A couple of months ago the Stop Online Piracy Act - SOPA was introduced in the United States House of Representatives[1]. The main objective of this bill is to fight the online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property. Nevertheless, because of the implications of its provisions (possible limitation of free speech and innovation), this bill has been generating a lot of controversy.
In simple terms SOPA could allow the government to impose new important (and in some extend questionable) obligations to a large number of agents. On one side, the Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) will have the obligation to block the access to a web site that “allegedly” infringes copyright laws. On the other side, ad service providers and payment processors will have the obligation to cut the financial support to those web sites. Note that the only allegation of an infringement will generate these obligations; any authority decision will be needed[2].
This is not the first time that US Government tries to regulate this issue (online piracy). Since 1998 the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) regulates the obligations and liability of the ISP’s in a reasonable way. Nevertheless, with the SOPA the government wants to go further with a more strict regulation. Why? Because the DMCA hasn’t being effective to stop the online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property.
In this context the discussion about copyright turns again very relevant. Is the online traffic of copyrighted creations really the problem? Or maybe the problem is a property right system that is not working? Should government create a stricter, and probably dangerous, regulation?
Let’s think a little bit about copyright (a kind of property right). Against what people usually think, a legal system shouldn’t grant a property right over any kind of good. From an economic perspective, a property right only has sense if the costs of the exclusion are not high. And that’s precisely what happened with ideas (music, movies, literature): Avoid the possibility that people could use an idea is not just very costly, with the new technologies is almost impossible.
The argument in favor of copyright is that without it (in other terms, allowing the free use of ideas) we will eliminate the incentives for innovation. For example, if people are allowed to freely download music, artists are not going to have incentives to create new songs.
The problem with this perspective is that people are focusing in just one business model to recover the investments of creation (based on property rights). Indeed, the new consumption patterns should make the entrepreneurs to change the way of doing business and not to worry about copyrights. And that’s something that the musical industry (just to say one example) is not doing.
For example, is very curious that the first attempt to create a new, different and “digital” music business came not from the music industry, but from the technological. Indeed, I-Tunes is an example that new business models can be very successful[3]. And if that is true, maybe we shouldn’t worry about making the copyright and anti-piracy regulation stricter and stricter. Maybe we are not facing a legal problem, but a business one.
All the discussion around the SOPA shows us that the copyright system has a problem. But the most important thing that we should realized is that the SOPA is not going to change it (after all, new technologies will be created and allow the free exchange of information). Law cannot stop the developing of new technologies; law should adapt to them.
[1] This bill was introduced on October 26, 2011.
[3] Another good example is the practice of different music bands that allow to download for free their records or songs. That was the case of the musical band Radiohed, who in 2007 allowed their fans to download their album In Rainbows for free or paying whatever they want.
Comments