Copyright & the Internet

The subject of the copyright and how it relates to general-purpose computing is quite thought provoking. How can the general-purpose computer and its attachment to a generative network survive if various industries and their respective lobbyists are undertaking actions to change the landscape of Internet use?

Cory Doctorow's article, Lockdown, isn't just about copyright; it is about the long coming war on computation. This war against the general-purpose computer that Doctorow describes is faced by one single threat: copyright. The fundamental purpose of a general-purpose computer, its ability to foster generativity, is being questioned. Media companies have long strived to protect their content, and rightfully so, however, as Doctorow suggests, their protocols are beginning to touch upon the concern of surveillance and censorship. He writes, “All attempts at controlling PCs will converge on rootkits, and all attempts at controlling the Internet will converge on surveillance and censorship.”

Doctorow details the different ways copyright protection was enacted over the years and the problems they caused. For example, Sony loaded covert rootkit installers on 6 million audio CDs, which secretly executed programs that watched for attempts to read sound files on CDs and terminated them. Also, Nintendo’s 3DS routinely checks for firmware allocations; if it detects signs of tampering, it turns itself to a “brick.” Doctorow urges that copyright law issues must be fixed before we can move forward in the digital age.

In Public Domain, Boyle argues the opposite of Doctorow’s argument; more copyright control. Boyle argument is that “The strength of intellectual property rights must vary inversely with the cost of copying. With high copying costs, one needs weak intellectual property rights if any at all. As copying costs approach zero, intellectual property rights must approach perfect control.” Boyle argues that the Internet be fixed to a technology of control and surveillance. He writes, “The ‘Internet Threat’ argument is that we must remake the Net if we want digital creativity – whether in music or software or movies or e-texts. And since the strength of property rights varies inversely with the cost of copying, costless copying means that the remade Net must approach perfect control, both in its legal and its technical architecture.”

Both Doctorow and Boyle raise good arguments. I believe that there should be copyright enacted to a certain degree. It should not, however, hinder the civil liberty of privacy. Doctorow, in my opinion, is thinking too freely as intellectual property rights are arguably in existence for a reason; to protect one’s property. However, as Boyle also details, the Internet can lower the cost of copying, hindering copyright protection, but can also mean opportunity. It can lower the cost of production, distribution, and advertising. In addition, it can dramatically increase the size of the potential market via Internet outlets such as social networking sites.