The Future of Copyright

[David Tristano]

Another look at the copyright issue:

Authors, artists, and musicians need the means of publication and
distribution of their intellectual property plus some way to be fairly
compensated for their work.

The publishing/recording industry served as the intermediary between the
creators and consumers of intellectual property because it used to be
(!) expensive and difficult to distribute these works.

In this digital/internet/information age we live in, that is no longer
the case.  Although publishing companies still have copyright law, and
lawyers, and lobbyists, and money on their side, it seems to me that
they no longer play an essential role in the process.  The recording
industry will lash out against Napster and Moviester and the next 10
things that come down the pike, and they will fight with everything
they've got, but they are only protecting their own economic interests. 
They do not serve the public interest ($17 CDs?), and they do not serve
artists' interests (just ask a musician or author.)

New technologies enable the distribution of intellectual property, but
they also enable duplication and theft.  This doesn't mean (the idea of)
copyright is dead.  It means we need new ways to think about selling or
distributing intellectual property.  It may mean we need new ways to
think about what constitutes *use* of intellectual property.  It may
mean we devise new ways of compensating artists for their works.

I suspect new and effective copyright laws will emerge and will look
nothing like the current system which only serves interests of the
publishing/recording industry.

I suspect encryption technologists and crackers will continue to duel;
neither side will ever get far ahead of the other.  Some small fraction
of the population will be interested in stealing no matter how easy or
hard it is, but that will not prevent a workable system from emerging.

I suspect libraries (both bricks-n-mortar and digital) will play an
increasingly important roll in this "information age" we are living in,
serving the interests of all: artists, consumers and educators.  It
seems to me that as storage,  manipulation, and retrieval of content
becomes more important, and distribution becomes trivially simple,
libraries will replace publishers as the intermediaries.

We should not be taking our lead on the copyright issue from the
publishing/recording industry.  They are dinosaurs, and hopefully in ten
years they'll be dead.

Respectfully,

David Tristano
The Math Forum/MathDL