Saving online copyright: Virtual markets need real intervention

2006

In the last two decades, the industry has deployed endlessly the rhetoric of the “digital threat” in order to demand harsher measures against digital piracy. Recently, the “digital threat” discourse called for enhanced liability of online intermediaries, especially those whose platforms may be used to infringe copyright. This short paper shows that the “digital threat” discourse is based on shaky grounds. Two related arguments might run against this approach. First, market conditions might incentivise piracy. Additionally, there are raising doubts over the argument that piracy is a threat to creativity, especially in the digital environment. Overall, it may be hard to find a factual justification for policy decisions based on the “digital threat” discourse. In fact, digital technology seems not to have negatively affected the creation of new works. In contrast, an observation of the literature and quantitative analysis on point may suggest that digital piracy can be an opportunity for the cultural market. Finally, piracy may function as an innovation policy by forcing market players to innovate in response to a consumer demand that widespread piracy highlights.

Retrieved May, 2006

This explorative paper examines the impact of online piracy on the emergence of innovative, legitimate business models. While often dismissed by academics and professionals alike, online piracy has shown to be a valuable source of innovation to both industry incumbents and entrepreneurs. The paper briefly summarizes the evolution of piracy technologies and associated online communities. Then, the paper explores piracy in the media industry and discusses the means by which it has influenced innovation. Finally, the paper observes the Torrent phenomenon and suggests its potential impacts on the emergence of new business models.

The John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law, 2013

The scarlet letter of the term "troll" has long been affixed to the lapel of businesses within the patent context. This pejorative term, however, has had little relevance or widespread public recognition within the domain of copyright law until 2010. Since the awakening of the "copyright troll," several non-author rights holders have recently adopted and propagated a substantially modified version of this sue-to-settle paradigm within the context of copyright law while introducing it to the scale of mass-litigation. Further, the amorphous term "copyright troll" traditionally characterizes a business practice of acquiring unenforced copyrights that are being infringed upon through various online media vehicles while monetizing the fundamental disconnect between the current copyright law and Internet users' behavioral norms. Without typically authoring original works of expression, these businesses seek to extract rapid settlements from a nexus of antiquated intellectual property laws while chilling free speech and disincentivizing innovation. As a result of creative manipulation, both the original policy-backed intentions instilled by the Framers within the 1976 Act and the delicate balance between hyper-and hypo-enforcement have been patently disrupted. Moreover, the ramifications of "troll" litigation tactics have ensnared countless innocent users into costly litigation and settling unwarranted claims to avoid being perpetually associated with the illegal activity of online copyright infringement. As the scope of online copyright infringement continues to exponentially expand, this legal uncertainty acts as a catalyst for those willing to probe the outskirts of the Act. This comment focuses on three specific businesses publicly labeled as "copyright trolls," details their evolution from hyperlinking to peer-to-peer file-sharing, and analyzes the current state of copyright law in the realm of the digital marketplace.

Piracy is taking on an entirely new character in the age of media in the cloud. Global technology and business models are evolving rapidly, while regulators and lawmakers are catching up in attempts to work out a new set of rules of engagement. In this article, I explore the divergent developments between a retrograde global copyright governance regime and cloud-based media distribution that focuses on connectivity and access. I also examine attempts at business model innovation that seek to effectively embrace and control the continually evolving user–content– platform interaction in the cloud. This article will contribute to our understanding of this rapidly changing ecosystem and the dynamics between technology, law and market.

Bepress Legal Series, 2004

The Internet and Copyright Law are particularly ill-suited to each other. One is designed to give as much information as possible to everyone who wants it; the other allows authors, artists and publishers to earn money by restricting the distribution of works made out of information. The beneficiaries of copyright law are lobbying for the re-design of computers and the Internet to instate "content control" and "digital rights management" (DRM). These technologies are intended to make copyright workable again by re-imposing limits on access to information goods, but they carry high direct and indirect social costs.

California Management Review, 2010

International Journal of Private Law, 2011

The recently published Media Piracy in Emerging Economies report includes a detailed consideration of the conflict between the regulatory approach of strengthening IP regulations and enforcement, and the establishing of new business models in order to take advantage of efficient digital distribution. This paper defines the currently existing digital distribution model that describes how consumers presently access digital content, both legitimately and illegitimately. This foundation is then used to identify a number of alternative new business models and existing models that have been adapted from the analogue age such as indirectly supported distribution and advertising supported distribution, and the operation of the network effect, that together rely on a model of efficient distribution. It is concluded that due to the ineffectiveness of stronger enforcement at impeding piracy, the adoption of new models to adapt to efficient distribution remains the most efficacious approach.

This article examines the role of online media piracy in the shift away from acquisitionand ownership-based models of consumption in favor of access-based models. In this media industry climate, cloud technologies have played an increasingly important role in providing audiences with content on their own terms. Piracy has long served a similar function, but it is taking on aspects of cloud services as well. I investigate how cloud technologies are changing media piracy activities by examining cyberlockers, web-based services that afford consumers ubiquitous access and ownership of media content.

Sociological Perspectives on Media Piracy in the Philippines and Vietnam, 2016

This chapter assesses the future trends and trajectory of the optical media piracy. Media piracy is an evolving cybercrime which can easily adapt to the current technological and global environment. It traces briefly the development of media piracy from the VCR technology using the cassette format to the current digital and nanotechnology using the Internet and file sharing protocols. Optical disc piracy will be a transitory phenomenon in developing countries with underdeveloped IP and Internet culture. As the country increases in Internet penetration, the locus of media piracy shifts from the temporal space of the sidewalk stalls selling pirated DVDs or illegal CD–DVD shops to the cyberspace of the Internet. The use of discs becomes less popular as media piracy becomes more convenient, easier, and cheaper with direct illegal downloading, peer-to-peer sharing, and other evasive techniques using the latest sophisticated hardware and software technologies. This chapter then examines some popular and current online digital piracy such as peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, cyberlocker, media box, anti-circumvention technology, digital spying and hacking, and other Internet piracy supported by digital, cloud, and nanotechnology. It also makes projections on media piracy look like with the advent of quantum computing and technology. Media piracy follows technological advancement and innovation, thus making it difficult for authorities to curb as it uses the same technology used by copyright holders which provides them with a variety of options to respond to regulation. Finally, this chapter examines the difficulty of regulating the Internet and the role and future involvement of China in counterfeiting and media piracy. With the rise of online media piracy, regulating the Internet would then be the main challenge of law enforcement and copyright owners as regulating the Internet to curb piracy would not be easy with legality and illegality becoming more intimately connected with the growing sophistication of technology and conflicting business interests between service providers and content providers and between copyright industries and top IT and ICT.