The Internet, it’s a Copyright Feature, Not a Bug

Looked at in terms of copyright, the Digital World was perceived as a bug. The ease of copying led to rampant infringement that harmed creators. In contrast, again looked at in terms of copyright, I submit that the Networked World should be embraced as a feature.  ~ Tom Rubin, Chief Counsel for IP Strategy at Microsoft

It seems like a point that ought to be obvious, the internet is a good thing.  But, Mr. Rubin is talking about the internet solely through the eyes of copyright law, and here, it is hard to argue that the internet has been treated as a problem.  The Digital World doesn’t fit neatly into existing copyright law and, for the past two decades the most common approach has been to try to jam it in forcefully, hammering the new round peg into the old square hole.

Mr. Rubin explored this issue as part of the Intellectual Property in the International Arena: WIPO Comes to Stanford conference hosted at Stanford Law School last month.  As part of the panel “Copyright in a Networked World,”  Mr. Rubin discussed two main needs for a working copyright system in the digital world.  First: speed and scalability.  Content users need to be able to find and license works quickly.  Second, and related to the first: working information sources and databases.  Content users need to be able to find out who owns the rights to a work quickly and easily. 

Mr. Rubin’s full recount of his participation on the Copyright in a Networked World panel is available at the Stanford CIS blog.  Full reading of this short and interesting piece is encouraged.

Google plans superfast highway

Are Google's new broadband plans the death knell for the content industries as we know them - or a brave new world with ever increasing opportunities for interacting with consumers?

Google has announced plans to launch a new optic fibre network delivering broadband speeds of up to 100 times those currently available to consumers - one gigabit per second. This is on top of the $7.2 billion (£4.6 billion) promised by President Obama for broadband infrastructure in the US. The new Google networks, to be trialled in up to 500,000 homes in a number of cities in the USA, will mean that users can download a high definition full length feature film in just a few minutes - although luckily it seems also true that that rural clinics in the USA will be able to (legally) send 3D medical images over the networks, or so press reports say.

Content owners will watch this one carefully - and this topic is just going to get more and more interesting, especially in light of the SABAM v Tiscali reference to the European Court Justice, the Australian Federal Court's decision that Internet Service Providers cannot be held liable for copyright infringements committed by their subscribers and the various adoptions of 'three strikes' laws in France, South Korea and Taiwan. Clearly the decisions of courts and governments are going to be critical in underpinning (or undermining) the future business models for record, film and TV companies, games companies and ISPs, mobile companies and other intermediaries.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7207160/Google-to-trial-its-own-ultra-fast-fibre-optic-network.html

Swedish internet use falls after new user identity law comes into force

Writing for vnunet.com, Phil Muncaster ("Swedish net traffic halves after new law: new anti-piracy law scares off illegal file sharers") describes the immediate aftermath of the implementation last week of the new anti-piracy law which lets copyright holders such as record and entertainment companies go to court to determine the identities of those suspected of piracy, via their IP addresses. Till now, illegal file sharing has been the prerogative of the anonymous.

Netnod, a Swedish enterprise that manages many of the country’s key internet exchanges, has reported a drop of around half since Wednesday, when the law took effect, and reports that throughput has yet to pick up. In technical terms, data transmission rates have declined from a peak of around 190/200 Gbit/sec to daily highs since Wednesday of about 100 Gbit/sec.