[Infowarrior] - Academic Paper: ISP Ineffectiveness as Copyright Cops

[Richard Forno]

Keep Looking: The Answer to the Machine is Elsewhere

Andrew A. Adams
University of Reading - School of Systems Engineering

Ian Brown
University of Oxford - Oxford Internet Institute



Computers and Law, 2009

Abstract:

It is over a decade since the signing of the World Intellectual  
Property Organization's "Internet treaties". These treaties' "anti- 
circumvention" rules ban the creation, distribution or use of tools  
that bypass Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) even for  
otherwise legal purposes. However, while these legal changes have not  
stopped the widespread unauthorized sharing of copyright works, they  
have impeded computer security research, retarded innovation in  
technology and commerce, and blocked groups such as visually impaired  
users from accessing locked-up material. Given the failure of TPMs to  
stop large-scale infringement, right holders have more recently been  
lobbying for requirements to be imposed upon Internet Service  
Providers to monitor customers' communications to detect and prevent  
copyright infringement. Unfortunately such requirements would be  
likely to have even less impact upon levels of infringement,  
representing a massively disproportionate invasion of users' privacy.  
This article examines the misconceptions that lie behind these hybrid  
techno-legal copyright enforcement systems, and suggests that  
innovation in business models is much more likely to effectively  
protect the interests of creators than technological enforcement  
mandated via copyright law.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1329703