Copyright and the Digital Age - Essay Example

Copyright and the Digital age Introduction To a large extent, new digital technology poses serious challenges in the protection of copyrights of innovative and creative minds; this may render copyright obsolete. This is because copyrighted works can be easily digitized and shared all over the world through existing networks. Digital revolution has allowed characterization of information into binary bits. With binary bits, it is easy to distribute information without any physical medium. Therefore, copyrighted products can be transferred through phone lines or in the form of radio waves without the attached plastic or paper (Fenwick & Locks 2010, p.11). Pirating copyrighted products is an inexpensive venture since pirates only need a computer, internet access, and power to run the computer (Waldfogel 2012, p. 44). In addition, available digital technology boosts the ability to produce excellent copies. Worldwide losses due to infringement of copyrights are estimated to be $4.2 billion per year. To put it into perspective, in 2005, motion picture industry and the software industry reported losses estimated at $ 18.2 and $34 billion respectively. Today, digital piracy is the primary issue of concern, which calls for a thorough understanding of its driving forces. It is worth noting that a majority of today’s issues relating to digital piracy relate to the evolution of computing era (Cronan & Al-Rafee 2006, p.238). However, advancements in technology are also vital in the protection of copyrighted products as well as digital rights management. On the other hand, pirates have strived to make use of technology to “hack” or “crack” protected contents. The only option left for copyright owners includes finding strong legal protection against copyright infringement. The legal system has agreed that technological advancements have the potential to circumvent the legal system, and leave a poor intellectual property framework (Matsuura 2009, p. 25). The ability to store data in a binary format is the cause of digital piracy (Fenwick & Locks 2010, p. 18). From this point, this paper will look into forms of digital piracy (media and software piracy), their incidences and motivating factors. It would also be crucial to look into some of the technologies applied in fighting digital piracy. Other than technologies, the paper will also touch on copyright laws and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Media Piracy To date, the media industry has suffered heavy losses due to increased rates of digital piracy. Information generated through digital media is easy to represent and store electronically, and encode in a binary format. With the help of modern computers, the digital media is easy to interpret and share with as many people as possible within a single network. The digital media addressed here refers to video, images, texts, and music. Despite the ease in duplicating the digital media, the quality of the information is also maintained (Pavlik 2008, p.17). The easiness in duplicating digital information favors both the copyright holder and the pirates. The duplication process is cheap in terms of money and time. After production, it is easy to distribute products through online media stores. Media piracy occurs without the consent of the content developer. The issue of media piracy has been aggravated further by the increased rate of media in digital format. For example, in 2001, Mexico reported that increased availability of CD-Rs increased the level of piracy from 45% - 63%. This rise in piracy prompted content developers to deal with piracy through the best way possible ranging from copyright legislation to digital locks (Siemens 2005, p. 4). The issue of media sharing came with abilities to store and share large digital media files through computer networks. This development opened a new avenue for content creators and pirates to advance in their business. After the introduction of MP3 codec, people could obtain music from their CDs to MP3 files on the hard drive. One of the advantages of the MP3 file is that it is easy to transfer it through internet connections due to its small size. After realizing how easy it was to share music files, people started transferring files through FTP, Web pages, IRC and e-mails. This move caught CD designers by surprise since they had not anticipated for it (Cronan & Al-Rafee 2006, p.244). Siemens (2005, p. 6) concludes that the existing networks such as peer-to-peer further favored the process of sharing media files, and even earned a title of “file sharing networks”. One characteristic of peer-to-peer network is its need for a few servers or none at all. This is because a person sends information directly to another person’s computer. As people continued to share files through peer-to-peer networks, new networks specifically for the transfer of music emerged. These networks included Napster, Gnutella, eDonkey, FastTrack, Entropy, and several others. Just like peer-to-peer, these networks used a few servers to locate users on the network. In addition, users could even download the shared files and store them elsewhere. Napster became popular first, and within two years of its inception, it had attracted more than 10 million users. Other than its popularity, the network maintained all shared files as well as a list of all its users. Its increased popularity attracted attention from artists and record labels. The next move was to sue the network for illegal distribution of copyrighted contents without the consent of copyright holders. In 2001, Napster was closed, but other file sharing networks remained operational (Pavlik 2008, p27). Protection of media contents The case of Napster and other digital file sharing networks taught the media industries valuable lessons. One of the revelations was that copyright laws could not be regarded as sufficient in the fight against piracy. Therefore, there was a serious need to end piracy of digital content. The resulting measure was the introduction of Digital Rights Management, DRM (Matsuura 2009, p32). Digital Rights Management enables content creators to have control over the use and copying of media. Several technologies such as encryption and user authentication are applied. These technologies rely on features of electronic media players. An example of a DRM is Content Scrambling System, which has been in use since 1990 for the protection of DVDs. In CSS, a basic encryption algorithm is used to prevent unauthorized equipment from reading disc contents. Just like any other protection mechanisms, CSS has suffered several attacks from hackers and crackers. One of the attacks was in 1999, when CSS was reverse-engineered to circumvent the Digital Rights Management (Sinha & Mandel 2008, p.3). The issue of digital piracy continues to worsen as online music and video stores are become popular. In the recent past, online stores have been accused of selling unauthorized songs and albums in MP3 format. However, iTune, which is the leading online marketer of digital media, has DRM in place to prevent unauthorized playing of contents. Purchasing of any song or video from iTune is restricted to certain accounts. Furthermore, the purchaser is only allowed to play the music on a few computers and selected iPods (Waldfogel 2012, p.50). This move has brought multiple complains from competitors who want products from iTunes to function in their iPods and computers. The technology used by iTune has not been spared by crackers; on several occasions, it has been reverse-engineered to allow accesses of music and videos (Sinha & Mandel 2008, p.5). The introduction of DRM became a noble idea in the fight against digital piracy, but at times, it interferes with the freedom of legitimate customers to use products without much restriction. Consumers complain of issues regarding authentication in order to play legally purchased media product. In some occasions, the media products may fail to play due to incompatibilities that arise from protection schemes. Various opponents of DRM have come out to protest against the move claiming that it violates consumer’s rights of accessing information. An important thing to note about DRM is that it relies on the ability of player devices to detect unauthorized products, but it does not limit reproduction of media material electronically (Matsuura 2009, p.51). Software piracy Just like media information, the software market has also suffered serious losses since the digital era. In early days when software development was at its infancy, there used to be little attention on its protection. In 1980, the Computer Software Copyright Act came into place but had partial protection of software. Initially, production of hardware and software used to be a joint venture, thus the lack of seriousness in protection of software. The real value of software came to the realization of people once its production went solo, and sales could be made in large quantities (Waldfogel 2012, p.58). Early computer developers focused more on the sale of hardware than on sale of software. This phenomenon pushed computer users to form groups that would help in sharing of software. The groups managed to develop software of their own, which helped further in boosting the usability of available hardware. In the 1980s, the main item used in the sharing of software comprised of the floppy disk. At that time, sharing of software using floppies was perceived as an act of piracy. Software companies came up with protection mechanisms to curb piracy (Matsuura 2009, p.62). Increased realization of the potential of software business resulted to the establishment of recognized organizations that would protect copyrighted software from piracy. The two organizations formed in the 1980s were Software Publisher Association and Business Software Alliance. One of the initiatives of these organizations included a campaign against copying software using floppies (Fenwick & Locks 2010, p.24). The advent of the Internet moved the business of sharing software to a whole new level. Existing networks during the inception of the internet found it a quick and easy way of sharing software (Cronan & Al-Rafee 2006, p.250). One of the most notable networks then was Bulletin Board Systems. In the 1980s, BBS traded unauthorized software across its network. Later, BBS developed a number of sites purposely for the sharing of pirated software. When BBS was conducting its operations, hosting pirated software without charging was not a crime. The Net Act later came to criminalize hosting of pirated software. BBS continued to trade in pirated software, but its business came to an end when the use of the internet gained popularity (Sinha & Mandel 2008, p.8). Emergence of the internet has had profound effects on sharing of information across the globe. One of the most notable channels used for the distribution of pirated software was the Internet relay chat (Matsuura 2009, p65). Through IRC protocols, pirates could share software. As time went by, the public gained access into IRC channel to obtain pirated software. Apart from IRC, the other notorious channel for trafficking pirated software included Usenet. Usenet facilitated transfer of binary information of a given file size. Today, much of data relayed through Usenet is binary in nature, which makes it a reliable route for transferring digital data (Waldfogel 2012, p.69). IRC and Usenet later came up with websites to host pirated software. Just like BBS, IRC and Usenet operators could be easily located for legal actions for dealing with pirated products. However, operators of these websites were wise enough to host their websites in countries without piracy laws. Hosting such websites in the first world countries could have made it easier to locate them due to their strict rules against piracy (Pavlik 2008, p.35). As discussed earlier, peer-to-peer networks played a key role in the transfer of digital media information. Later, P2P became a much safer channel for trafficking pirated software due to legal difficulties associated with direct web hosting. Use of P2P network never required too much knowledge to use it, which opened piracy to a large audience. Currently, BitTorrent is the latest P2P technology in use for piracy purposes. This technology offers a new channel that allows users to communicate with each other. By doing so, there is no any centralized control point that can be targeted for legal actions. With BitTorrent, users are required to upload files as they do their downloading, but it has emerged that users can bypass the uploading task (Pavlik 2008, p.42). The issue of media and software piracy continues to be an issue of concern worldwide. These two industries have no option, but to come up with radical measures to end unauthorized use of copyrighted products. A clear fact is that once people realize software or media product is valuable, they will certainly share it out. The digital medium has made copying an easy task; for this reason, organizations mandated to fight piracy are committed to fighting digital piracy to the end. Various copy protection measures in place restrict a person’s ability to share copyrighted products to multiple digital mediums (Waldfogel 2012, p.73). The use of locks on media and software products is not fully effective because people determined to copy the product will always “break” the locks. Two technologies are available to further strengthen the fight against digital piracy (Waldfogel 2012, p.75). One technique uses software that searches through the World Wide Web for any web site that might be hosting pirated products. Once a website is discovered, a request is sent to the ISP to remove pirated files from their servers. The other technique is referred to as poisoning, and it targets digital piracy taking place through P2P channels. Poisoning operates through injecting high levels of decoy into the P2P network in order to decrease the availability of certain files (Matsuura 2009, p.66). Trusted computing is the new technology under development, and with it, unlicensed digital products will not run in computers with such applications (Waldfogel 2012, p.80). Copyright laws Other than technological measures, there are legal responses towards digital piracy. Under the copyright laws, of most concern is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act since it is the most elaborate law compared to other laws that existed before it. Before DMCA came into place, many digital piracy cases had been heard across the world. One intriguing thing about the court rulings is that a lot had been neglected regarding numerous advancements in the digital world. For example, there are no clear laws against people charged with the unlocking of copyrighted digital products (Matsuura 2009, p.71). In 1998, the DMCA came in place and gave content developers the legal power to fight digital piracy from all perspectives. Persons found circumventing “digital locks” could now face charges in a court of law. In addition, developers of tools that aid in circumventing digital rocks face serious charges in a court of law. Therefore, anticircumvention regulations enable copyright holders to add locks on their digital products, and sue anyone who interferes with the locks (Fenwick & Locks 2010, p.28). Conclusion It is evident that the digital age has rendered copyright obsolete. This is because copyrighted digital products continue to be copied even to date. However, a lot has been done in an attempt to bring infringement of copyrighted products to an end. The bitter reality is that pirates are always ahead technologically to clear any hindrances to their piracy business. Even with stern laws such as the DMCA, digital piracy seems to get deep rooted as the digital age gets more advanced. In my opinion, it is only a change of behavior and respect for each other’s effort that can bring digital piracy to an end. References List Cronan, S. & Al-Rafee, S. (2006). Digital Piracy: Factors that Influence Attitude Toward Behavior. Journal of business ethics 63 (3). pp.237-259. Fenwick, T. & Lock, I. (2010). Copyright in the Digital Age: Industry Issues and Impacts, New York, Wildy Simmonds & Hill . pp13-28. Matsuura, J. H. (2009). Managing Intellectual Assets in the Digital Age, London, Artech House. pp.15-85. Pavlik, J. V. (2008). Media in the Digital Age, Columbia, Columbia University Press.pp.10-50. Sinha, R. & Mandel, N. (2008). Preventing Digital Music Piracy: The Carrot or the Stick? Journal of Marketing 72 (1). pp. 1-15. Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning 2 (1). pp.3-10. Waldfogel, J. (2012). "Copyright Research in the Digital Age: Moving from Piracy to the Supply of New Products." American Economic Review,102 (3). pp. 337–42. Read More