Free-Riding, Cooperation, and "Peaceful Revolutions" in Copyright
2014; The MIT Press; Volume: 28; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0897-3393
Autores Tópico(s)Art History and Market Analysis
ResumoV. PEACEFUL REVOLUTIONS While the use of reciprocity norms is key to increasing the efficacy of current digital distribution models, perfecting the celestial jukebox may not be the best end goal for copyright. It has long been thought that copyright, which provides a property right to exclude free-riders, is the least objectionable means of remunerating creators and publishers. (160) The fact that consumers will often voluntarily choose to support creative production indicates that we should seriously reconsider this assumption. In this Part, I suggest that not only are cooperative systems of coordinating cultural production possible, but where they are effective, they are likely to be better than conventional copyright systems. In game theory terms, the decision of individuals to free-ride or to pay for the production of cultural goods is thought of in terms of a prisoner's dilemma, (161) where the dominant strategy is always to defect or free-ride. (162) There are two fundamental flaws with this justification for copyright. The first is that cultural production does not have to be a prisoner's dilemma. (163) The tragedy of the commons is a prisoner's dilemma because free-riders end up destroying the pasture through overuse. (164) But since information is non-rival and non exhaustible, (165) while free-riders do not contribute towards the costs of production, they do not actually harm others. (166) It is accordingly possible to design schemes where being a sucker by cooperating when others do not is not the worst outcome. The second flaw in the conventional story, as shown in Part III, is that even when cultural production is a prisoner's dilemma, users do not in fact always free-ride in the way that classical economic theory predicts. The abstraction of the prisoner's dilemma relies on an artifice that the prisoners cannot communicate--or will not trust each other if they can. (167) In fact, humans have long overcome cooperative dilemmas through communication. (168) The mere ability to talk enhances cooperation, (169) allowing participants to build trust by obtaining some form of (unenforceable) social assurances that others will cooperate. (170) By communicating, participants are also able to construct fairness norms amongst themselves--including esteem, guilt, shame, and reciprocal social rewards for cooperation. (171) More formally, by working together, humans can also develop cooperative institutions that develop, monitor, and enforce social norms to increase trust and limit free-riding. (172) These two points challenge the economic raison d'etre of copyright law. They imply that it might be possible to use both incentives and reciprocity norms to design alternate systems that can support routine cultural production without excluding free-riders. To the extent that this is true, there is a good chance that cooperative systems are likely to provide better outcomes than conventional copyright systems. Take, for example, musician Amanda Palmer's album, Theatre is Evil, which Palmer self-released in 2012 after raising more than $1.19 million in what was, at the time, the most successful music Kickstarter project ever. (173) Palmer raised enough money through the campaign to allow her to create the album, organize a tour, and produce and deliver the perks backers ordered. Palmer's final profit on the project apparently neared $100, 000. (174) Like Double Fine, Palmer relied heavily on both value-added goods and services and a personal relationship with her fans to convince them to pay. Unlike Double Fine, however, once the project was produced, Palmer released it on her website under PWYW terms and a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike Non-Commercial license. (175) Having already recouped her costs, Palmer was able to take this move with no risk that she would be out of pocket. The use of PWYW pricing enabled much greater distribution among Palmer's audience. In this model, the social cost of deadweight loss typically associated with monopoly prices is almost eliminated. …
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