It is not too risky to affirm that intellectual property will soon be History.

Rules designed for the paper era are not useful, enforceable and cost-economic in the Web era.

Here are a few reasons:

1) Intellectual property is not designed for the Web times

I strongly believe that intellectual property will soon be history, not because Anarchism will succeed over Capitalism, but because the Net Economy will find new ways to control ownership of words and patents.

Words alone are mostly worthless. Nobody is able to make money out of them anymore. Let's take someone whose words are unique and valuable: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, for instance. He collects some royalties from his writings, except for:

- the 50% cut that makes his publisher - the 40% lost to piracy - the 5% cut from the book physical maker - 3% from government taxes -1% from his agent, lawyer and accountant

So, the Paper Economy offers him 1% of the potential profit from his words.

On the other hand, what happens when you write for the Web?

Most word-content websites have lost money permanently since the 2000 Net Bubble. Even for prime authors, like Rawlings and her Harry Potter, plagiarism has eaten half of the earnings.

Making money out of words in the web takes a little more than writing. You need to point the words to those that might buy something related to them. You also need to secure some form of collecting money and measuring your response rates. The webmaster and the site promoter replace here the publisher.

2) Writing for the Web is different than writing for paper

There are:

- few authors that know how to write for the Web (short, focused, adjustable to the reader preference, keyword-dense, sticky, connected with a merchandise or service)

- few publishers that know how to make money in the Web starting from printed words from the paper era

- few webmasters who can transform electronic words in non-electronic dollars, either dealing with authors or conventional publishers

The Web Word Market is more dynamic, focused and automated than the Paper Word Market. In the past, the unit was the book, because you needed to print it, distribute it and sell it. Now, the unit is the web page, a much smaller one. Or maybe the RSS feed, the article, the forum posting or other smaller dynamic forms.

3) Authors are not so valuable in the Web Economy

Names and brands are less important in the web, because nobody spends too much time in one place, and the average user looks for specific answers rather than just a pleasant reading time.

Can you name a single Web author that always calls your attention? Are there any Web equivalents to Garcia Marquez or Norman Mailer? There are blog authors that have followers, but their names are not relevant. And the blogs with its traffic can easily be sold to someone else.

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