Catching infringers for cash
I have a suggestion for harnassing the power of the web to do good. What about offering a bounty empowering citizen do-gooders to keep an eye out for copyright infringement? A prominent brand like Coke or McDonalds could have a reward page where they pay off for each righteous catch. They wouldn't even have to pay cash--many people would be more than happy to get free promotional stuff. Some rules would have to be figured out to stop people from doing their own infringing just to get a free Ronald McDonald skeet shoot set.
The power of this is one of the fundamental Internet lessons--any business that create a financial flow that causes large groups of people to do something can move mountains. Imagine tens of thousands of people scanning the web every morning looking for infringers.
Posted on July 18, 2006
