Trends In Copyright Infringement: A Review of Two Predictive Articles

Trends In Copyright Infringement: A Review of Two Predictive Articles

Abstract: In 1995 Lance Rose and Esther Dyson wrote articles in Wired Magazine expressing polarized views on the future of copyright law and copyright infringement. This essay reviews those articles, analyzes each article's accuracy as defined by current trends years later.

Over the past decade the societal view of creative society has greatly changed due to advances in computer technology and the Internet. In 1995, aware of the beginning of this change, two authors wrote articles in Wired Magazine expressing diametrically opposed views on how this technological change would take form, and how it would affect copyright law. In the article "The Emperor's Clothes Still Fit Just Fine" Lance Rose hypothesized that the criminal nature of copyright infringement would prevent it from developing into a socially acceptable practice. Thus, he wrote, we would not need to revise copyright law to prevent copyright infringement. In another article, Entitled "Intellectual Value", Esther Dyson presented a completely different view of the copyright issue. She based many her arguments on the belief that mainstream copyright infringement would proliferate in the following years, causing a radical revision of American ideas and laws towards intellectual property. What has happened since then? Who was right? This paper analyzes the situation then and now, with the knowledge that these trends are still in a state of transformation. As new software and hardware innovations make it easier to create, copy, alter, and disseminate original digital content, this discussion will be come even more critical.

Whereas Rose advocated better policing practices and improved copyright legislation, Dyson proposed that the de facto legalization of content duplication would nullify copyright law, resulting in a service-based economy with little copyright law. While this economic and legal evolution will continue for years to come, it is this author's opinion that Dyson's model of change seems much more likely based on events and trends over the past six years.

Much of Rose's argument for the retention of current copyright laws stems from the faulty belief that copyright infringement will remain much of an underground practice. In his article Rose asserts that "Net users who aren't at least mildly familiar with the [file-sharing] underworld will never even hear about such systems before they are dismembered" [1]. While file-sharing might not have been an important issue in 1995, the word "underworld" does not accurately describe the flourishing file sharing situation today.