Bruce Perens Proposes Draft Post-Open Zero Cost License

theregister.com

19 points·coloneltcb··3 comments

Having just now received royalties from ASCAP for performances that happened in 2022, I look forward to seeing how the administration of this fee is supposed to operate. We can be sure that the end users will do what they can to evade payment, and the gatekeeper will do what it can to avoid work.

hm the headline says "zero cost" .. so that infers an emphasis on networked identity, record keeping and making costs for infringement (?) over taking in money, administering limited-use licenses and distribution of proceeds..

computer networks are very amenable to constant status checks and trivial "you can get it or you can't, right now" .. It would probably take some time to really think through the actual proposal, so take this as off-the-cuff..

So far these licenses have been something like “if you have more than X revenue or Y employees you have to pay”. There’s no way to automate that, just like there’s no way to automate “if someone in your venue plays this song, you have to pay” (I’m talking about writer/publisher royalties for live performance here, not streams). And enforcement is expensive, and a cost center, and enforcing the long tail just ends up not happening.

This will presumably be more sophisticated since it’s for paying computer-savvy folks, but ASCAP is still accepting cue sheets for video on paper and Excel. [0]

[0] https://www.ascap.com/help/royalties-and-payment/cue-sheets

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