Some decades ago, the Netherlands had big social problems with drugs. Stopping the drug trafficking seemed implausible in a small and border-less country.
Compared to many other European countries that had an absolutist view on the legal status of drugs, the Dutch chose a pragmatic solution: tolerance of “soft drugs” to be able to fight trafficking of “hard drugs”. The consequence of a liberal view on drugs is still disputed depending on who you ask, but consumption of soft drugs is actually less in the Netherlands than in surrounding countries.
The legal dilemma is similar to that of file sharing. Today, there’s no real solution to this phenomena. On the one hand, record companies are strict enforcers of copyright laws and suing ordinary people to state a case for the public, and bands are not getting compensated for artist work. On the other hand, the internet is an unstoppable force and people are getting used to free stuff on the internet. The term ‘steal’ is being deflated for every iPod sold.
With all the innovative technology that exists today, there should be thousands of profitable ways to provide music. But the problem is not technological, it’s legal. Spotify is a good example of how brilliant technology now has become restricted by a dependence on record companies.
So, maybe the solution is to adopt a more relativist approach to illegal file sharing to begin with? This would let us focus on the real problem: artists not getting paid, rather than on enforcing copyright laws.
Having a pragmatist legal view on file-sharing activity makes it necessary for record companies to start talking to file sharers like Pirate Bay rather than enforcing. An extended dialogue could even open up new revenue models based on all the user data that’s available everywhere.
Taking it one step further to ensure artist revenues, internet service providers could be taxed by file sharing usage. This tax would then be used to subsidise artists.
Maybe a lesson learned from the Dutch drug policy is to let go and look forward and focus on the real issues when there’s no other way? One thing's for sure: litigation has never resulted in innovation.
Related post: A primer on digital music
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