Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!isishq!doug
From: doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG (Doug Thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Digital Information Rights
Message-ID: <824.23960378@isishq.FIDONET.ORG>
Date: 2 Dec 88 07:21:34 GMT
Organization: International Student Information Service -- Headquarters
Lines: 57


 
 
 BS>From: bzs@PINOCCHIO.BERKELEY.EDU (Barry Shein) 
 
>>I've seen discussion on the topic of copyrights as they apply to 
>>digital information in a few places, and I'd like to know what 
>>newsgroup is most appropriate for this sort of topic.  In 
>>particular, I'm interested in what people think about how 
>>copyright laws must be modified to accomodate such things as 
>>software and digital images, and how to enforce such laws.  
>>Clearly, the current laws don't apply very well, and enforcement 
>>techniques such as copy-protection on disks are becoming 
>>increasingly ineffective. 
 
>USENET has a misc.legal list but if you're interested in speculative 
>changes in the copyright law to better support a digital inforamation 
>society I think you're on the right list already (INFO-FUTURES.) 
 
>The problem with legal issues, of course, is that people 
>generally don't understand them although they often have strong 
>opinions anyhow, usually representing what they wished the law 
>said to better fit their own moral sense.  
 
>That said (ahem!) I wonder if there *are* any folks on this list 
>with real legal training who might step forward as referees in 
>such a discussion and we'd all agree voluntarily to seriously 
>consider their referee'ing? If you like send me private e-mail 
>and I'd be glad to introduce you (it's so embarrassing to 
>introduce oneself :-) 
 
Methinks the copyright problem centres on the problem of control. 
Large scale paper reproduction and sale is easy to identify and 
control. Computers ruin that. Copyright is no longer enforcable. 
 
Expressed somewhat differently, the computer has caused the 
intrinisc value of a "copy" to change. No longer is the physical 
and matieral tangible object the item which contains value. 
Rather the value is in the information, whose tangible physical 
form has been transformed by the computer from a kilogram of 
paper to so many bytes of disk space. You can control kilograms 
of paper, but bytes moving at the speed of light are more 
problematic. 
 
The first rule of politics is, never make a law you cannot 
enforce. Copyright has been rendered unenforcable by the 
computer. It follows that our concept of copyright will have to 
change. 
 
=Doug 
 


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