In a system that seems to place equal value on a mash-up of other peoples original ideas with the original ideas themselves, it seems like it is encouraging people to take the easy road to fame, profit, or whatever rather than working towards truly original works. Mind you, the Gray album was cool and all but it sure as hell didn’t take as much work to make as the White and Black albums it was based on which it used without clear compensation. Okay, okay, get over the money part. That’s well and fine but if the Beatles made their work in a magical age where it was perfectly okay for someone else to steal it and use it however they want, do the Beatles themselves have any reason to invest lots of time, money and energy into their own original works? Why would they if the social norm is that they’ll be just as popular or even more so if they just rearrange a bunch of others peoples samples? What happens 30 years from now? Is the latest hit going to be mashup 24 of mashup 50 of mashup 14 of the gray album?

This isn’t even so much about law as perceived right and wrong. If the perception of value associated with intellectual property can be turned 180 in a single generation, what does this mean for the rest of society? Anyone ever see the movie “Ideocracy”?

In fact, the new CC+ could very well enable someone to do this, but it’s up to the creator to choose to make use of a CC license in the first place. Under CC+, a creator could authorize all non-commercial use, and then provide an easy way for people to license a work for commercial use. The startup RightsAgent is also looking to create efficient ways to license CC works commercially.

If I understand correctly, you’d like it such that copyright law only applied to “commerical use” or “commercial exploitation,” and when this commercial nature kicks in, creators should get paid. Believe it or not, you’re not alone. Numerous legal scholars, such as Pam Samuelson and Jessica Litman, have been thinking about at least the first idea for a while now… The second may be a bit more complicated, but could be tied in to Harvard Prof. Terry Fisher’s Alternative Compensation Scheme proposal.

However, if that model proliferates, I think we would see a sharp decline in the number of people making money from (say) photography, mainly because we know that the Internet fosters a very “peaky” demand model. Take bloggers: there are a tiny number of A-list bloggers compared to the total number out there, yet readers are free to choose. You would expect a large number of A-listers simply because there is (in theory) a large number of perspectives on most issues. Yet popular things are popular, and become more so because they are popular, not because they are intrinsically better, or service diverse needs.

Perhaps there just *are* too many professional photographers, just as there were many professional soothsayers in the middle ages. But I worry that instead of a perfect meritocracy brought about by perfect knowledge, we will see increasing monopolies and concentrations of supply in the arts, at least where money and “paying the mortgage” is concerned.

If we figure out a working “business” model and demonstrate it to many as a “show and tell” I think it’s a win-win-win.

This way other “artists” who want to live in the old economy can stay there and go extinct.

“Its sick that you were allowed to post this article.”

The alternative to be “allowed” (not sure who’s permission I need to get) is being censored. That’s all.

To all those who quip that they can’t pay for gas or their mortgage with links, what I said was that links are the currency of the Web, not the currency of America. Links don’t have any value at the gas station—yet (wait for the mobile Web). They do have value online, where links and the traffic they generate can be turned into money in various ways.

2. We realize that photographers, especially Hartwell types that are “party photographers” have little or no inherent value and often times amateur candids are just as good as hers (or better). Yes, yes, it’s an art, it’s a way to express yourself, etc — but let’s face it, painters have way more talent (I’m lookin’ at YOU Ansel Adams! ).

3. Argue all you want about Flickr — but if you want to REALLY protect your images, here’s a crazy idea — DON’T PLACE THEM ON A PUBLIC SITE THATS EASY TO STEAL FROM! Use a site with a login, use watermarks, put some effort into protecting your photographs — do you people leave your doors open?

4. Someone PLEASE slam Hartwell in a parody using her image — sure it’ll give her publicity, but it’d be fun anyway.