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Wrapped in Pride
© Kevin Cole

Featured Columnist

Jamal Ali

Principles of Commerce in a Righteous Society

Recently, a flurry of court cases addressing technical innovations has generated concerted and ongoing scrutiny of the definitions of copyrightable material, and what protections are appropriately due their creators. One recent case, outlined in a recent LA Times article , concerned the development of technology and tools that are believed to be eating away at our present structure of copyrights and protections. This and other cases point to major shifts in the fusion of technology and commerce, as well as the engagement of ‘technology as tool’ – particularly in the context of distribution, and new operational parameters for commerce itself.

What many may only be coming aware of is that this is but the shadow of a burgeoning discussion and movement to reassess the very basis and definition of “creative rights holders,” how their rights can be protected, and what constitutes “fair compensation.” This process is being driven by at least three crucial issues:

• The obvious uproar over peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and the exchange of digital music over them;*The discussion of technology tools in the P2P mode, and their potential to revolutionize the distribution and engagement of information and content, as well as the significant potential to reorder social roles and sensibilities which currently structure such commerce and exchange;
• The growing movement in the scientific and scholarly community to electronically publish research outside of the customary journal gauntlet, such as the Public Library of Science (PLoS) , which promotes the essentially free distribution of research; and
• The evolution and proliferation of weblogs, commonly known as “blogs.” An example of innovations in this arena is well illustrated by the Blogvine site.

Many clamor for a righteous alternative to capitalism as the primary paradigm of commerce in our western society. Some even argue that until it is altered, radically, other necessary changes will be all but impossible to render effectively. Without a swordplay of “isms”, how do we go about crafting a viable model for principles of commerce in a righteous society? Similar questions and alternate strategies are morphing as we breathe, and the discussion is more open than most of us know. An interesting engagement of what may be deemed the meta aspect of these issues can be found in Rhythmeering , a paper by Internet pioneer Laurence Rozier:

“Rhythmeering, then, can be defined as the application of science and mathematics by which information representing reality – the properties of matter and the sources of energy in nature and complex products – is made useful.

Rhythmeering is an evolving discipline intended to unify all aspects of interacting with matter, energy and information.

This Special Report explains how Rhythmeering works in practice and how the future of the global economy will be influenced by the jazz principles upon which Rhythmeering is based.”

Jazz as an operational paradigm of group dynamics can be seen as a viable model for what these various efforts seem to be groping for, as they attempt to reconfigure our engagement of information, creative content, commerce and their associated rights. Right now, it’s just noise, but the music is on the horizon, and it’s beginning to jell. In the same way we can look back to the blues and recognize the seeds of what we call jazz today, we can look at the earlier forms of commerce and recognize the primordial presence of the forerunners of our evolving jazz economy.

The oldest system of commerce – and still going strong – is barter, a system the puppeteers of the IRS have chosen to attack unmercifully in the USA. Barter has always been a staple method of commerce because of the intrinsic personal context of such an exchange. Each party must come to an agreement on relative values, terms and circumstances. The money-changers dislike this because, in many instances, there is no independent way to arrive at a taxable value for said transaction. This is due in large part to the actuality that such associated values tend to be highly subjective, rather monetarily arbitrary. The basic term for context, surviving to this day demonstrates this explicitly: what we are discussing is commerce, most commonly known as ‘Trade’.

Even in the midst of our stark capitalist shark-fest, we have remnants of barter. In fact, these remnants are become steadily more popular. Frequent flyer miles and many analogous systems are springing up all over the place as a means of instilling consumer loyalty – and a supposedly unobtrusive means for tracking their purchases, tastes, and interests. Yes, those supermarket cards are also tracking devices – think of the card as a cookie generator(a la the Internet) which registers every time you make a purchase.

So, with the inexorable wave of change coming in the dissemination or distribution of all sorts of copyrightable content, we must begin to think of how best to surf this wave, or be swept away by it. This brings to bear a series of consideration points. First, what is “copyrightable content”, and what are the types and degrees of protection we can expect on the far side of this “wave of change”, in a practicable context? As artists and scientists, inventors and chefs, it seems that the critical factors are:

• The capacity to generate un-pirated sources of revenue; and
• some semblance of shielding their work from being usurped in any form or context.

This may sound broad, but let’s progress from the general towards a more focused sensibility. Given that things are shifting in the world of “content presentation or sharing” – previously described by such word-concepts as “publishing,” distribution and marketing, etc. – the bottom line is that this will not reach a tipping point until the principles of commerce/capitalism also shift accordingly. If one must eat and provide for self via one’s creativity, then a means of eliciting revenue from that must also be viable. Otherwise one is forced to make the self-compromising choice between obscurity and poverty, with little viable middle ground.

Because the existing model(s) extracts a sizable percentage of creative person’s profits to gain access to the production/marketing/distribution pipeline – as the “cost of doing business” – there is no reason why this must continue. Further, this model put the bean counters and corporate bureaucracy – those making no contribution to the creative effort – in an inordinately powerful position. If the concept of a ‘free market’ has any currency, then the argument for the role of these ‘gatekeepers’ is difficult to sustain.

So we must craft a new strategy for surfing, for harnessing this wave of change. As mentioned previously, one of the critical nexus points of capitalism is marketing and distribution. In many ways, the Net levels this playing field. No longer can one argue that the critical key to a successful business is “location, location, location”. With a website, your location is virtually everywhere. As creative people, if we are to leverage the Net to our benefit, we must shift the way we think about commerce to best utilize the environment. If the day of the football game arrives rainy and muddy, the winner between two otherwise evenly matched teams will be the one who is best able to adapt to the shift in circumstance. In some cases, an otherwise overmatched opponent may triumph simply on their greater facility for adaptation. If you doubt this in any way, witness the lesson of the dinosaurs, the most powerful creatures we have evidence of ever walking the Earth: Adapt, or die.

Still, there is the issue of copyright protections. Electronic distribution of works has both broad advantages and vulnerabilities. Unauthorized copies as a concern has its limits. Those who would use screen capture programs as a bypass, are the same folks who photocopy entire books. Like the lock on a door, it is only as effective as the functional ethics of those you interact with. One need only look at the situation in China, and the tacitly government-sanctioned activity of knock-offs, and one must realize that if manufacturers of automobiles and golf clubs, athletic shoes and luggage cannot protect their names, brands, products and technology on the national stage, what chance do creative artists and small scale entrepreneurs have?

Some will take China’s argument explaining this infringement as a form of tariff for doing business in their lucrative market, especially for western multimillion-dollar corporations. While this may sound like a revolutionary idea, particularly for other non-western nations, a bit of reality check is called for. The status of China as a nation on the world stage – culturally, politically, commercially and militarily – not to mention the alluring prize their billion consumer base dangles, provides them with unprecedented leverage in this regard. Entire corporate manufacturing enterprises have been taken over by the Chinese in recent years with barely a hint of punitive action at the national or international level. If Brazil, India or Nigeria tried something like that, they would swiftly be having an “Iraq” experience. Few things motivate the West to go to war as readily as disputes over resources or profit-stealing business activities.

Facing this scenario, we must ask ourselves what protections are really viable? Are partnerships the answer? Perhaps. Perhaps, it is a context of partnership that shifts the otherwise onerous and usurious sensibility of the present market economy. The Internet provides creative producers the first real practicable opportunity to bypass the conventional production/distribution pipeline. With the proliferation of computers, most systems have the capacity to produce their own CD/DVD product, or print out documents, books and hardcopies for those who prefer that mode of engagement. Once simple bindery systems augment existing printers, publishers will largely be obsolete. This mode of distribution would also be much more efficient, significantly reducing over-production due to errors in marketing forecasts and market saturation practices. With the stranglehold of corporate leeches out of the equation, and their subsequent cost mark-ups – not to mention their well-documented sleight-of-hand bookkeeping methods – removed from the price-point arithmetic, acquiring product becomes far simpler and more cost-effective for consumers worldwide. The proliferation of e-books and similar methods is the flame streaking across the sky of the asteroid of change for those dinosaurs among us.

Let’s imagine for a moment, if musicians began to use the Net as a distribution source – deliberately, strategically, perhaps even exclusively. Presuming that a large percentage of their fans would have CD/DVD burners on their computers, they could sell their music directly, bypassing the music labels (read parasites/leeches) completely. This might even spawn a new business for music stores who would, for a fee, burn a CD/DVD compilation of music and music videos from artists you select from a kiosk in the store. You pay the store, they take their percentage, the artist gets their money via PayPal®, and you get a custom high quality disc complete with case and cover art.

One might say this seems like a decent idea, but what incentive would a consumer have for buying such a CD/DVD when they could let one person buy one and make copies? This is of course always possible and is a risk no different from the present circumstance. However, since the disc is customized to each consumer, illegal copying of materials may even be less likely than with discs as they are now, where each one is identical.

The real clincher may be in the inclusion of a points system, a la the barter method mentioned previously. What if India Irie or Outkast or Angelique Kidjo offered this deal: with each song/video purchased, the consumer would get “points” which could be used towards the purchase of other items – including concert tickets? Perhaps they could even offer streaming video web concerts for such fans – concerts that would be pay per view for everyone else?

Now if they make these points transferable, they have begun to generate a “currency” of their own, creating a niche of self-determination, if not independence. Why transferable? Not all purchasers will have access to locations where concerts may be presented, or may not have access to equipment suitable to streaming video displays. With such a system, the merchandising possibilities are endless.

Marketing systems would then become truly international, providing both language-specific packaging and potentially customizable content. Certainly, language translation software processes would need to evolve and become more inclusive of presently ignored markets. We have seen that innovation is largely driven by need and opportunity, so such an evolution of commerce would inherently breed such development.

Perhaps such a world of commerce and trade as envisioned here would flip the script for many on this planet, effect an otherwise problematic redistribution of wealth and productive capacity. In fact, we may discover that in this new commercial environment, accountants and management types may find their tasks out-sourced and discover that they have been relegated to the service sector of the system, if not rendered all together obsolete. Instead of a tropical island, we may have corporate skyscrapers as the new ‘Jurassic Parks’...we just need to be a bit more careful in how we let the critters breed.

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