Governing the Internet

Intellectual property rights are all the rage in governance right now.  Having been pushed by media conglomerates for some time now as their faltering products fail to earn enough moola, governments are moving to halt piracy of music on the Net.  The latest attempt is a stealth move under the guise of an anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA).  Basically, the idea is to force the internet service providers (ISP’s) to be held responsible when someone downloads an illegal copy of a tune or movie.  Before this the individual was held responsible and the ISP’s were immune to prosecution. 

Why is this a bad thing?  Well, the US government hid the details of what is in the treaty and the countries that actually counterfeit music and movies aren’t involved in the treaty.  So it does nothing about counterfeiting and is all about snooping into the contents of people’s computers.  The ISP’s will have to do that to keep from being sued. That’s a big civil rights issue and once the ability to do that is granted, it won’t go away and will be abused.

IP rights are okay for a limited time, I personally believe 15 years is good enough with an exception made on religious materials.  If people aren’t allowed to rest on their laurels, it will encourage them to come up with new material.  I’m a big fan of intellectual ferment and the marketplace of ideas, so limiting IP to a shorter span would be a true stimulus of creativity.  Right now it feels like the whole world is going through the motions and repeating itself.  Be nice to break free of that stagnation, wouldn’t it?

The secrecy involved is the real deal breaker.  They wouldn’t be secretive unless they were up to something illegal.  Though what is legal is becoming more of a “we say so” kind of thing rather than true application of jurisprudence.  I think we are seeing the money out of Hollywood and the music industry behind all this as they are losing money due to inferior products.  They won’t admit this and have to blame something for their failure. However, the consequences of this push may much bigger than they understand.