Intellectual Property and Starvation

[This was posted as a comment on another site: http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting/archives/2006/07/ze_frank_youtub.html]

I'm a writer and songwriter, as well as a "returning" (older) film student. Everything I do is susceptible to infringements and mass distribution on the web without me seeing any money. "Intellectual property" rights are becoming extinct in their pre-Internet forms. It's that evolution thing going on.

How does one protect the results of their individual creativity, and still get paid?

I have yet to see this question answered. The only two ideas I have are not satisfactory, so I keep looking.

Content creators may find a form of protection by establishing "branding" sites on the web where their legal particulars are posted, including a registry of works completed with descriptions, dates, even a place to download for a fee. This is so highly subject to fraud as to be a non-solution as soon as it starts to become a new "standard".

Or, all content may become subsidized by commercial sponsors and literally given away free. "This music compilation, ['Album' Title Here], by international recording star [Your Name Here], is sponsored by [Beverage Monopoly], and by [Big Auto Maker]. Drink [Beverage]! Drive [Auto]! Now, enjoy the music!" This is tagged to the actual data file(s) and offered for free downloads exclusively at the sites of the sponsors, or given away on disposable Flash drives (whatever is replacing CD's and DVD's until it is all web-delivered) at retailers. The strength in this is that these sponsors will pay creators for semi-exclusive rights to market and distribute the content, so the creator can eat and continue working. The very storng down side is that sponsors almost immediately begin to dictate the style and substance of the content.

I don't like either of the solutions I have just theorized, and for all my alleged creativity, they are the only two options I can currently imagine. Because technology is the source of the complication, the answers will likely come from some breakthrough in technology, allowing a creator-controlled method of uniquely fingerprinting their work . . . but that is too easily hackable.

There is more demand for content than previously imaginable, and producing/distributing it gets easier (technically) every day. But defending originality and authorship is failing faster than the demand and technology increases. Creators can't hold down a wage-chimp job and make new goodies at the same time, so quantity and quality of content deteriorate . . . until a solution arises that is close enough to "perfect" for artists to regain control of their work, the incomes from the work.