Copyright battles

The copyright battle is dominated by extremes.  On one hand, the RIAA and the MPAA believe that their customers should give thanks for such innovative distribution channels as Tower Records and Blockbuster.  On the other, there are the free culture folks who fear that intellectual property laws are getting out of hand, and that corporations already have too much control over culture.

Both sides have valid points.  The RIAA/MPAA folks are understandably concerned that digital content can be stolen so easliy.  The MPAA, a reluctant late comer to this fight, was protected by the sheer size of full-length movies.  But alas, Bittorrent has eliminated that flimsy, final layer of protection. By some accounts, Bittorrent accounts for 1/3 of all data sent over the internet today (a figure that I think is too high, though there is no debating Bittorrent’s importance.) Conversely, the free culture folks are spot on that the INDUCE Act that the lobbyists tried to ram through Congress was creepy. Many believed that this bill was too vague and too punitive, and that the language used was broad enough that the iPod could be deemed illegal.

As a society, we have not figured out a way to balance the rights of consumers to use what they purchase however they want, with the rights of the record companies and film studios to earn a living. I hope it is abundantly clear to the RIAA/MPAA folks that suing music downloaders or going after Bittorrent hosts is not going to make the problem go away. My hope is that these are just stall tactics while they try to figure out how to reinvent their increasingly irrelevant business models. A good place to start would be to reexamine their channel and pricing strategy.

Here are three interesting articles that I came across this past week regarding copyright issues:

There are ongoing rumors that an RIAA/MPAA contractor is intentionally spreading malicious trojans through peer-to-peer networks. Where is the NYTimes when you need them? (link)

My favorite intellectual property story to come out of China was the factory that was caught manufacturing fake VW Beetles. In this article, Sec. of Commerce Don Evans says that China has "got to start putting people in jail" to show it is serious about cracking down on widespread counterfeiting and piracy. Sadly, I agree.  (link)

Older documentary films made with copyrighted footage are disappearing because the film makers can not afford to renew the copyrights of the footage they used in making the film. It seems like a stretch for the Globe and Mail to entitle the article “How copyright could be killing culture” but this is a disturbing side-effect of tightening legal restrictions. (link)

(update:  more details about the difficulties documentary film makers are having with old footage  in this article from the Center for Social Media.)