NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Copyright: Dead Man Walking
Copyright: Dead Man Walking
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000515.html
Greetings. As I type this text, I'm listening to old tunes on "imeem"
( http://www.imeem.com ) in the background. In case you haven't being
paying attention recently to the Media Piracy Wars, imeem is perhaps
the best demonstration to date that the RIAA and record labels have
already capitulated -- a fate likely to follow in relatively short
order for all other media that can be easily digitized. Right now I'm
playing a stream of "Animals" classics -- with "We Gotta Get Out
of This Place" spinning at the moment (as it happens, long my theme
song).
The imeem site, among various other fascinating features, legally
allows you to play -- in their entirety -- pretty much any single or
album track you're likely to care about. Rock, classical, pop,
novelty, soundtrack -- whatever, it's a seemingly bottomless box. OK,
there are some exceptions, but I have to try pretty hard to find
selections that aren't available.
While in theory you can only play (not download) the tracks for free,
there are of course a variety of ways to capture such audio content,
in either analog or digital domains. Even postulating the unlikely
government mandating of draconian content control mechanisms (like
crippled A/D converters, analog tagging blocks, and other similar
creepy crawlies) trying to prevent the essentially unlimited transfer
of digitized media materials between private parties is already a lost
cause.
And while most of the arguing to date has been over illicit media
exchanges (e.g., via P2P networks) -- it seems inevitable that
ultimately motion pictures will follow a similar path to that of music
when it comes to pretty much universal legal free online access in
some form -- after all, from a digital standpoint, the only real
difference is the much larger number of bytes, and that's decreasingly
a practical problem. Books and other written materials may likely
follow the same course in due time. Software packages have achieved
some protection when tightly tied to individual computers through
online registration systems, but pushback from users,
non-copy-protected applications, and open source packages are
increasingly impacting this arena as well.
Back in "YouTube and Google Book Search: Pain, Delight, and Copyright"
( http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000382.html ), I suggested that
technological change was "diluting" the concept of copyright.
I'll now go one step farther. Copyright -- for most practical
purposes -- is effectively dead. Now, that doesn't mean that the
slowly moldering corpse of copyright won't be with us for quite some
time in various forms. Copyright concepts will maintain their value
longest as mechanisms to prosecute illicit commercial exploitation of
associated media, but as a tool to prevent or control mass
distribution, the coffin nails are being hammered in more deeply with
every passing day.
This situation shouldn't automatically trigger fear -- or joy for that
matter. We don't have to like or hate the concept of copyright --
which has certainly provided major useful benefits to both individuals
and society for many years. But we must accept the fact that
technological changes have fundamentally undermined key elements that
made copyright practical -- namely the difficulty and expense of
duplication and transport. Ubiquitous, inexpensive digitization
tools, plus the spread of broadband Internet services, have swept
those limitations out the window for most media.
The important question isn't how to save copyright -- because that's
already effectively a lost cause in most respects. What we should be
doing right now is working together to try find the best models for
the future that will reward creativity in ways that foster its
flowering (and allow people to make a living!) while still
acknowledging that the game has fundamentally changed. The old rules
we played in these regards are increasingly marginalized historical
curiosities.
Finding the new paths won't be easy. There likely won't be any
obvious yellow brick roads in evidence. But this is a task that we
must embark upon collectively and immediately -- as individuals,
nations, and as an ever more interconnected global community.
Isolated or proprietary commercial "solutions" will not win the day.
Once we have worked our way past the "dead man walking" of copyright,
we can far more effectively move forward with new creation and
distribution models for vibrant music, movies, books, and all of the
other media forms -- past, present, and future.
The time to start this journey in earnest is now.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com