Steal This Media File

This just in: Embedding a YouTube Video May Cost You a Bundle in ASCAP Bills

Now seriously, a bundle? What is going on here?

On closer reading, sounds like just the next round in the "It should all be free" vs "You'll need two lawyers and $5,000 to do that" rights debates/posturing, on top of the divide between what commercial entities can handle as the cost of doing business vs the average girl with a blog. I don't mean to get off on a rant here, but I am genuinely stumped as to why things haven't settled into a workable system yet, for the latter at the very least. (Okay, I guess I'm not really, but come on people. Let's get this worked out already.) In this YouTube/ASCAP case, it's very messy because there's the "provider" and the "embedder" split. And honestly, thinking about the RIAA cases, I don't see how this move goes well from a PR standpoint or nets any real profits from suits. However, it is 2009, and this is just the latest in a long line of challenges in the desperate search for revenue. Let's set up the system to catalog content and collect and distribute payments for its use already so "sharing" is no longer turned ugly by being so often synonymous with "stealing".

I think about this every time I use istock photos. When I want to illustrate something with a photo I haven't taken myself, I search through istock. When I find a good image, I select it and a one-time payment of about a $1 is deducted from my account. I love this. I value media and the people who create media very, very highly. Clearly Mind the Gap is very much a for-the-love-of-it, non-commercial venture, but the last people I want to screw over are the creators of content. That said, the potential of new media experiments is very exciting to me and I have also experienced firsthand the amazing "bang head on desk" frustration of trying to muddle through rights issues in the system as it stands now simply because there is no obvious way to clear and pay for usage of many materials. Creative Commons gets us halfway there, but where is the quick and simple usage payment site for IP so we can also start paying the people who should be paid and turning an income off the stuff we create?