Copyright infringement

There is a lot of discussion in Sweden as well as in other parts of the world regarding copyright infringement of various kind that happens on the Internet. Mary writes about it (in Swedish), and also Vint Cerf talked about it at Internetdagarna in Stockholm.

The fact is that things changes. A lot. It is not possible to use any good analogy at all as analogies can be used both in favor and against the interest and wishes one has. What we can see is that things changes drastically when information is digitized. For normal physical items that I might have the rights to have. If I give that item to someone else, then I do not have the right to give the same item to someone else. It is even the case that I can not give (for example the book) to someone else. When I give away that item I do not have it anymore, so I can not give it away again without getting the item back.

Then we have the new world with Internet where both digitizing content and copying such content are fundamental features. A web browser copies (it does not transfer as in the example above about the book) content that resides on a web server, interprets that copied content, and display something for the user. I.e. copying something instead of transferring is just how the Internet works.

To then say that copying is not allowed does not work. We have to use different terminology, new crypto algorithms, possibly more watermarking and individual digital objects that can be copied, but also traced back to the origin. But if such DRM- and watermarked mechanisms are developed, it must at the same time be easy to transfer objects between devices, between people (owners), just like I can today read a book in bed, on the bathroom, in the library etc. And just like I can give a book to a friend (and then loose the book).

Today, we have either digitized content that can be moved around without any boundaries, or DRM- and watermarked items that can not be transferred. It seems either copyright owners or the buyers are happy with either of the two. And this implies for me we need new business models, ideas and inventions.

As I have written before, good things exists like B&W Music Club exists. I am a happy subscriber and am just downloading the current album with Julianna Raye, Dominoes. It is 208.3MByte in Apple Lossless format and also exists in FLAC. Good stuff!

Julianna Raye - Photo by Bryony Shearmour