Title: Amateur-to-Amateur

Authors: Dan Hunter (Wharton, U.Penn) & Greg Lastowka (Rutgers Law)

Abstract: Copyright, it is commonly said, matters in society because it 
encourages the production of socially beneficial, culturally 
significant expressive content. However our focus on copyright's recent 
history blinds us to the social information practices which have always 
existed. In this article, we examine these social information 
practices, and query copyright's role within them. We posit a 
functional model of what is necessary for creative content to move from 
creator to user. These are the functions dealing with creation, 
selection, production, dissemination, promotion, sale, and use of 
expressive content. We demonstrate how centralized commercial control 
of information content has been the driving force behind copyright's 
expansion. However, all of the functions that copyright industries used 
to control are undergoing revolutionary decentralization and 
disintermediation. Different aspects of information technology, notably 
the digitization of information, widespread computer ownership, the 
rise of the Internet, and the development of social software, threaten 
the viability and desirability of centralized control over every one of 
the content functions. These functions are increasingly being performed 
by individuals and disorganized, distributed groups. This raises an 
issue for copyright as the main regulatory force in information 
practices, because copyright assumes a central control structure that 
no longer applies to creative content. We examine the normative 
implications of this shift for our information policy in this new 
post-copyright era. Most notably we conclude that copyright law needs 
to be adjusted in order to recognize the opportunity and desirability 
of decentralized content, and the expanded marketplace of ideas it 
promises.

_________________________________________________
Dan Hunter
Robert F. Irwin IV Term Assistant Professor of Legal Studies
The Wharton School
University of Pennsylvania
662 John M Huntsman Hall
3730 Walnut St
Philadelphia PA 19104 USA
ph: +1-215-573-7154
fx: +1-215-573-2006
Research at http://ssrn.com/author=243354
_________________________________________________

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