Proposed Webcast Solution
In the 1990's, webcasting was something that anyone with the proper motivation could take part in. Today, it is so strictly regulated that only major corporations such as Yahoo! Music can take part. Competition of any real kind is non-existent. The only way for this to change is to convince Congress to change their current regulations and lower the establishment fee from $10,000 to something more feasible. Also, It would help greatly to regulate royalty payments in the same way as AM/FM radio by establishing a blanket fee as opposed to paying by the song. Until that happens, online radio stations will only be offered by the few that can afford to pay for it.
Proposed Artist Compensation Solution
File Sharing does not guarantee the artists' compensation.The problem today is that through piracy and file-sharing, there is no way to guarantee compensation to the artist, etc. The only way to tackle this problem then would not be to fight against this technology, but master it. More efforts should be spent on correcting the problem, than punishing "violators." Eventually, when the buzz dies down, this technology will become assimilated into our culture. Further research will lead to solution: Lessig describes how it will be easier to link to pages that have access to a music clip than actually downloading it. In theory, the problem with file sharing will "increasingly disappear as it becomes easier to connect to the internet."(Lessig 298).
Proposed Copyright Law Solutions
Lessig states, "Policy makers should not make policy on the basis of technology in transition. They should make policy on the basis of where technology is going...The question should not be how to regulate the Internet to eliminate file sharing. The question instead should be how to assure that artists get paid, during this transition between twentieth-century models for doing business and twenty-first-century technologies"
Right now copyright law are extremely tedious and make litigation and general knowledge on the matter very unclear.The government powers that make these laws are not thinking clearly about the creative arts they are damaging. I want to say it is a matter of money, but that isnt even the case sometimes, because some of these works are locked away, making no money at all, but they simply cannot be used because the copyright is still going. Groups like the RIAA are not concerned with making artists money, they are concerned with making the record labels money and they have been given too much power in how the laws are changing.
Petition this.
