Promises to keep
Subtitle: technology, law, and the future of entertainment
By: William W. Fisher.
Publisher: Stanford Law and Politics
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Stanford, California
Language: eng
Number of pages: 340
Subjects: Copyright -- Music -- United States; Piracy (Copyright) -- United States; Internet entertainment industry -- Law and legislation -- United States
Description: "During the past fifteen years, changes in the technologies used to make and store audio and video recordings, combined with the communication revolution associated with the Internet, have generated a wide array of new ways in which music and movies can be produced and distributed. Both the creators and the consumers of entertainment products stand to benefit from the new systems. If the available technologies were exploited fully, the costs of audio and video recordings would drop sharply, the incomes of artists would rise, many more artists could reach global audiences, the variety of music and films popularly available would increase sharply, and listeners and viewers would be able to participate much more easily in the shaping of their cultural environments. Sadly, we have failed thus far to avail ourselves of these opportunities. Instead, much energy has been devoted to interpreting or changing legal rules in hopes of defending older business models against the threats posed by the new technologies. These efforts to plug the multiplying holes in the legal dikes are failing and the entertainment industry has fallen into crisis." "This book chronicles how we got into this mess and presents three alternative proposals - each involving a combination of legal reforms and new business models - for how we could get out of it."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [265]-319) and index.
Table of contents: title: The promise of the new technology; title: The baseline : entertainment law and practice in 1990; title: What went awry; title: Taking property rights seriously; title: Online entertainment as a regulated industry; title: An alternative compensation system.