Re: What About .....
> Pay those who create original works a one-off bounty at the time of creation
Nope. The system then gets inundated with bullshit "works" whose sole purpose is to grab that bounty.
> instead of granting them monopoly control over distribution.
The trick is to grant creators a *limited* monopoly over their work. That's how copyright legislation started, and that's what it should return to. Somewhere around 20 years from first publish to public domain, and everyone will be happy[1]. The creators will get paid, society will be enriched, and substantially all of the "won't ever pay for that" brigade will have no leg left to stand on. It's all good.
And now I'm off to my Porcithology class...
Vic.
[1] Yes, even the "big meeja"-style copyright owners. They'll bitch at first, but they will actually see an *increase* in revenue after a short while. All those long tails actually produce very little cash, but serve to convince people that copyright legislation is unjust. Cut the tails off, and people are more likely to support enforcement[2] of more realistic copyrights.
[2] Except in the case of such utterly ridiculous awards against infringers as we sometimes see from our Left-pondian friends :-(