Grey Hats

[JQ Johnson]

Lloyd Davidson writes:

> Napster and other P2P systems that flagrantly break copyright bear much
> of  the responsibility for the sudden heightened interest by publishers
> of all  media in highly secure digital rights management (DRM) systems,

I think the timing is wrong for this claim (though I agree with some of the 
other points made by Davidson).  The main push from the publishing industry 
for reform of the US copyright law occured prior to P2P in 1996-97, 
culminating in the 1998 changes to the copyright law (DMCA).  At the time, 
there were at least 4 prongs to the attack:
  - eliminate the public domain by increasing copyright term
  - add technological protection measures
  - clarify ISP liability limits and copyright enforcement responsibilities
  - create copyright protection for "mere facts" i.e. databases

All but the last pushes have been largely successful, dramatically changing 
the copyright landscape, mostly in favor of the publishers.

I believe that if you look at increased investment in DRMS (e.g. image 
watermarking technologies) you'll see that the big push began several years 
ago as well.

Napster et al have been responsible for the suddenly heightened public 
interest, but I think it would be naive to say that publishers weren't 
several years ahead of this game.  In fact, I'd go so far as to argue that 
it was the publishers' IP grab in the 90s that created Napster, not the 
other way around.

P.S.:  get ready for a big attack on Feist again this year.  And start 
paying serious attention to UCITA.

JQ Johnson                      Office: 115F Knight Library
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