When will all copyright get terminated?

The Blog

Efforts to reform copyright in an age of easy and convenient digital sharing could well "kill" copyright altogether, writes Kevin Carson.

Responding to an Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) lawsuit in a post for the Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) on 21 August, Carson offered the following commentary.

The EFF lawsuit states, "Section 1201 of the [US] Digital Millennial Copyright Act (DMCA)... is a violation of free speech rights under the First Amendment" since it "criminalizes not only the circumvention of Digital Rights Management (DRM), but criminalizes the sharing of information about how to do it".

Quoting Zag Rogoff at Defective by Design, Carson states the success of the EFF lawsuit would "amount to obliterating the “DRM Curtain” model of capitalism in the information field".

"It would put an end to the centerpieces of copyright culture today — DMCA takedowns, “three strikes” laws cutting off ISP services to illegal downloaders, and domain seizures of file-sharing sites", the C4SS writer elaborates.

The model of proprietary digital capitalism we’re familiar with — the central model of global corporate rent extraction — is absolutely dependent on police state measures like criminalizing the circumvention of DRM, the takedown (without due process of any kind) of allegedly infringing content online, and government seizure of Internet domains and web hosting servers without due process. Without them, it would simply collapse. 

But fortunately, that model of capitalism is doomed regardless of the outcome of EFF’s lawsuit (and I wish it well!). Even as it is, circumvention technologies have advanced so rapidly that DRM-cracked versions of new movies and songs typically show up on torrent sites the same day they’re released, and Millennials accept it file-sharing as a simple fact of life. This culture of circumvention is now spreading into academic publishing with SciHub. How long before it spreads to proprietary spare parts and diagnostic software?

Full post: Why “Reforming” Copyright Will Kill It

The analysis offered by Carson agrees with his overall thesis that intellectual property of any kind is untenable in the long term, as information and other types of production are easier to circulate and harder to control. All this is thanks to a revolution in the way we all communicate, with the aid of the internet and the diffusion of skills and technologies.

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It’s Time to Destroy #DRM

@jfrost.

On January 20, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced the Apollo 1201 project, an effort to eradicate digital rights management (DRM) schemes from the world of Internet commerce.

Led by well-known activist Cory Doctorow, the project aims to “accelerate the movement to repeal laws protecting DRM” and “kick-start a vibrant market in viable, legal alternatives to digital locks.” According to EFF, DRM technologies “threaten users’ security and privacy, distort markets, undermine innovation,” and don’t effectively protect so-called “intellectual property.”

EFF’s aim is true. DRM plays a huge role in extending the life of intellectual property monopolies and their evil effects on creation and innovation. Indeed, as EFF notes, DRM has become so intertwined with our society that a world with no DRM technologies seems hard to fathom. The debate becomes even more relevant given the widespread adoption of 3D printing, which is capable of making many “IP”-protected goods, and given moves by corporations to extend post-purchase control over those who buy their products.

Keurig, for example, recently tried to market a DRM-protected coffee machine that only recognizes its own “official” pods. Consumers weren’t too happy to find out they would have to hack their own spresso machines to brew coffee, since the so-called “2.0” pods weren’t available in sufficient quantities to satisfy demand.

From Apple’s cat-and-mouse race with jailbreaking phone buyers, to Amazon’s move into “exclusive” programming for its streaming service, to Netflix’s region-blocking (enthusiastically supported by the Motion Picture Association of America, a powerful US IP lobby), to rampant user control schemes by console video game makers, DRM has a long record of enabling predatory behavior by politically privileged players in captive “markets.” The enforcement of “intellectual property” claims has become so extensive and intrusive that “rights holders” feel increasingly free to interfere in production of content formerly considered fair use.

While corporations try to set up force fields around the content they control, users find ways to consume it without monitoring, breaking locks and sidestepping restrictions. While corporations treat their customers as potential criminals and try to control them at every turn, “pirates” supply ease and comfort.

The DRM world and the larger universe of state-granted and state-enforced “intellectual property” monopolies are black holes of inefficiency and bad customer service. It’s no accident that large corporations and their political cronies love DRM. They fear a genuinely free economy — one with no “intellectual property” and no “digital rights.”

Citations to this article:

• Erick Vasconcelos, Digital rights in political use, Dhaka, Bangladesh New Nation, 02/13/15
• Erick Vasconcelos, It’s Time to Destroy DRM, CounterPunch, 02/11/15

Erick Vasconcelos | More articles by Erick Vasconcelos

Originally published at C4SS on 10 February 2015
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