Dean Baker proposed "Artistic Freedom Vouchers" as a way to supplant copyright. The basic idea is that every taxpayer would get a refundable tax credit of 75-100 dollars which could be "spent" by buying creative works from anyone who registered to be a recipient. It would be a very low bar to clear, just enough to weed out the obvious scams. Anyone who received AFV money would be barred from placing their works under copyright for the next five years.

It the context of our current IP law paradigm, I will admit it seems radical. Given how wasteful and repressive our current IP laws are, that seems like it would be a good thing.