An alternative to levies on copyright

In this list it has been discussed the effects of levies several times.
I'm on the side that doesn't believe it would work. But, for at least a
year I hadn't found an alternative. Now I think I may be on to something
and would like to have your feedback.

The idea is simple: don't allow the author to sign away exclusive
rights. Any contract on copyright related rights would have to be on a
non-exclusive basis.

Why this is great: it puts the intermediaries in the hands of the
author. If an author is not pleased with the service rendered it can
always deal with others. If a work is very successful in the market, he
can always try to get a better deal from the competition (providing a
reason for the intermediary to treat their authors well). If new ways of
exploring their work appear, then the author can exploit them on their
own.

Downside: Works whose sales depend on huge marketing won't happen (no
one will want to risk a huge investment if another intermediary can just
come and collect the profits). BTW, I don't consider this really a
disadvantage (Good works always depend more on word-of-mouth than on
marketing).

Implementation advantage: it can be done today by authors on their own.
One example of an "recording" company doing this is Magnatune
<http://www.magnatune.com/>

So, do you think I'm on to something or I missed something obvious?

BTW, my objective with this is to reduce the monopoly provided by
copyright to a minimum in order to create a market of cultural goods.
Today, such a market is only local to certain cultures and not
widespread, creating the need for insurance against intermediaries (aka
copyright infringement).

-- 
						João Miguel Neves

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