Author: john

A bit more on campus piracy

Politicos threaten schools over campus piracy | CNET News.com

Another telling quote from the campus filesharing hearings (admittedly found while scanning back through old news).

Feeney said[,] “Is it responsible for a Congress that wants to protect intellectual property rights to continue to fund network enhancements for universities if some of those enhancements are indirectly being used in fact to promote intellectual property theft?”

It’s surprising that, for all universities have done to build and expand network technology, that something like student filesharing could stand in the way of future progress.

Lawmakers & Campus Piracy, DRM free iTunes

The Chronicle: Daily news: 06/06/2007 — 04: Lawmakers Encourage Colleges to Consider Using Technological Tools to Curtail Campus Piracy (requires account)

Congress appears to be getting interested in the issue of campus downloading. Campus administrators appear to be pushing back, stating that technology can’t be the only answer:

But Gregory A. Jackson, vice president and chief information officer of the University of Chicago, argued that neither bandwidth-shaping tools nor signature-matching software like Audible Magic would consistently block illegal file sharing on high-speed campus networks. He and Adrian Sannier, university technology officer at Arizona State University, both warned that colleges that invest too heavily in antipiracy software may end up caught in an expensive “arms race” between technology companies and enterprising file swappers. (Mr. Sannier’s institution does use Audible Magic, however.)

Mr. Jackson said copyright infringement was, first and foremost, a social problem, and he added that technological countermeasures have “only limited and transitory effects.” And he and Mr. Sannier said some students would continue to feel they have a powerful incentive to download music illegally until record companies make that music — unencumbered by digital-rights management tools — available online.

The “arms race” referred to here (also known as “cat and mouse”) is common in other difficult-to-enforce areas of law, like speeding. The administrators correctly point to the most effective way of promoting compliance: changing the norms of downloading. Unfortunately, efforts to “provide informational materials” to students (as required by the TEACH Act) are likely doomed to be ineffective against the appeal and ease of the technology.

…also in the news

Apple’s new DRM-free iTunes tracks have been found to contain information about the downloader. This has met quite a bit of criticism (as one story said, “it doesn’t mean that we can just start sharing the love, so to speak”), which I find quite surprising. I believe Apple’s (and other’s) argument for removing DRM was to enable playing on a variety of players and platforms–not to allow filesharing. The coverage that this has received makes me wonder about what user’s expectations are of downloaded material. Perhaps they are really quite savvy about their technical “rights.” Since downloaded material isn’t physical, I would argue it should be no surprise that things like the first sale doctrine might be on their way out. I would just be nice if the pricing structure would change to match these new realities.

Orphaned works / public pirates

Copyrights That No One Knows About Don’t Help Anyone – New York Times

I’ll admit to feeling slightly mislead by the title of this piece.  I had expected to read about how the average Joe’s lack of knowledge of copyright law hinders its effectiveness. Instead, the title addresses how the copyright on an old (out of print) work isn’t of public benefit. The author rightly argues along with Lessig for bringing back a registration system along with the proposals to loosen rights on “orphaned” works.

What these proposals would accomplish is to bring some certainty to questions we commonly face in the digital world: “Is this work protected by copyright?” or “Does the owner want to exercise control to profit from this work?”

Anything that can be done to bring more clarity to the law should be promoted.

The Battle Over Music Piracy – Time

Time has an interesting piece which says what few (other than the occasional undergraduate in the student newspaper) might be willing to admit: “Almost everybody owns a little stolen music.” It also poses a question, which I would argue has an empirical answer: “Can consumers be trusted to control their own music without pirating the record labels and the artists they produce right into the ground?”

This is a classic case of what I would like to call the 3 types of code coming together (a la Lessig in Code 2.0).

  • East Coast code: the written law of copyright (also known as the”law on the books”).
  • West coast code: the “law” of DRM, which has the potential to make people follow the laws on the books (or other laws) without their knowledge.
  • Midwest code: the ways in which the laws becomes created by the actions its subjects (also known as “law in action”).

In this case, the author is, I believe, accurately capturing the interplay between each type and how it ends up eventually working in the market.

Consumers feel [Midwest code] retailers are treating them like potential copyright criminals. Retailers say they use DRM [West Coast code] only because the labels make them. The labels blame us, the customers, for being such filthy music pirates [of East Coast code]. And around we go.

While consumers may technically be breaking the law by downloading music, I think that looking more closely at the question of if they can be “trusted” might answer some important questions about how and why people do and don’t comply with the law of copyright.

AP & Reuters reprint RIAA/MPAA “Propaganda”

Techdirt: If The AP Will Reprint RIAA Propaganda, No Surprise That Reuters Will Reprint MPAA Propaganda

I missed this the first time around: a couple of good links here to news stories that, in the poster’s interpretation, are biased towards content owners associations. In relation to my last post about how new norms of copyright will be (are?) formed, one factor in this process is certainly stories in the news. Especially for individuals whose only experience is being a consumer, stories such as these might play a role (whether they be convincing or dismissed by those who already “flout” the law).