Thinking Outside the Box (washingtonpost.com)

"What we should say is that copyright, like access to the airwaves, is something that brings responsibility. The government should give you copyright. But in exchange, you owe me a buck if your software crashes.

"There'd be different legal categories of software. If you want to rush it to market, and have first-mover advantage and see what happens, fine. You could label it creative software. But much of your code will be open to the public."

If you want to build a business empire, however, and you want the government to throw itself into protecting your copyrights, in Lanier's scheme you would then have to label your product "firmware."

"If you see this thing is taking off, you have the right to say: This is no longer creative software. This is functional. This has utility.

"But once you do that, you owe me a buck every time it crashes."

And the powers of Washington's enforcement tentacles would hound buggy software writers to the ends of the Earth.

"Instead of hunting down people who smoke pot, they'd be hunting down people who sell business software that crashes. They'd owe people a buck or go to jail. That's what Washington should be doing."