Kelly: Scan This Book!

When reading a technology enthusiast/apologist/utopian, it's interesting to think through the dark side of the vision. Kelly concedes that the "dethronement" of the copy means it's harder to compensate creators based on their ownership. But copy-blind compensation works for scientists and so, he suggests, why not for authors?

Might the "scientist compensation" model lead to a world of elite authors (perhaps salaried by publishing houses) and unpaid or low-paid hobbyists, but with a smaller group of part-time professional authors? It seems as though, despite the political hurdles, rolling back the 70-year-post-mortem copyright lifespan would be a more direct way to address the "dark library" problem.

(I just noticed this related news story...)