Copyright Infringement
Since I am fresh from the Nashville Music Conference, my eye was caught by news that the Broadband Breakfast Club is putting on a panel called Finding Solutions to Problems of Copyright Infringement — Oct. 12 from 8-10 a.m. (Details/Registration.)
The blurb:
Almost all parties agree that piracy in all of its varieties (P2P services, potentially infringing cyberlockers, unlicensed streaming sites) has been a widespread problem confronting copyright holders for more than a decade. Although the content industry has secured court victories against infringers and inducers, they have taken years. Fresh thinking is warranted: what are some practical approaches to addressing piracy more effectively? What role can intermediaries (like payment processors, advertisers, telecommunications providers and search engines) play to combat piracy? What can the government do?
Gee, I can’t wait to hear the answers. (But no pressure, guys.)
Stop making the paying customer’s lives more difficult for purchasing legitimate goods would be a start.
When applying a new technology in the market, many anti-piracy advocates think about how this makes life more difficult for the pirate, but fails to think about how they are making life for the consumer. Many instances I know of legitimate consumers of software to look to pirates to fix the problems with software they purchased because of instabilities caused by some form of anti-counter-fitting measure. In some cases support from the very vendor would direct customers to apply patches to thwart the anti-piracy software implemented by the developer.
The customer gets very frustrated with this.
One could easily end all copyright infringement at a stroke, by repealing the privilege established in 1709 by Queen Anne – subsequently re-enacted in 1790 in the US, and many other jurisdictions.
Sometimes the obvious answer is actually the correct answer.
Empower ordinary people who agree piracy has gone too far.
Take music, for example. If I were a computer programmer, I would create a piece of software to read and overwrite each mp3 with the sound of chirping crickets, exactly matching the hash sum values of the original torrent file, then proceed to seed the corrupted file, rendering it utterly useless.
The same application could corrupt all manner of torrent files (music, other computer software, etc). It would be the responsibility of interested parties to seed the corrupted file long enough for the file to be rendered unusable.
Unfortunately, law enforcement agencies will not create a Torrent killer because it requires individuals to first download copyrighted material (even if they intend to corrupt it) which remains illegal. So someone is going to have to do this ‘unofficially’ and release the code as freeware.
What are you waiting for? We exist. Empower us!
I think one of the only effective ways to “defeat” piracy is to address why people are pirating. I find it interesting that the standing question is, “What role can intermediaries (like payment processors, advertisers, telecommunications providers and search engines) play to combat piracy?” when it should be something more like, “Why are people pirating and how can we make legitimate products more attractive than pirated ones?”
All who pirate do so knowing that there come risks to doing so. I would further go on to say that if a market existed for a legitimate good with comparable features to those of pirated goods that consumers would rather stay on the “honest” side of the market.
The problem is that legitimate goods these days fall extremely short of being comparable to pirated goods in todays market. Price aside I think the following info graphic says a lot…
http://davidrothman.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/pirate-vs-pay.png
P.S. That does even begin to comment on the fact that when I buy my legitimate copy it doesn’t work on all my systems (computer, Ipod, Phone, etc.)
Want to beat piracy? Make a comparable product available…
Leave your response!
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