It's hard to come up with a plausible alternative to the "idiot" theory.
I suppose that, given that the only way the AP is likely to survive is by government fiat, this could be a perverse form of lobbying. It's a publicity stunt.
Step A: Try to demonstrate that all the headlines on the web were originally written by you.
Step B: Argue that this makes your organization indispensable -- when you go out of business, trains and buses will stop running, the sun will stand still in the sky, cancer will never be cured.
Step C: To draw attention to your argument: Scream, shout, jump on chairs, sue everyone in sight. When none of this works: Decry the lawlessness of society, demand protection.
Step D: ???
Step E: Government action!
The smartest members of the music industry (but not, alas, the influential ones) have said for years that the realistic way forward is a blanket licensing scheme: Each of us gets the right to download and play whatever we want, and in return we're legally obligated to pay an annual fee to some ASCAP-like organization that divides the money up among music publishers. Now, I like this idea, but the obvious downside is: Who is a music publisher, and how do we figure out how to divide the money? You've got to come up with some kind of ground rules. There's going to be a lot of people working the refs. Perhaps the AP has concluded that such a scheme is their only hope and is trying to make sure they're positioned to argue that the ground rules should favor them.
Or, you know, there's the idiot theory. Still might be the best one, really. Occam's Razor and all that.
The thing which really makes AP sound like a mental patient is all this raving about the "wrapper" technology that will magically track down uses of their content on the web. But I'm not necessarily convinced they they really believe in the Easter Bunny, phlogiston, or digital watermarks for plain text. Perhaps this talk about magical "wrappers" is just a face-saving attempt to say "we will find you if you quote our material" without having to say "...and we will use Google to do it, of course, just like everyone else does. Of course, our publicly-stated belief is that Google is an unethical leech and that they should be paying us money every time they return a search containing some of our writing. But of course we won't be paying anyone else for the writing that we find using Google, because we're special and besides we don't have any money."
Actually, that explanation still sounds like the raving of a mental patient. It all keeps coming back to the idiot theory.
It could be that the explanation is much simpler than that. The CEOs of old world institutions like the A.P. (and I'm really trying not to generalize here but I've seen it too many times) can't be bothered to surf the web for a few minutes let alone try to understand the basic accepted concepts of web based copyrights. Somebody in the line of command either was too scared to set him straight, or straight failed to explain properly how the online world works.
This CEO had a lightbulb moment, was too convinced that it will work, and is just probably seeing it through on the strength of his position and authority. He could have asked the advice and opinion of people with more experience and knowledge in the field, and well, we've seen this happen too many times..
> The smartest members of the music industry (but not, alas, the influential ones) have said for years that the realistic way forward is a blanket licensing scheme: Each of us gets the right to download and play whatever we want, and in return we're legally obligated to pay an annual fee to some ASCAP-like organization that divides the money up among music publishers. Now, I like this idea, but the obvious downside is: Who is a music publisher, and how do we figure out how to divide the money?
As you point out, lots of people have proposed system along these lines. And there does appear to be a problem that needs solving (e.g. less news means less oversight of politicians, means more political corruption). There are a lot of quesestions that schemes like this need to answer, such as:
If we do this for music, why not othrer sorts of content such as films, TV shows, news, software, games, etc?
I don't listen to music / am not interested in X type of content, why should I have to pay for it?
How do we prevent people from gaming the system? e.g. a musician might pay a botnet to download multiple copies of their work.
"Each of us gets the right to download and play whatever we want, and in return we're legally obligated to pay an annual fee to some ASCAP-like organization that divides the money up among music publishers. Now, I like this idea, but the obvious downside is: Who is a music publisher, and how do we figure out how to divide the money?"
I don't like this idea at all. Why should I, as a non-artist, have to find a way to provide a work product or service that people are willing to pay me for and artists are allowed to create stuff that no one is willing to pay for? Or artists are allowed to create something which can not be marketed and an income stream can naturally be built around? If no one is willing (or able) to pay for your service, there is no market for it. And without a market, there's no way to determine which is the "good art" and which is the "bad art" and which artists should be encouraged and which should stop making art and get jobs flipping burgers. The very fact that it is massively gamable (as we've seen in other industries), as you point out, is reason enough, for me, to avoid even attempting it.
Keep in mind that systems like this have been working for years. Composers get paid royalties via ASCAP and BMI, for example.
And I believe all the schemes, both existing and proposed, divvy up the money based on the number of times certain compositions are played. Artists can't compose unlistenable music and then claim a check. It's a game, but it's not entirely unlike a market.
The fact that it might be gamable doesn't seem like much of a scandal. What's our gold standard here? An imaginary fairyland? The existing, supposedly free market for music is not merely gamable... it's been corrupt since it was invented. Just try to get your tune on the radio without paying bribes.
I suppose that, given that the only way the AP is likely to survive is by government fiat, this could be a perverse form of lobbying. It's a publicity stunt.
Step A: Try to demonstrate that all the headlines on the web were originally written by you.
Step B: Argue that this makes your organization indispensable -- when you go out of business, trains and buses will stop running, the sun will stand still in the sky, cancer will never be cured.
Step C: To draw attention to your argument: Scream, shout, jump on chairs, sue everyone in sight. When none of this works: Decry the lawlessness of society, demand protection.
Step D: ???
Step E: Government action!
The smartest members of the music industry (but not, alas, the influential ones) have said for years that the realistic way forward is a blanket licensing scheme: Each of us gets the right to download and play whatever we want, and in return we're legally obligated to pay an annual fee to some ASCAP-like organization that divides the money up among music publishers. Now, I like this idea, but the obvious downside is: Who is a music publisher, and how do we figure out how to divide the money? You've got to come up with some kind of ground rules. There's going to be a lot of people working the refs. Perhaps the AP has concluded that such a scheme is their only hope and is trying to make sure they're positioned to argue that the ground rules should favor them.
Or, you know, there's the idiot theory. Still might be the best one, really. Occam's Razor and all that.
The thing which really makes AP sound like a mental patient is all this raving about the "wrapper" technology that will magically track down uses of their content on the web. But I'm not necessarily convinced they they really believe in the Easter Bunny, phlogiston, or digital watermarks for plain text. Perhaps this talk about magical "wrappers" is just a face-saving attempt to say "we will find you if you quote our material" without having to say "...and we will use Google to do it, of course, just like everyone else does. Of course, our publicly-stated belief is that Google is an unethical leech and that they should be paying us money every time they return a search containing some of our writing. But of course we won't be paying anyone else for the writing that we find using Google, because we're special and besides we don't have any money."
Actually, that explanation still sounds like the raving of a mental patient. It all keeps coming back to the idiot theory.