Replace SOPA/PIPA with Link To Source!
Sunday, October 21, 2012 at 11:43AM Anyone for Lemonade?
Clay Shirky's Copyrighted Photo!If the goal of SOPA/PIPA is to squelch free speach, then these draconian bills will accomplish just that.
If these bills pass, citizens and service providers alike will feel the crushing weight of big media, as did the owners of the College Bakery in Brooklyn who threw up their hands and will no longer print a 2nd graders artwork for fear of copyright infringemnet.
Under the SOPA Act, this copyrighted photo (shown on the right) could be ripped from this website and theoretically the domain I paid dearly for, "bigdreams.com," could be forfeited a punishmnet! How nuts it that?
BTW, in the spirit of Link to Source, be sure to view Clay Shirky's Ted talk on why SOPA is a bad idea. It was this video that inspired me to write this post.
I'm a marketing guy, not a lawyer.
Yet, it seems to me that big media is missing the most massive marketing opportunity ever before in history of civilization!
Rather than suppress free speech and restrict "fair use," why not simply demand a Link to Source wherever copyrighted material is used in public expression?
In this reality, snippets of copyrighted material can be used at will, virtually any where, any time -- as it is today -- under the same common sense rules known as "fair use." In return, big and little copyrighters alike justly deserve attribution, i.e. a Link to Source.
And, if some 2nd grader draws a Mickey Mouse for her birthday, the College Bakery would need only include "Inspired by Disney.com" on the cake!
Imagine millions of attributions and hyperlinks from all over the web to big media stores! How many more sales would that create? Or millons of links to thought leaders like Clay Shirky! How much more influence would that create?
For example, on this day in October 2012 Google has 51,100 uses of this timeless quote from the Lion King, "It doesn't matter, it's in the past," which are explicitly declared to be in context to the "Lion King" and not just a regurgitation of these words in someone's musings. Potentially, this would result in 51,100 new links back the Disney!
Guided by the principle that a Link to Source Act (a LTS Act?) should not create an undue burden on public expression if implemented. Yet, wouldn't a Link to Source create a win-win for all? I can even imagine the rallying cry:
Attribution, not Retribution!
-- BigDreams.Com
Class action attorneys have figured this out. Mult-million dollar settlements are often implemented in the form of credits that effectively tether users to future products and services. Ticketmaster's $260,000,000.00 settlement, for example, comes in the form of $1.50 credits that they only pay out of future ticket sales. Here they've taken a bad situation and made lemonade!
In that spirit, adding a Link to Source mandate would leave public expression unchanged but for the massive sucking sound of cash flowing to copyrighters around the world!
Who could complain about that!
Reader Comments (1)
Good post.