Responses to the history of copyright protection technology, part 1
I published my first Conversation article last week, giving a brief history of copyright protection technology and its deficiencies. Thanks to my editor at The Conversation and Victoria University's Public Affairs Department, the article also appeared in Technology Spectator, Mumbrella, Phys.org and SBS.
I wrote the article in response to what I saw as some incompletely-thought-out criticism of the Australian Government's recent Online Copyright Infringement Discussion Paper. The paper floats the idea of giving Internet service providers a legal incentive to assist with the enforcement of copyright. Critics of this notion typically insist that the media industry should do its own policing — but, in previous rounds of the debate, copyright activists cried foul at attempts to restrict or sue individual users. So what to do?
The comments on the article fall into four broad categories. Firstly, there are the re-statements of classic anti-DRM anti-copyright positions that don't address any specific point in the article. I won't address them here any more than they addressed anything I said there.
Secondly, there are those who insist that the solution is new business models or lower prices. The discussion paper itself recognises that pricing may have an influence on the level of copyright infringement in Australia, though I think I could just as easily have written a history detailing the failure of new business models to produce any change. Whatever the case, all this does not actually answer the question of how best to enforce copyright law, and no business model or price point seems likely to work without a law that gives creators something to sell.
Thirdly, there are those who insist that ISPs should have no role in enforcing copyright law. This is exactly the view that I set out to examine, and I think the comments illustrate why. Critics of the discussion paper seem certain that any regime will be funded by ISPs, who will pass on the costs to their customers. But the discussion paper says no such thing; its second question actually asks "How should the costs of any 'reasonable steps' be shared between industry participants?". In constructing a false dichotomy in responsibility for the enforcement of copyright law, critics are blind to any solution in which the media industry funds technology or otherwise collaborates with the computer industry, both of whom have an interest in having good stuff to do with our computers.
Lastly, there are a few who interpreted the article as demonstrating that copyright protection technology is futile. While I guess they don't appreciate it, this group actually supports the article's thesis insofar as governments came to involve Internet service providers precisely because everyone rejected previous copyright protection technologies.
Reading government reports like the discussion paper in question, I sometimes reflect that their authors seem to be quite a bit more thoughtful and better-informed than their critics give them credit for. For critics with little knowledge of history and an interest only in consuming media as cheaply as possible, I guess it seems "obvious" that the media industry is the only party with an interest in enforcing copyright law and the authors of government reports are stupid for not seeing it. Of course the media industry is a lobby group trying to push its own interests — but so are critics who are only interested in how they can get cheap entertainment. A good government report knows this, and poses questions that lobby groups don't ask because they've already assumed the answer.
