Conclusion
Music industry collectives were formed to track the many uses of copyrighted work, which, individually, held small value. In addition, these organizations serve to collect and distribute royalties for the work on behalf of a large number of rights holders. In ways similar to music, it is difficult to assess in advance, and prohibitively expensive to track, individual units of multimedia content that are performed, broadcast, or electronically copied.
The speed and access provided by electronic networks may argue for a new model of licensing by individual rights holders, which would eliminate the drawbacks collectives can present in representing the group over the individual. In reality, the complexity of negotiating multiple or myriad rights, securing licenses, and collecting fees for multimedia makes the direct participation of intellectual property creators (who are notably loath to spend lime on business areas drawing them away from their creative work) less likely than it is currently. In the networked environment, the public requires efficient and valuepriced access to quality, diverse intellectual properly. Rights holders require fair compensation for the reproduction and performance of their content. By providing subscription or streamlined transaction licenses on behalf of many rights holders, intellectual property servers, such as Picture Network International, will benefit both suppliers and users of content in the networked environment.
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Benn, N.H. Nikons, nets and the bottom line: Image licensing in a networked environment. Arch Museum Inf 7, 3–6 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02770697
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02770697