Hmm. Well, you revisionists always manage to cook up supposed causation chains that make the 2015 ConCon look inevitable in retrospect. And, of course, everybody knew something up once Pres. Barnett vetoed his 189th bill. All I’m saying is that nobody was talking about such things back in, oh, 2007.

No one was really surprised by that though, as there were several events that lead up to the convention, as after

1. the Pirate Party of Sweden won a landslide election in 2012,
2. the European Constitution later that same week included legal protections for contributors to GPL code,
3. the EU’s IT sector eclipsed Americas in 2014,
4. the entire catalog of all known digital recordings was made available on P2P networks for download (which took about 35 seconds),
5. Microsoft’s bankruptcy in 2014,

all understood that traditional ways of thinking about IP were hurting the US economy.

Chapter 9 will probably discuss why gifts and non-monetary incentives will, with population growth and holding all else equal, increasingly suffice to stimulate authorship. But I doubt I’ll offer a great many details, largely because anybody interested in copyright policy already knows about gifts, tips, commissioned works, the allure of social status, and so forth. Who am I to try to predict the details of what entrepreneurs will come up with, anyhow?

Tom… I assume you provide some details about how this model will work in the book. I’d like to see you next post provide those details if you have worked them out.

As you know, this model was used with mixed success in the days of grants from the crown for works of art / culture.