With every new peer-to-peer sharing program that makes its debut in college dorm rooms, a little bit of digital freedom is chipped away. It is an ever-growing trend for major recording labels — along with big-name bands riding wingman — to pursue startup companies like Grokster, StreamCast, Napster or Kazaa and pursue them right into the digital graveyard. But with each new strike against peer sharing programs, the level of lunacy is raised tenfold — most recently against Grokster and StreamCast.
Now, some might believe that it’s purely heresy to claim the rights of the individual come before the will of the “rightly appointed” Supreme Court justices, whose only fear for losing their positions is the grim reaper himself. But from time to time, I find myself thinking these crazy “individualistic,” “non-contemporary,” “wacky” thoughts — some of which include the belief that individuals should have the right to distribute and freely share digital media.
The problem, then, lies with the aims of the recording labels and the artists who intend to make a living producing these products. It doesn’t just stop with them, however, it also encompasses everyone associated with the production process that brought the band together in the recording studio and everyone who produced and fine tuned the sound. Then you have to consider the middle men, the people who are really turning the prices up: the distributors, wholesalers and retailers.
So, taking all of these people into consideration, it’s easy to understand why there’s all this commotion over the growing problem of copyright infringement that the Supreme Court is so fervently cracking down on.
Honestly, the problem isn’t really with the fact that the Supreme Court is upholding laws that make sense. In fact, that’s probably a good idea, and maybe we should do some more of that. The real problem lies with the persecution of file sharers that is becoming a growing trend in the decisions of the Supreme Court — digital media sharing is becoming a real-world “thought crime,” the crimes you read about in science fiction novels set in post-apocalyptic utopias.
According to the Supreme Court, copyright law goes as far as this: “One who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.” This is entirely too vague of a description. This type of open-ended ruling leaves a lot of room for loopholes and manipulation.
So you are probably wondering, what’s the big deal? It seems relatively simple to avoid infringing upon copyrights — or court rulings — doesn’t it? However, there are rolling complications with such vague rulings that favor the rights of large interest groups. Decisions like that require American companies to spend needless amounts of resources and time to re-engineer software, as well as ensure that every single aspect of their software doesn’t, in the slightest way, hint at “promoting” the possibility of infringing upon copyrights — because otherwise they are inviting investigators to inspect every server, every e-mail, every line of code and every developer meeting, searching for more clues that “thought-crimes” are being committed. And that’s not to mention the severe detriment to the freedom of innovation such a ruling causes.
The fact remains, years after the release of the first file-sharing program, people love to share the latest information, whether that information is ripped CDs, pirated software, audio books, movies or whatever else there is out there that hasn’t been outlawed yet. Because of this, companies should look for a better solution to obvious problems, before involving the Supreme Court. For years, hardware manufacturers and security software companies have been shouting for security integrated into the hardware — software is just too easy to get around.
Write to Justin at
jdwilliams2@bsu.edu
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