Lawrence Lessig recently appeared on an episode of The Colbert Report, attempting to discuss the current state of copyright law in America and how it needs to be changed to cope with the world of digital media. One of his main points during the interview was that copyright law is turning 70% of kids into criminals for their music habits.
I can’t claim to be an expert on any type of law so I won’t discuss them, but I’d like to raise a single point: copyright laws in an internet context are nearly unenforceable. Just like any intellectual property license, the effort required to enforce a license grows with the number of licensees.
Now, I will argue that any artist, musician, director, writer, or whomever should have the right to produce a work and make a profit from that work. But, they have to be aware of and deal with the side effects of the distribution medium. An artist can create an oil painting on canvas and sell it. A musician can charge at the door for a performance. But once they step into any digital medium, they are now dealing with licenses. Not a product, not a measurable time period of entertainment, but a license.
What’s the problem with that? Well, imagine a company selling SuperBalls. Imagine that company marketing two types of balls: one for bouncing, and one for rolling. The two are identical except for the license that accompanies them. If you bought the SuperBall Roller, you’re only allowed to roll the ball. If you bought the SuperBall Bouncer, your license is only for bouncing. Now imagine that company attempting to enforce those licenses upon every 5-year-old kid who owns a SuperBall. Sounds like a ridiculous expectation of the company, right?
The root of the problem with digital copyright on the internet is that the group of licensees, due to its sheer size, is more difficult to manage than a million 5-year-old children. No company has the physical or financial resources for that scale of enforcement. Any company that has built their business model on the assumption that they can enforce their digital media licenses is doomed to fail.
Perhaps that’s a bold statement, considering Apple just announced that they’re removing the DRM from 8 million songs. But Apple’s iTunes store isn’t selling downloads. They’re selling convenience, variety, and image. They don’t have to worry about chasing down music pirates, because people will still buy songs. The RIAA recently announced that they are no longer suing individuals. Perhaps they’re just outsourcing the enforcement to the ISPs, but they seem to be slowly starting to realize the harsh reality of digital copyright.