I read this article on Techcrunch: http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/26/lessig-calls-google-book-settlement-a-path-to-insanity/ about a view on the Google Book project.  The author, Lawrence Lessig, criticizes the Google Book project settlement on concerns over how this might change copyright law.  He’s concerned with if books are treated in parts – instead of in totality – it will make future usability very difficult.

I agree that this digital world has seriously challenged the role of intellectual property in our society.  The power of technology has changed our ability to use “intellectual” property in new ways – to make it much easier to store, use, copy, share, etc. what is someone else’s work.

There is an inherent tension between the right to own what you make and the right of society to make use of that work – especially in the long term.  It makes sense that if you make something of value you should have some exclusive right to it.  However, those rights need to be balanced against the needs of society as a whole.

Fair use for Consumer?

  • As a consumer if personally find most DRM techniques to be quite annoying.  If I buy something I want to be able to use it – in multiple devices, to have a backup copy, etc.  I personally won’t buy any digital downloads unless they are DRM free – that’s why I like Amazon.
  • That’s why I find the whole DVD encryption thing to be quite annoying – it would be nice to be able to back them up and put them on my computer
  • That said – I do NOT condone copying – as that’s not what you bought.  The reality is that copying has been going on for decades – starting with cassette tapes (anybody else remember the dual tape decks).

Copyright Laws?

  • Ownership of items has become so complicated – would you believe that the song “Happy Birthday” is under copyright? (http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp).
  • It makes sense to me that if I create some art that I own the rights to that for a time (provided I choose not to open it up).  It would seem like 20-30 years would be reasonable for it to be mine – to have right to only use, to license, etc.  In the US the term of copyright is the life of the author plus 70 years (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/usc_sec_17_00000302—-000-.html)
  • So just about anything you want to do that involves something else that somebody created (unless it’s really, really, really old) will involve licensing the usage of the product.  So this involves a lengthy negotiation with multiple parties to secure the right – and likely for a very limited scope.  Alternatively you can pay a large fee to have some rights to a collection of works – such as the CCLI (http://www.ccli.com/).
  • The reality is that this licensing has been so complicated that even the RIAA violated the very rules it was suing other people for infriging on (http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=92574)
  • What unfortunately this does is create an environment where your customers are treated almost like criminals from the start.  I seriously wonder if content owners would want me to buy their product over and over for each use of it.  I’m not sure that many people really want to do this – so I don’t think they’re going to meet this goal..
  • There is a growing trend, however, where authors are releasing their works in a more open manner – for example under the Creative Commons license http://creativecommons.org/about/what-is-cc

Patent Laws

  • Patents applied to physical things often make sense – as they are very specific and clear to document.
  • Patent laws applied to software I find to be problematic – as they often seem so obvious to me.
  • One of the most famous patents is the Eolas patent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eolas) – the one that caused issues with embedded code in Internet Explorer
  • The actual title of the patent is “”Distributed hypermedia method for automatically invoking external application providing interaction and display of embedded objects within a hypermedia document” – which today seems kind of obvious.  So basically it’s saying that a web document can call an external application and embed the results within that web page.
  • This patent to me seems like one that is pretty obvious would happen naturally – as calling another program isn’t a new concept….
  • Another patent questionable to me is Apple’s multi-touch patent (http://news.worldofapple.com/archives/2009/01/26/apple-awarded-multi-touch-patent/) – to me it seems like once you have a touch screen the concept of being able to do more than one touch would be inevitable…  If you had some specific code behind the actual finger actions that would be one thing – but the concept seems pretty obvious…
  • Unfortunately what this systems creates is the risk that you could, on your own, create some software that infringes on a patent you didn’t know about.  This puts you at risk, your customers potentially at risk for something you did honestly.

One of my main concerns is the risk to the economy in restricting innovation – as how much energy is spent on legal manners versus creating/improving technology.  I believe the future of the U.S. economy (and probably other Western countries) will depend highly on innovation – of creating value.  While content owners have rights I’m concerned that their concerns could override the need of the society as a whole to innovate, to create more value.

The other concern I have is generational – as those younger than me have a different view of ownership – in that they don’t respect it much.  They’re growing up in a world of free – regardless of whether it’s legal.  I think content owners need to make it easy for consumers to be legal.  The digital revolution may change m any equations (such as more niche and less mass media) – the key will be for companies to work with this movement – not against it.

I don’t think this will be decided easily – as it does need some legislative action to craft new laws to fit our new digital world.  With what I see in Congress today I don’t see much hope for effective action – for a carefully crafted and vetted piece of legislation that balances the rights of content owners with the rights of consumers and other companies building value on top of that content.  And frankly there is a lot of money involved – which makes the whole process more convoluted.  The danger though is that technology will continue to advance and make such a convoluted mess of things that courts ended up deciding the issue – on a case by case basis.  the net result could be chaos in the economy – as it will become dangerous to innovate.

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