Future of Copyright

How should a good copyright system look like? Obviously, the one our civilization uses now does not fit the reality of today. Dated, over-extended and unenforceable it leads to ridiculous court cases against random people and clearly fails to meet the needs of the digital world. Without good alternatives, the only solution some can imagine is to take what doesn’t work and get more of it in a hope that that will do the trick. It won’t.

In order to shape the future of copyright system we need to step up and craft a model that will fit the digital reality that technology of today and tomorrow shapes for us. There are some initial proposals, most notably Barcelona Charter or Washington Declaration, but we believe there’s room for improvement and we want to give it a try. We invite you all to take part in the global project of crafting the Future of Copyright!

This is a contest for the best work about the future of copyright. The idea is simple:

You set the prize by supporting this project.
People submit their works for the contest. The deadline is 15th April 2012.

Independent jury consisting of inter alia prof. Michael Geist, Piotr Czerski (of „We, the Web Kids” Manifesto fame) and others, chooses the winner. The decision will be announced on 1st May 2012.
The winner gets the prize. Society gets a number of fresh proposals that will help shaping up the copyright system of tomorrow.

The higher the prize is, the more exposure our cause will receive. The more people will participate in this debate, the more works on Future of Copyright will be created.