photo by Kat Caverly © 2011
I know. What does piracy have to do with the Holidays? Nothing and everything. Just before Cyber-Monday and the feeding-frenzy that is holiday retail sales, another frenzy hit the Internets: Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. As an artist I have a dog in this fight against online piracy, but as a staunch advocate of all things Internet I too needed to know why there is such a backlash against this attempt to protect intellectual property online.
My quest started by reading Robert Levine’s new book, “Free Ride” but since it was written before SOPA was introduced in the U.S. Congress, House of Representatives I continued to follow Mr. Levine’s tweets to see if I could glean his opinion on this new bill, and Protect IP which is currently on hold in the U.S. Senate. In many ways I think that he too thinks that something needs to be done, just not necessarily these bills as they are currently written.
I waded through masses of hyperbole on both sides of this argument, but nothing could compare to the blanket – without supporting evidence – rejection by what seemed like most of the Internet technologists. There is a common thread, I’ve seen since 2002, that copyright law in general is outdated and needs to be changed, even after (or maybe because of) the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998. Some go so far as to advocate that copyright (and other laws) don’t apply online. All I have to say is good luck with that.
As someone who did bloody battle with IP Piracy from 2002 – 2005, I saw the adoption of a curious business model take root. Content pirates recognizing the opportunity of the DMCA “Safe Harbor” provision started reinventing their websites as “service providers” which allowed them to continue profiting from copyright infringement legally. Unfortunately this effectively prevented a market for licensing intellectual property to emerge before now. Why should anyone pay for the use of content when they can “use” it free of charge, that is until the content owners tell them to take it down.
In a short decade I have watched as a ravenous business community found every way to exploit the access to all of the wonderful content being uploaded to various Internet services and websites. What a wonderful time to be in the business of distribution without all that expensive content creation and licensing hassle. Willful ignorance of the laws of copyright turned out to have little risk, especially if you are flush with cash flow. Us little guys still have trouble making ends meet and if you get sued for copyright infringement before you make your first million, well then your business fails.
Business is business, except the current state of content on the Internet is unsustainable, so therefore will change to include us content creators at the table of bounty. So we are practicing our Pirate Faces — what do you think?
Recommended Readings
Terry Hart’s Copyhype blog
Bill Aicher has written a wonderful book on online piracy, “Starving the Artist”
I continue to look for intelligent, in-depth discussion from the anti-SOPA cohorts but find little outside of Lawrence Lessig. So if you find anything, or know of anyone, PLEASE add a link in the comments. I really do want to hear from both sides of this debate.
UPDATE
William Patry, Google’s senior copyright attorney, has written an articulate book, “How to Fix Copyright” well-grounded in facts with citations worthy of a professor of copyright law. He is also the author of a seven volume treatise on U.S. copyright law entitled “Patry on Copyright”, and like Professor Lessig, weighs in on the anti-legislation side, arguing that the current term of copyright is too long.
