| It is not a simple situation. In my opinion, the existing systems are all broken in some way -- including even the fully open ones. I don't want all of R&D to look like YouTube and Wikipedia. I believe there are four hard truths about information that any solution must address: (A) Copying is easy, and will continue to get easier. This is the essential to nature of information, and fighting it is not practical. (B) Creating is hard, and will always be hard. Failing to recognize and compensate creators is not fair. (C) Creating by improving on a copy is more than just an effective way to create. It is essential to the nature of creativity. Fighting this effect is not practical. (D) Creative contributions are not additive. Determining the exact value of any one creator's contribution to a project is not practical. Copyright as a concept fails hard on (A) and (C). I think licensing doesn't handle (D) very well. Fully open solutions have varying problems with (B). The best solution I can think of is academia's system of tenure and elaborate recognition -- and even there, the system's failure on (B) pushes people to resort to secrecy, which damages (C). I don't have a good answer. I haven't even heard a good answer. I even think it's likely that the best answer will be many answers -- secrecy here, censorship there, openness here, copyright there, depending on the field. But I do know the problem will get a lot harder when the objects in question are not merely valuable for entertainment, but might be highly valuable for survival, highly expensive to produce, and dangerous or even potentially criminal. |