A Copyfighter’s Musings

Frank’s been taking great notes at iLaw.  This section from Professor Fisher’s and Nesson’s presentation stood out:

“Another stick: a ‘first in line auto-competition’ system
The objective is to protect new releases that have immediate commercial value. Preservation incentive for novelty.

At T0, the file exists only at the artist’s. Someone gets a copy, and puts it into the P2P net. As soon as that happens, it is now visible – until then, it’s invisible. So, we set up a system that searches the net, and finds the first release of the file on the network, and then – here’s the big deal – (1) the program starts hogging access to that single file excluding others and (2) notifying the poster that s/he’s been identified as the source of the infringing copy.

This technology has been developed and is being tried out. Stats for three weeks of protecting a file on KaZaA and Gnutella. 20 seeds (initial drops into the net); total sharers: 500 – others. What we see is that, on a day by day basis, there’s a big bounce when radio plays start up. And the program seems to be effective at getting people to take the file down. Only a few evaders.

So, this is a proof of concept – it is possible to inject something into the technology so that you can get ahead of the rate of “seeding” the network; downloads may behave exponentially, but uploading does not - so it can be attacked. Stopping the seeder seems to have meaningful effects – so the trick is to monitor all networks (and thus, a problem, IMHO)”

Very interesting.  Again, this is a key component of the speed bumps argument.  What I hadn’t seen before is any actual stats on interdiction – I’d love to see more.  Putting aside methodological problems, getting such stats is difficult because no one really admits on record that they’re using interdiction.

Filed by Derek Slater at 5:49 pm under General news
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Jason makes an excellent point (via Donna) about what it means to preserve the music industry.  We don’t need to preserve the record labels; however, just because most artists don’t make money off of CD sales doesn’t mean the record labels and CD sales do not benefit artists.  The record labels have served an important role in the production, distribution, and marketing of music, most of which is paid for by CD sales.  Live performances, for instance, may remain a viable revenue stream in a post-Napster world, but losing the current structures of music production will impact those other streams.  The point is not that we need to preserve the current structures, but, if we lose them, we may need new ones.

The obvious rejoinder, made quite well by Professor Raymond Ku, is that we have replacements for all three major record label functions.  The Internet makes distribution virtually costless.  Digital technology is making the home studio, and even the studio on a laptop, much cheaper.  All that’s left is marketing, which is aided by efficient distribution schemes, recommendation engines, and other new methods of discovering music online.  And, to the extent that there’s less marketing, that’s a good thing, Ku says; marketing can be distortative, giving disproportionate attention to wealthy artists and enhancing the “winner-take-all” nature of creative good markets. (See also this Netanel article.)

Now, I’m not really convinced by Ku that it’s as simple as letting the record labels die and we all live happily ever after.  I’ve expressed my uncertainty about alternative business models that do not rely on selling copies. There are many complexities that are overlooked by people who discount the importance of the current industry structures.

It’s also worth considering Ku’s argument if transplanted to movies (something he purposely and explicitly avoids).  Distribution costs are just as low, but production costs have not been reduced by nearly the same amount.

Filed by Derek Slater at 5:13 pm under General news
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