Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Tue - Copyright in the digital age

One of the biggest issues and challenges that the internet and the wider digital world has unleashed is that of copyright and copyright protection. The great opportunity that the internet, in particular, created was that of freedom of information. The problem is that with it came not just freedom of information, but also loads of "free" content. Some of it was meant to be free, and was indeed the roots of the internet as a network for academics and researchers, but lots was not meant to be free.

The growth of "not meant to be free" content flying around the ever growing global network, that the internet now is, has wreaked havoc with content owners worldwide. And I remember Alan Cane, then of the Financial Times, announcing back in the 1990's that the ultimate winners in the digital age would be content owners: "content is King". Well, I'm not sure that the music or publishing industry would wholeheartedly agree - at least not yet, anyway.

The last few years has seen a global revolution in file sharing and swapping which has led to tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions of people illegally downloading music files, movies and more. The most dramatically damaged industry has been the music industry, which has lost billions and billions of dollars of sales as a result.

But, could the tide now be turning? The last year or so has seen governments and courts around the world hit back. This week saw an Australian federal court order Sharman Networks to filter out copyrighted material from its Kazaa Media Desktop software within months or face closure. (Nearly 320M people have been estimated to have downloaded Kazaa.) This comes 10 weeks after the US supreme court ruled against Grokster, and found that makers of peer to peer (p2p) software that enables file-sharing between computers could be held liable for any copyright infringements by their users. Last month a Korean court required Soribada, a p2p network, to halt unauthorised file-swapping on its network or to shut down.

In the Kazaa case, Australian courts lack jurisdiction overseas, but the judgement should influence copyright infringement cases worldwide. It does seem as though momentum is now growing in dealing with copyright abuse on the internet. This is important given the explosion of the internet we are likely to see over the next decade as it goes mobile through wi-fi and wireless telephone networks, and as the internet delivers all means of communications from telephony to TV. As the internet matures and becomes all pervasive in your home, at work and in your palm, copyright does and will need to get protected.

For the consumer it will mean that those who want to find free content will find it harder and harder, particularly if it is illegal. For those of us willing to pay, the digital unleashing of content has only just begun. The next decade will deliver music, books, TV, movies, radio and loads more over the internet to your PC, your TV, your mobile phone, your wireless PDA or notebook, your car and much more. The itunes model from Apple has shown the world how to mass-sell content legally and profitably over the internet. They will prove to be the key tipping point in unleashing legal and valuable models for selling almost any kind of content to almost any kind of digital device.

Maybe Tom Kane will prove to be right after all; "content is King"!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cable news: one guy's opinion
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Anonymous said...

really enjoyed it. Thanks!