It’s been almost ten years since the original Napster garnered the world’s attention, and lovers of music but not of musicians continue to download and share unauthorized songs, an illegal activity that now includes movies, e-books and other digital media. We heard calls from people as prominent as members of Congress calling for new business models; well, new ones keep coming out every day. We’re told consumers want media for free; well, increasingly that is one of the models (even if folks are still trying to figure out how to monetize it).

So why do we see so many people continue to steal the works of creators and violate their rights on P2P and other sharing networks? Because they can, and they feel they’re unlikely to get caught.

Attorney John McKinlay sees a change occurring in Europe, however. What’s driving that change? 1) Increased civil enforcement. 2) Increased criminal enforcement. 3) Increased cooperation from ISPs:

For a long time, it seemed these downloaders and file-sharers could carry on with relative impunity. Not only did it not feel illegal (at least not in the way that stealing a CD from a high street store does) but the risk of getting caught was negligible. Now, however, a combination of tactics, technology and tenacity has seen the war against file-sharing take a new turn.

Of course, only those amateur economists trying to rationalize theft would say that one can steal a digital work because it’s virtual and no longer “scarce,” but not a CD which is physical. We can’t ignore the fact that both forms of that same work came from the same creative process. They are equal from a user perspective (is your user experience really different when you listen to an iTunes download vs. a CD track?) and under the law, as the creator has equal rights associated with both manifestations of the work.

I’m very pleased that European nations and trade associations are getting tougher on piracy, and that European ISPs are becoming more cooperative. We could have that here in the US, too. Congress can pass copyright enforcement legislation this Congress, which would toughen penalties, provide more resources and enforcement options to law enforcement, and better coordinate governmental efforts. The PRO-IP Act passed the House by a 410-11 margin; here’s hoping the Senate bill clears the Judiciary Committee next week, so we can use what little time is left in this Congress to come up with language the House and Senate can both accept.

The last two weeks we have heard numerous rallies to patriotism from Denver and St. Paul. Do we really want the US to fall behind Europe in protecting the rights of our creators?

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 1:05 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under capitol hill, copyright law, copyright opponents, creators, international, p2p, piracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.