UK Copyright Under Fire Again

stupid_is writes "Following on from the story on the Gower Report in the UK, a host of musicians (over 4,500 of them, including poor, starving stars such as U2, Paul McCartney and Peter Gabriel) have taken out a big ad in the FT to back the call for an extension to copyright in the UK. Allegedly, that's what the British public wants — although the survey seems to be asking a different, rather biased, question." From the article: "A spokesman for the Open Rights Group, which campaigns for greater digital rights, said: 'The big music firms have done a good job of persuading some artists to sign up to this but anyone who reads the Gowers review will see it demolishes the arguments for extension. An awful lot of content creators are not represented by this and recognise an extension will do nothing for creativity and nothing for the public.'"

It's logical they would feel this way.

Copyright was instituted for society so work would be created. It was not instituted for the creators. It was instituted to encourage them to create for society. I do not see any evidence that creators are boycotting and refusing to create new works because they "only" have copyright for 50 years.

Re:It's logical they would feel this way.

It's not even to encourage the artists to create. Never, during the whole of human history, has there been difficulty in getting people to participate in creative works. There are going to be people who want to make music, paintings, movies, and books, even if there's no reward but fame.

The purpose is to make it economically feasible to publish works. Without copyright protection, the large investment to bring a work to market would not have been worth it, considering that someone else could simply copy that work and sell it if it actually became popular enough to cover your investment. Therefore, record companies and book publishers would not have been able to make a profit from funding new works.

Therefore, as the technology improves and the price of development and distribution costs come down, and it becomes cheaper to bring a work to market, it follows naturally that we should become less strict on copyright protections. Should development costs, production costs, and distribution costs ever reach the point where they're free, then it probably means that we'll have reached the point where IP protection is completely obsolete.

Re:It's logical they would feel this way.

I'm not sure I agree with that assessment. The quality of work has probably increased as a result of copyright (okay, if you ignore the past ten years' worth of music...), so there's likely some minimum copyright term needed to maintain that level of creative motivation, beyond which the important motivating factor is protecting the credit given to the original author.

However, I do agree that copyright terms have been severely extended beyond that minimum (anything beyond the life of the creator comes to mind). In fact, copyright terms are so long now that creative efforts are hindered, by blocking the creativity of people who want to make derivative works or even protect the public existence of original works.

Re:It's logical they would feel this way.

Exactly!! The original term "copyright" was "Copy Wright".. it was the king's authorization to OWN, POSSESS, or even USE a printing press. You had to promise that you'd use your new found press responsibly, not to undermine the king's power. It was a "king sanctioned" thing... like the royal baker or a knight.

It was the Americans that shifted the idea of copyright as something ANYBODY could get for a small price per document. It was a radical then as GPL is now.. for about the same reasons.

American's seem to forget Congress is FORBIDDEN to grant "titles of Nobility"... that doesn't just mean Congress can't call somebody "King" or we have to kick a girl out because she marries a REAL prince. A title of "nobility" is something that endures.. you pass on or inherit. Something "abstract" like a knight in service to a queen, or a lord over land... "IP" as a concept is beginning to fall into a "title of nobility" status. Only this time it's not one person that gets the "title" it's a corporation. YUCK! That makes it worse because the corporation never actually DIES. It makes the executives of the RIAA and MPAA like the religious priest class in other cultures. Only they can spread knowledge, entertainment, and even legal documents of the govt because of their "IP" property. Only they have the ability to protect "IP" property.. so you have to pay "fealty" and "prostration" to them to be heard.... that's 100% Un-American!

Re:It's logical they would feel this way.

No, it's not logical they should feel this way.

I once considered myself a bass player. At bars we would play songs & work 50% originals with 50% covers. We were pretty much illegally performing songs (Don't Let Me Down by The Beatls, Karma Police by Radiohead, Yellow by Coldplay, The Door by The Turin Brakes, etc.). Now, why do we do this? It pleases the crows and shows them that we like their music and that if they listen to ours hopefully they see the influence and elements. Yes, every band borrows these things--you can't deny it.

It doesn't make any sense that Sir Paul should say this. Look at the line up of The Beatles' first album [wikipedia.org]:

• 1. "I Saw Her Standing There" - 2:55
• 2. "Misery" - 1:50
• 3. "Anna (Go to Him)" (Arthur Alexander) - 2:57
• 4. "Chains" (Gerry Goffin/Carole King) - 2:26
• 5. "Boys" (Luther Dixon/Wes Farrell) - 2:27
• 6. "Ask Me Why" - 2:27
• 7. "Please Please Me" - 2:03
• [edit] Side Two
• 1. "Love Me Do" - 2:22
• 2. "P.S. I Love You" - 2:05
• 3. "Baby It's You" (Mack David/Barney Williams/Burt Bacharach) - 2:38
• 4. "Do You Want to Know a Secret?" - 1:59
• 5. "A Taste of Honey" (Bobby Scott/Ric Marlow) - 2:05
• 6. "There's a Place" - 1:52
• 7. "Twist and Shout" (Phil Medley/Bert Russell) - 2:33

Ok, so nearly half the songs are covers of other musicians. Now I would like to ask Paul how it is that a starting band (exactly like him) gets enough money to pay the licensing costs to half their songs which are covers. Was it easy for you, Paul? Would it be that easy for bands today? Shouldn't you be honored that musicians are influenced by you and worship you?

When you look at the irony of Paul's statements considering that first album, it really makes me wonder how much money he'll need before he's a happy man. Does he realize the implications this has on the music in his country and possibly the world?

Re:It's logical they would feel this way.

When you look at the irony of Paul's statements considering that first album, it really makes me wonder how much money he'll need before he's a happy man.

Since he is about to have half of it taken away as a divorce settlement, then the answer is probably "about twice as much as he has now"

Who cares what the artists want?

I know that's an inflammatory statement, but law is supposed to benefit the public. If it doesn't benefit the public then there's no reason for a law to exist.

Copyright benefits the public because it benefits everyone. But extending copyright into eternity benefits only a select few.

I couldn't care less what 4,500 artists want. It's a tiny slice of the population. Why support their greed? I think we can do without U2 anyway :D

Re:Who cares what the artists want?

I agree we need to protect artists rights (I'm a musician, and am currently recording a cd). However, the current copyright is simply ridiculous. Life plus 75 years (US)? 95 for corporate works (US)? That's out of line.

What I'd like to see is: 25 years. One renewal for an additional 20. That gives 45 years total. If you haven't made enough off of something in in 45 years, tough shit. Do something new.

Re:Who cares what the artists want?

So if it's really about helping artists not get screwed over, maybe target record companies instead of increasing copyright.

Record companies are somehow able to sell a million records and still have the artists owe THEM money after all that. That's a much more real problem than lost sales.

Re:Who cares what the artists want?

This is a very important distinction, and I'm shocked that you've been modded to +5 insightful for providing completely misleading information.

And I'm shocked you misunderstand copyright so fundamentally. The function of copyright is to provide artists with protection for their works. The theory is that this stimulates the creation of new works, thus enriching society. And *that* is the benefit to society at large (the creation of new works). Thus, the idea that "copyright does NOT exist to benefit you" is flat out ridiculous.

The problem is that extending copyrights will likely do nothing to spur creation of new works. All it will likely do is place more power in the hands of corporations and the rich, who can afford to litigate to ensure their works are suitably protected. Meanwhile, if the extension the retroactive (as was the extension introduced in the Sonny Bono Act), materials from the public domain will be *removed*, which amounts to theft, IMHO.

Re:Who cares what the artists want?

The problem is that extending copyrights will likely do nothing to spur creation of new works

It also doesn't allow existing works to become part of the body of art which current and future artists can draw from for inspiration. There's absolutely no good reason that someone shouldn't be able to go out and hack on or cover Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon", for instance. The music is more than 30 years old, the group of people that created that artisic work doesn't exist anymore, and sales from that album do absolutely zero to encourage more works at this point - there hasn't been a Floyd album released in almost 13 years, and there aren't too many visible on the horizon.

The ridiculous terms do nothing to benefit the greater good, which should have been the only factor to look at when the extensions were considered. The financial well being of any single artist or company pales in comparison to the cultural damage being done to the rest of society.

Re:Who cares what the artists want?

I understand your feelings, even though I'm a pro-copyright games developer who relies on the concept for a living.
The thing is, you don't often hear from people who create content, and will defend it 'up to a point'. The only voices you hear are the 'everyone download my stuff' anti-copyright gang, and the 'its my property for the next thousand years' brigade.
Judging how long something should remain copyrighted is tricky, and probably should vary depending on the content type. Some things are useless after a few years, some things cost megabucks to make and payoff slowly. The idea that ANYTHING should remain in copyright for over 50 years is just bullshit though. If, as a creative person, I can't come up with another good idea every 50 years, I need to find another flipping job.
My own field is PC games, and I reckon 15 years is a reasonable length of time. Nobody is making real cash on games on older than this, and if they are, they probably made a shedload at release time.
If theres a petition from content creators requesting that copyright NOT be lengthened, just point me at it. We need emphasis on shorter copyright periods, but better enforcement (and fair use for format-shifting etc).
But U2 can just fuck off.

An ad to tell the public what they want

a host of musicians (over 4,500 of them, including poor, starving stars such as U2, Paul McCartney and Peter Gabriel) have taken out a big ad in the FT to back the call for an extension to copyright in the UK. Allegedly, that's what the British public wants

I guess the starving musicians have to spend big money take out an ad to tell the public what they already want.

Lessig Blog: Signed by dead artists

From Lawrence Lessig's blog [lessig.org]:

As reported yesterday, there was an ad in the FT listing 4,000 musicians who supported retrospective term extension. If you read the list, you'll see that at least some of these artists are apparently dead (e.g. Lonnie Donegan, died 4th November 2002; Freddie Garrity, died 20th May 2006). I take it the ability of these dead authors to sign a petition asking for their copyright terms to be extended can only mean that even after death, term extension continues to inspire.

(c)

If copyright was outlawed, only outlaws would have copyright, right?

Even more misleadinger

The question whether they thought UK recording artists "should be protected for the same number of years as their American counterparts" is even more misleading than the article implies. UK recording artists have exactly the same length of copyright IN THE UK as their American counterparts and exactly the same length of copyright IN THE USA as their American counterparts. UK and American recording artists are treated identically in each market. The two markets have different rules but neither discriminates in the way the question implies.

They also weren't asked whether the UK term should be increased or the USA term decreased. Or whether both should be decreased.

"Fair play for musicians"

That's what the advert says. It's almost correct. Let me fix it.

Fair use for people.

Tag suggestion

Tag: copywrong

U2 = hypocrites?

Or will they donate all their posthumous royalties to that AIDS-in-Africa cause that they're always on about?

how sad

I'm disapointed that YouGov would agree to carry out a poll like this, I fear they are essentially becoming hired guns in any flame war you need stats for...

Paul McCartney's just scared...

Paul McCartney's just scared he's going to lose more songs to Michael Jackson.

Is there an easily accessible list of who signed?

So that I can conveniently never buy _anything_ from them again.

Sir Paul Has Failed Me

... from 50 years to 95 years.

I hate to attack Paul McCartney because I love his music, Beatles & post-Beatles. But I think 50 years is enough. Let's say you write a song at age 20-25 like the Beatles. Well, you'd have the rights for that until you're 70. Ok, so you yourself should have ample time perform and record that song or to license it and profit from it. Paul knows a lot about this last part after suing the other Beatles for many of the McLennon songs & subsequently selling them to Michael Jackson.

If I were a musician, I would be honored that so many people are waiting after those 50 years to use my music. The reason I feel this way and Paul doesn't is that he's going down in history as the one of the greatest singer/songwriters of all time no matter how long the copyright is held on that song. I'm not.

But why, in God's name would he want them extended to 95 years? Well, he made quite a bit of music after the Beatles & has been touring with that on and off. Some of it good & some of it quite bad. Either way, if he wants to cash out one last time before he kicks it, the rights to those songs will fetch much more if the buyers have them for 65 more years as opposed to 20 more years.

So that's what it's coming down to, not this 'fair play' bullshit. Paul's not hoping to be playing his music fairly after he dies ... he's just concerned about the money for these artists. And it's not money they're going to enjoy, it's money they're going to get and maybe try to pass on to their kids or something. Or buy another 1936 Rolls Royce Shadow with.

Who knows why they claim to need this money. Especially U2, that actually shocks me. Bono used to be all about people and to hell with money. I guess that isn't true anymore though he might try to show that he wants to keep making money to help people in a country less fortunate. At least he's got that going for him.

I saw an interview with Paul once where he basically said, "Yeah, I sold Michael Jackson the rights to these songs ... and it's too bad, you know, because I just want to play the music for my fans and have fun but I can't since I sold the rights." I guess sometimes I just have to treat them as artists with good music & just severely lacking in other departments. I think he knows exactly what he's doing and what he's done. I honestly think he's implementing publicity stunts just to work an angle of sympathy for a former Beatle. Unfortunately it's most likely going to work perfectly for him.

Copyright laws hurt musicians and music:

1) overpayment corrupts artists, destroys careers and creativity.
2) music is locked away in Record Label vaults, never to be heard.
3) music is pushed based on it's "marketability" in a corrupt market.
4) only affluent audiences can afford current prices.
5) small or non profitable musicians and genres are ignored.
6) real talent is is discarded in favour of patronism.

I wonder just how much longer we will allow this corruption to continue?

That's gotta be a world record

a host of musicians (over 4,500 of them[...])

That poor host... that's a lot of parasites... Quick! Call Guinness!

Seriously, U2?

The same U2 who just moved their operations out of Ireland (different country, I know) so they wouldn't have to pay as high of taxes? I like this band and all, but I'm not very comfortable with the message of "I want greater protections in your legal system, but I'm not prepared to pay the taxes for it." Does not compute. On a side note, my captcha was 'greater.' I guess it's trying to get in on the action.

There is only one reason for this...

Money. And, if Lewis Black has taught us anything, it is this:

"People seem to think whoever has the most when they die wins...well, your dead fucknut. So...you didn't win."

If logic prevaled...

we would actually be reducing Copyright times.
Think about the artists and writers of the 1800's and even the first half of the 1900's. It tooks decades just for their product to be distributed. You first had to make it big locally (less than 200 miles), and then the product had to be good enough to justify the huge distribution costs of making it a national sensation. You really ran the risk of your copyright not lasting long enough to justify the effort.
Now we live in a world with existing international distribution systems. You can become an international hit and sell your works to the whole world in a week's time. Yet, we have all these artists complaining that the copyright is not long enough. It just sounds like greed. What is their justification?

Sure

Fine. Hell, extend it to however long you DON'T want me listening to your 'music'. There are ALWAYS other sources, stunts like this really inspire people to hunt them out. Then what will your copyright be worth?

I just want to know

If U2 agreed to do this endorsement pro Bono...

Extension of greed....

What is increasingly at risk here is the very important connection between a "right" to protection in law and the reason for the existance of that right.

The protection of copyright (and other IP forms for that matter) is intended to provide a reward to those who would contribute to the public good; to culture, society, the fine arts and our understanding of the human condition.

To this extent there is a good basis for creating a social contract whereby we protect in our courts of law the creative work of an individual from being passed off as the work of another, or modified in a way that misrepresents a work or distributed for free where that is not what the creator wants.

What they are arguing for now in the UK is the difference not between no protection and protection but between one degree of protection (its duration) and another. Importantly, though, they are using the arguments for and against protection in the debate about the degree of protection. That is a mis-use of the reasons for protection which provide no clear guidance in their favour here.

Given a 95 year term over a 50 year term are we motivated to be 90% more creative? Are great works of fiction or music not written on the grounds that they will *only* be protected for 50 years and not the all important 90 years? Fifty years represents a term in which the creator gets to benefit from their work but also then that society, in a meaningful time frame, gets to benefit culturally from the full propagation (not based on economic means) of a work throughout that society.

It's important also to note that a longer, stricter term of protection fails to acknowledge that all creation is based on the work of those that have gone before us. The true "originality" of a work is of course mollifed by the influences that it has taken. It is only right that creators accept their place in that great progression and let their work eventually also pass into the public domain to be recognised as the influence for more works that help society's culture to flourish.

A shorter copyright protection term could surely only encourage investment in new songs, new books, new acts rather than taking the easy route of holding on to back catalogues that are continuously re-released. Back catalogues are of course another source of irritation since the availability of most music that has been made and of most books ever written in the stores is extremely limited.

The creators of tomorrow would live in a poorer world if proprietary protection for what is, after all, our shared culture was extended arbitrarily to suit the present generation.

'Til death do us part

Why not make it until death of the artist(or all group members)? Or, in case of sale of rights, a fixed period(like 10 years). If they were desperate enough to sell them, or stupid enough as in the case of Sir Paul, the buyer would have a fixed time in which to benefit. Why would you buy a catalog, unless to profit from it in the short term(except buying the Beatles catalog)?

I believe artists are entitled to keep the rights to their works for their lifetime. They made it, so they should be able to benefit from it. However, they shouldn't be able to put their great-grandchildren through school 45 years after they die. That's what wills and trust funds are for.

Ian Anderson

Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull wrote an op-ed in the Financial Times [j-tull.com] in favor of an extension.

Best responce was a letter that the FT published that basically said:

Hey Ian, You want to make more money? THEN WRITE SOME NEW SONGS!

Honestly, these songwriters, even the great ones, are thick as a brick sometimes.

Who benefits?

Here's the thing about these sorts of rights: In most cases, the original performer has sold them off to a record label. True, there are some residuals involved, but these are a small part of the continuing income stream from the material. Its the investors who own the portfolios of recordings that stand to benefit.

Looking at it from the artists point of view, he or she sells their rights to a producer in exchange for cash and/or a cut of future sales. The producer's offer is based upon the present value of the estimated revenue stream that the product will generate. It is a simple economics problem to calculate the difference between the present value of a revenue stream with a lifetime of 50 years and one with, say 95 years. It is not significantly greater, so the producer will not likely offer greater compensation to the artist.

On the other hand, these portfolios represent ongoing value to their current owners. Their present value is based upon their revenue stream in the present and near future, which (for established works) is known to a greater degree of certainty. Unfortunately, as the end of copyright draws near, these shortened terms do have significant impact on the assets values.

So, this change looks more like a vote to increase the wealth of a bunch of investors rather than compensation for creative talent.

Something is wrong when....

It takes you more than fifty years to profit from a song.

Exposes the big lie

I'm thrilled to see this, because it exposes the big lie which everyone uses to justify their illegal and immoral violation of music copyrights, that they're just stickin' it to the evil music companies and that the artists implicitly support these downloads. It's time once and for all for you people to realize that you are screwing over the artists when you pirate their music. Let that be on your conscience.

I don't expect you to stop, but at least stop lying to yourself and pretending that you aren't hurting the very people creating the music you love.

4500 businesmen,not artists.Casualty is innovation

These 4500 "artists" know that this 95 years will not create new incentive for them to create or enhance artistic works. (incentive when they are dead?). They know that this only serves to create money-for-nothing for their great-great-grandchildren: Or to create money-for-nothing for the owning corporation. They, themselves are probably also assuming to be rewarded soon for the corporate loyalty.

One casualty here is artistic creation. Innovation incentive for the heirs is limited due to inherited wealth.
But in reality, no heirs inherit these "rights". They sold out to some corporation or other individual unrelated to the original work.

The biggest casualty is artistic innovation from adaptation/derivation. Much of innovation builds on the works of others. Such an after-death copyright fights against such innovation.

Maxwell's Silver Hammer came down upon Paul's head

Paul McCartney, you say? It just so happens that my roommate came back to the apartment last week with a copy of Abbey Road in his hand. A bit of shrinkwrap and one $cdparanoia -B later and I had Abbey Road on my computer. So tell me, am I going to Beatles hell?

So, in the end, is the money you take equal to the suits you litigate?

Why?

Why would artists be about setting up copyright beyond their lifetime? To allow their families to inherit those rights?

All of this goes way beyond the original purpose of copyright. I think before any further changes are made, I think the purpose of copyright should be re-examined. Copyright was originally intended to better assure that artists are compensated for their work, but somehow, non-artists have managed to turn this into an unforseen industry; an industry that seems to harm the quality of artistic works made available to the public, the amount or portion of money earned by artists for those works and the public's interest in seeing those works evenually made available to the public domain which was definitely part of the original purpose and intent of copyright law.

By preventing works from falling into the public domain, it is harming the public's interest in a very real way and those needs should be addressed in a much more aggressive way because as of now and in the recent past, the public hasn't been using its voice at all.

Other effects of not extending copyright,.

If copyright is not extended it will have a huge negative effect on the record companies / British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and RIAA groups and content distributors, beyond that of royalties paid.

Content in the public domain waters down the argument for requiring ALL content is to be 'protected'. If half of the worlds music was public domain, lobbyists would have a hard time persuading lawmakers to put restrictions on ALL devices. This has been evident with the RIAA continuously argue why DRM is required for ALL music to prevent copyright infringement. These arguments usually fail to recognize the existence of non-copyrighted music (Creative Commons etc), and certainly make no provision for it in their argument or 'industry drafted bills' (e.g DMCA). This results in systems like the Zune wi-fi sharing system which applies DRM when transferring songs, whether the media requires protection or not, and with total disregard for other licences such as 'copyleft' which may expressly forbid it.

We've seen from the Napster and Gokster cases in the 'war on file sharing' argued that "ALL file sharing is infringement of copyright", and fails to recognize the legal uses of file sharing systems. Again, if half of the worlds music was public domain, media conglomerates' argument is significantly watered down. Services like Youtube and Google Video have already been targeted, and we've seen media companies desire to shutdown the service altogether although Youtube and Google video are exceptional in that they've been careful to prevent copyright infringement from the start, and the result has been for the media companies attempts to re-define infringement. (i.e teenagers lip-sinking songs). Again their aim is to prove the majority of content that is free is infringing copyright and the services providing it should be shut-down.

Big Media have a very huge stake in extending the duration of copyright, well beyond the immediate issue of royalties for artists. (The amount of these royalties that is passed to artists is another issue altogether). The music industry and BPI will likely "pull out all the stops" to prevent an extension of copyright, which we are starting to see it with the use of artists that have done very very well out of record company who may 'win the hearts and minds of the people'. Big Media will be lobbying politicians as fast as they can, and will no doubt us scare tactics where possible. If all this British music is released into public domain, it will make shutting down file sharing networks much harder.

The BPI (and RIAA) have responsibilities "in the collection, administration and distribution of music licenses and royalties" which relies on a vast library of content being under their control. Music that us currently in their control placed in the public domain erodes their breadth of responsibility and will ultimately affect their cut of the royalties.

The extension of copyright by 50 years has far further implications than just the royalties paid to the artists. It weakens many of the arguments of the BPI and RIAA groups, and reducing their value and their income. This argument is not about the artists getting more money, it is about the BPI and RIAA retaining their value and ability to "fight the crime of music theft".

They cannot fight the "crime" if the music is free to copy and share.

If they think the length of copyright is too short

...Why did they release those songs then? Obviously they had no problems with the length of the copyright back then, and they released their music with the knowledge that at certain point in time their music wont be protected anymore. And they have had decades of time to profit from their music. And now that the time is up, they feel that the rules should be changed since they obviously have not profited enough.

Well, fuck them. Seriously. They make it sound like they are getting screwed here. No, WE are getting screwed here. We were promised that after certain period of time, that music would be liberated (so to speak). And now we are being told by some multi-millionares that "wait, we could use a bit more profits, so we want to change the rules, mmmmkay?". No, it's not OK. You made a deal with the public when you release those songs. And that deal says that after certain period of time, we, the public, would get access to those songs. Don't like that deal? Maybe you should have thought about that back when you released those songs.

Fuck you, you fucking dinosaurs.

The American Revolution

One thing the American revolution changed was the European practice of the time (circa 1776 and back to Gutenberg at least) of Forever Copyrights. Publishing houses of the time owned copyrights in perpetuity, and if they didn't want to republish a book, it didn't get republished. The American Constitution changed that with its grant of rights for a limited period of time only.

Now the content industries seem trying to push us back to those bad old days once more. It was a bad idea then. It's still a bad idea now. And the worst idea of all is making them retroactive. Those works were already created. They don't need this extension to encourage that creative effort. Even if the laws were changed, they should only apply to new works.

As for Sir Paul, he should just shut the F* up! He's made his pile and can't claim poverty in my eyes. In fact, I rather like him less today than yesterday due to his participation in all this.

WTF?

I thought the main reason we have extended copyrights was to get them in line with other countries... I personally don't see how the public is served by a term any longer than the original 28 years. If you haven't made enough money off your copyrighted works by then, I doubt the extra you make will further encourage you to create more works.

YOu want an extension? Fine, but

No government agency will help you go after people, and people can ONLY be brought to a civil court.

How to be a hero

Attn: Bill Gates

You want to be a hero? Spend a few billion buying up rights to every song, book and movie you can lay your mitts on. Then offer it all to the world, royalty-free.

The "Gates Catalog" will be the biggest thing in education and entertainment in the world. Even slashdotters will praise your name.