Copyright, censorship and an American-led digital world
Given how dominant US websites are on the internet, the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) would — if passed — have global implications. And with worldwide website ‘blackouts’, commentary on the subject has hardly been limited to the United States. Bernard Keane hasn’t let the loss of Wikipedia slow down his efforts to pump out a column on the subject, raising his concerns about the bills and how media titans are tackling the issue.
I’ve got to be honest, it’s not the most compelling piece of writing on the subject. For instance, quibbling over statistics about how much online piracy is taking place is a rather moot point — the fact is, piracy exists. Attacking the dubious origin of figures trying to quantify the trend may be satisfying, but it doesn’t change the parameters of the debate. Much closer to the mark is the lack of innovation within the entertainment industry. As Keane notes, the big players had every opportunity to set up their own digital distribution channels. But their negligence left the door wide open to the likes of Apple (iTunes), Spotify and Netflix. (Indeed, the evidence suggests that the availability of these legal channels has helped to dampen down illegal file sharing.) The old guard might be bitter about having to share the spoils of their business with new upstarts. But at least there are spoils to share — and in some senses, the old media companies can claim little credit for that given their own foot-dragging.
None of this is to suggest that content owners don’t have a right to protect — and profit from — their intellectual property. Indeed, it’s important for them to do so, because otherwise they will not bother to invest in content development in the first place. If no one were to ever pay for what they download, then there would be no commercial incentive to produce music, movies, TV shows, software, books and so on. (Yes, some would still exist — many musicians don’t expect to make money from their art, many coders contribute freely to open source projects — but output would be vastly lower, less diverse and arguably of lower quality.) The question is, in the digital world, what copyright enforcement measures are need to ensure the benefits of content production are realised at the lowest overall cost to society? Given the onerous burden that would be placed on internet service providers and major content disseminators — like Google, Wikipedia and Facebook — SOPA and PIPA certainly don’t seem to be the best answer.
