The Internet and Copyright

          In the article "Lockdown", by Cory Doctorow, he brings up many great points about the laws passed to stop copyright infringement. His main argument seems to be that, it does not work. There is no ACTUAL regulation. The public, especially computer savvy individuals, are always going to find new ways to unlocking programs or illegally extracting files. Doctorow mentions about the possibility of controlling computers and file transferring, and again, it does not work. In 1996 the WIPO Copyright Treaty was passed which created laws that made it illegal "to extract secrets from unlocking programs" and "extract media form the unlocking programs while they were running". It also made it illegal to share these secrets and to host copyrighted works. He sarcastically states that the treaty ended illegal copying, but in fact, he again argues that it only made it worst. Greater problems will only begin to pile up, leading to even more illegal "copyrighted works". Doctorow goes on to criticize our politics and how certain laws are passed based on a policy, or "rules of thumb about how to balance expert input from different sides of an issue". One of my favorite lines in this article was his criticise on copyright enforcement : 'something must be done, I am doing something, something has been done'. "As a result, any failures that arise can be blamed on the idea that the regulation doesn't go far enough, rather than the idea that it was fawed from the outset." This clearly supports the notion that our policies are not made by experts in the fields of computer programming or information technology, as Doctorow mentions. But in fact, these laws or regulations are made simply to meet the needs of having some sense of order or control.

          Doctorow does not argue for or against controlling the internet or anything related. He points out the facts. Controlling computers or technologies that has the capability of being hacked is just not possible. If it is, it would only lead to privacy concerns and that another big issue added to this copyright "war". Rootkits will always be around and people are always going to find ways to get what they want. A cheesy supportive statement would be, "When there's a will, there's a way."

         On the other hand, in Chapter 4 of "The Public Domain", Boyle seems to support the use of greater control and strict regulations of intellectual property. Boyle states that the 'technology of freedom' (referring to the Internet), needs to become a technology of "control and surveillance. If this were the case,  there would be so much protest against it. Other issues would come up and this would become an even bigger issue. Many of what the internet is today, was shaped by the users, not the companies who produce or contribute to it. To have most of that freedom or creativity taken away would be disastrous.