Critically assess the blurring of the boundaries between the expression of an idea in a material form (which is protected by copyright) and an idea itself (which is not). In your response, you will need to examine the impact of the digital environment on copyright and initiatives like open access and Creative Commons.
Discuss whether protecting original works is becoming obsolete, considering the effect of a copyright-free world on individual creators, producers and distributors. Be explicit about how you respond to and extend the examples presented in the topic's podcast and town meeting.
'Copyright can be defined as the ownership of the expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves' (Bourne 2008). The issue of copyright is perhaps facing its greatest challenge. The line between the expression of ideas in a material form (which is protected by copyright) and an idea itself (which is not) is being increasingly blurred due to the increasing prevalence and penetration of digital technologies in the national (Australian) and international (global) communication environment.
With the proliferation of copyright violations as digital technologies offer file sharing capacities, the development of author favouring initiatives approximating to Open Access and Creative Commons eroding the corporate power of copyright corporations, the existence of legally protected copyright protections a creator craves, corporations pursue and government's protect, is under serious threat.
Traditionally the free market economy has envisioned a hierarchy from producer to consumer in the development and dissemination of cultural information. Conventionally, the mode of production had envisioned a role for creator, manufacturer, distributor and consumer. This was a centralised system. Copyright pervaded and that which was protected by copyright was difficult if not impossible to illegally obtain without paying the royalties to the creator or copyright holder.
Yochai Benkler believes there has been a decentralisation of the process due to the onset of the digital revolution, particularly with Internet technologies, while technology simultaneously sustains the centralisation of cultural information. 'I will suggest that we call the combination of these two trends - the radical decentralization of intelligence in our communications network and the centrality of information, knowledge, culture, and ideas to advanced economic activity - the networked information economy' (Benkler 2003, p.1252).
The strength of Benkler's argument is that it's a fresh idea that argues somewhat from a political economy perspective, the production process. The production process has been decentralised due to digital technologies and therefore individuals who previously held no part can create their own ideas by either mimicking, disseminating, copying, plagiarising without consequence.
This neworked information economy (or decentralisation of production) has led to a blurring of the lines between the expression of ideas in a material form (which is protected by copyright) and an idea itself (which is not) due to the increasing mobility and creativity individuals can utilise as a result of the onset of digital technologies. Benkler believes 'ubiquitously available cheap processors have radically reduced the necessary capital input costs. What can be done now with a desktop computer would once have required a professional studio' (Benkler 2003, p.1254).
According to Benkler, a primary contributor to cultural production is pre-existing information, a publicly accessible good while others include 'human creativity and the physical capital necessary to generate, fix, and communicate transmissible units of information and culture - like a recording studio or a television network' (Benkler 2003, p.1254). The Internet and digital technologies have to an extent decimated the dominance of the capital generators, those owners and proprietors of copyright such as the television networks and publishers, and allowed consumers to edit pre-existing copyrighted material, or create their own, to the detriment of copyright holders.
'This leaves individual human beings closer to the economic centre of our information production system than they have been for over a century and a half' (Benkler 2003, p.1254). The failing of Benkler's argument is that it views digital technologies as offering endless opportunities for individual production. While this may be true, usually the product produced is usually distributed for free and those who attempt to make economic gain are wiped out by the competition that produce free and higher quality software and programs
The impact of the digital environment has led to the proliferation of copyright violations and use of materials by consumers in their own productions and ideas without regard for the intended royalties. This has been seen no better than in the rising prevalence of file sharing software on the Internet, its popularity, dominance, and targeting by corporations for law suits. 'The most radically new and unfamiliar element in this category is commons-based peer production of information, knowledge, and culture, whose most visible instance has been free software' (Benkler 2003, p.1254).
An example of these 'peer network' systems Benkler speaks of includes 'file sharing' systems such as Limewire, BitTorent, eMule and Gnutella. 'Based on peer-to-peer technology (Fattah 2002; Oram 2001), so-called 'filesharing' systems offer the possibility to exchange any sort of digital data for free and without restriction' (Quiring 2008, p.435). Considerable losses in revenues have resulted in the film, gaming and particularly communications industries due to the illegal copying and sharing of their products. 'According to the communications industry, it misses out on considerable revenues each year due to the illegal exchange of communications data' (Quiring, von Walter & Atterer 2008, p.435).
Similarly there has been propagation in the amount of quality free programmes on the Internet that supplant those supplied by corporations and have no copyright protections of their own. 'The networked information economy... opens for radically decentralized collaborative production... "peer production”... a process by which many individuals, whose actions are coordinated neither by managers nor by price signals, contribute to a joint effort that effectively produces a unit of information or culture' (Benkler 2003, p.1254). 'Free software has become the quintessential instance of peer production in the past few years.
Over 85 percent of emails are routed using the sendmail software that was produced and updated in this way '(Benkler 2003, p.1254). Over 60% of Australians use msn, yahoo, Google or other free E-mail providers as their primary E-Mail account and the development of free virus scanning software such as AVG, free communications composing and artistic programs have gradually eroded communications corporation's copyright power and grip on the consumer market.
However here, within these filesharing and producing communities the lines between the expression of ideas in a material form and an idea itself are more deeply blurred as the providers of free programmes and those who illegally copy and distribute software, programmes and cultural files (such as communications), known as 'warez' have developed their own codes of production and consumption. An academic of Southern California University, D. Thomas alludes to this in his article 'Innovation, Piracy and the Ethos of New Media' identifies three key fundamentals in the 'warez ethos' (Thomas 2002, p.87).
Firstly, 'keeping information free and open in the face of corporate control', an act which they see as embodying 'the spirit of the Internet'; communications or game lovers 'right to redistribute' goods they have purchased 'providing they do not profit financially.' Secondly the sense of an 'entitlement to digital content', as after buying a computer and internet access they see the content as already paid for' (Thomas 2002, p.87). It can therefore be seen that the digital environment erodes copyright protection and the benefits copyright brings to its owners and distributors.
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