Cav's Place

The “Copyright Alert System”, otherwise known as the “six strikes” policy, is about to be launched by media companies and ISPs operating in the United States. That’s not exactly news and certainly no surprise, as the ISPs from there are more than happy to spy on their customers and take action as commanded by the media and software giants voluntarily, without the government or international bodies needing to get seriously involved and push them into it, as it may be the case elsewhere. It is interesting, however, that even they readily admit that “hardcore pirates” may easily avoid detection and either way certainly won’t be stopped by such measures, claiming that the main goal is to “educate the public”… Educate the public by spewing propaganda and then throttling or even blocking access for those with the “audacity” to seek some means of enjoyment or entertainment in these harsh times, in ways that cause no harm and no real, verifiable, loss to anyone.

As the EFF article points out, the problems with the approach are numerous and definitely worth a closer look, yet what troubles me far more is the very idea behind this campaign and the fact that it can so easily get the backing it needs. I mean, it obviously doesn’t follow the usual rules set for legal action, it’s definitely not transparent, there’s a clear conflict of interest, the details are sketchy and allow the system to be used for even more nefarious purposes, and the proper checks and balances are not and are unlikely to ever be implemented, but the bigger problem is that it’s a measure aimed at preserving a terribly outdated status quo which harms the tremendous majority of the population, including many content creators, for nothing but the financial benefit of a select few individuals.
What we should be doing is looking for ways to get past this business model and past the entire copyright system, not enforcing it even more. Of course, the final goal for the entire economic system has to be a resource-based model, at which point electronic copies will certainly have to be seen as what they actually are, namely a resource that is, for practical purposes, limitless and therefore freely available to all in any quantity desired, but until then, if we are to focus solely on the matter at hand, we can also strive for systems like my suggestion for a Content Creators’ Association, and even before that we have crowdfunding and donationware, which are existing concepts that need to be promoted and developed more, as well as law proposals which would legalize the personal, non-commercial use and sharing of content, as long as credit is given to the original authors. As first steps, for the first few years, we could even start separating what may be used, copied and shared without fear of prosecution according to what other means of earning money are available to the creators of said content, and likely also according to how much time passed since the original release.

The bottom line is that there are things to do and ways to do them, none of which have anything to do with such campaigns and the measures, coercive or otherwise, associated with them. The corporations and interest groups that support such actions are gaining momentum, but that only means that we need to find ways to push back even harder against the tide.