The Information Age

The Application of Copyright

The so-called information age carries new problems for the application of copyright. These problems derive from the switch from physical form to electronic form in the case of so much copyright material.

There are three main types of problem:

Ease of reproduction
Copyrighted material in digital form can be copied perfectly without any damage to or diminution in the quality of the original. Indeed it is possible to create an infinite number of master copies. Such copying is increasingly easy and increasingly cheap.

Electronic transmission adds a further dimension to this problem. Products that can be transmitted on-line can be easily copied and, if such a product is on the Internet, it can be copied anywhere in the world. One author - Diane Coyle in her book "The Death of Distance" - has written "The Internet... can be considered one gigantic copying machine".

Such piracy constitutes a particular problem for the entertainment and software industries. Such products sell, not for what it costs to make a physical object (such as a book or a compact disc), but for a price that may reflect heavy research costs (as in the case of databases), an ingenious idea (such as movies or books), or spending on branding (as with rock groups). Therefore they have high development costs but low production costs.

Difficulties of enforcement

It is becoming much harder to enforce copyright for several reasons:

Electronic media make it more difficult to establish a legal definition of copyright. Any visit to a web site technically involves the automatic downloading of material, however temporarily.
In the era of rapid and easy electronic communications on a global basis, it is difficult to maintain national restrictions on distribution. The sale of books and music at different prices in different countries will not be possible when such products are available on a web site.
Digital products are more prone to personal piracy as opposed to large-scale fraud. One does not need a manufacturing facility to produce or a warehousing facility to store pirated products, but instead one can simply use an ordinary personal computer in the privacy of one's home.
It is increasingly difficult to track down the source of illicit material. Pirated software may be put on the Internet by a person living in one country; it may be held in a computer in a second country; and it may be advertised through a computer in yet a third country.

Difficulties of payment

Payment for use of digitalised material is difficult when the material can be re-used, transformed, and distributed in so may different ways.

Any new payment system will need certain characteristics:

some way of identifying the rights holder which is internationally recognised;
an identifying sign attached to every copyright work in whole or in part;
some system of billing on the basis of micro-payments;
a mechanism for tracking fees due and issuing bills to the correct organisation or individual.

--Roger Darlington

Flexible Copyright