1)  Introductory discussion from prep (lesson 27).

2)  Music Industry, P2P, file-sharing — some background to recent events

1998  Napster (Wikpedia):

Napster was an online music file sharing service created by Shawn Fanning while he was attending Northeastern University in Boston and operating between June 1999 and July 2001^[1]. Its technology allowed people to easily copy and distribute MP3 files among each other, bypassing the established market for such songs and thus leading to the music industry's accusations of massive copyright violations. Although the original service was shut down by court order, it paved the way for decentralized peer-to-peer file-distribution programs, which have been much harder to control. ... Napster's brand and logo were purchased after the company closed its doors and continue to be used by a pay service. They also maintain: http://free.napster.com/

2001  Grokster, Kazaa (Wikipedia):

Grokster Ltd. was a privately owned software company based in Nevis, West Indies that created the Grokster P2P file-sharing client in 2001 that utilized the FastTrack protocol. Grokster Ltd. was rendered extinct by the United States Supreme Court's decision in MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd.The court ruled against Grokster's peer-to-peer file sharing program for computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, effectively forcing the company to cease operations. The product was similar in look and feel to Kazaa which is marketed by Sharman Networks.

Kazaa Media Desktop (once capitalized as "KaZaA", but now usually written "Kazaa") is a peer-to-peer file sharing application using the FastTrack protocol and owned by Sharman Networks. Kazaa is commonly used to exchange MP3 music files over the Internet. However it can also be used to exchange other file types, such as videos, applications, and documents. The official Kazaa client can be downloaded free of charge, however, it is bundled with adware and spyware, even though there are "No spyware" claims found on Kazaa's website. Throughout the past few years, Kazaa's developing company has been the target of many copyright-related lawsuits. ... Kazaa and FastTrack were created by Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis, and Priit Kasesalu (all of whom were later to create Skype and later still Joost). It was introduced by their Dutch company Consumer Empowerment in March 2001, near the end of the first generation of P2P networks typified by the shutdown of Napster in July of 2001.

From Born Digital (p136): "Why, despite the constant threat of legal action, do P2P services continue to thrive? Because these P2P services have something on their side that is bigger than the law: they're wildly popular. Pretty much everyone with access to a fast enough computing set-up ... have come to love file sharing. Shawn Fanning let the genie out of the bottle ...  Since Napster and Grokster have been shut down, millions of users have shared music over various P2P networks with different underlying technologies and fancy names, such as Kazaa, iMesh, LimeWire ...".  We can add to this that P2P is inherently social ("shared playlists, recommendation systems and ... webradio services").

Born Digital goes on to list some of the reasons why people persistently engage in large-scale copyright infringement: because of confusion about copyright law in the digital age; because sharing is a social norm otherwise encouraged; out of rebellion against what is perceived as "an overcharging, stubborn music industry with an old-fashioned business model"; because the internet was born out of an explicitly anticommercial culture and the idea that digital content should be free runs deep; because P2P is often an easier, less problematic way of getting digital content than the legal channels (Euan Semple: "I really want to be honest and do the right thing. I have no intention of "stealing" content and want to pay for stuff. Please, please just make it easy for me to pay and use your content or I might find myself weakening.").

2003  RIAA starts to take direct legal action individuals sharing files. This action, of suing people you want to be your customers, is widely held to have further damaged the standing of the music industry in the eyes of consumers.  By 2008, around 15,000 lawsuits had been brought.

2004  IFPI and its national branches begin similar legal actions in Europe.  Again, by 2008 around 15,000 lawsuits had been brought.

2003  iTunes opens.

Born Digital: "The real hope ... lies with the new possibilities for the monetization of digital distribution that have opened up since the launch of iTunes".  Many of you will be familiar with new streaming music initiatives such as Rhapsody, Napster 2.0, Last.fm, Spotify.  

2)  DRM.  What is DRM and what should we make of it?  You will have begun the discussion about DRM (and remix) at the start of this lesson.  Here are four excellent articles (and one linked-to-site) which your teacher may incorporate into the lesson:

5 short arguments against DRM, Kevin Marks (2005)

Copy Protection Is a Crime, David Weinberger (2003)

Fair but Wrong, David Weinberger (2007)

apophenia: remix culture and fair use: a new study, danah boyd (2008) >> Recut, Reframe, Recycle

A recent example of revolt over DRM occurred last year on Digg. (What's Digg? "Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users. You won’t find editors at Digg — we’re here to provide a place where people can collectively determine the value of content and we’re changing the way people consume information online.")

Digg the Blog » Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0 is a famous example of successful web rebellion against DRM. Wikipedia (entry for Digg):

AACS encryption key controversy

On May 1, 2007 an article appeared on Digg’s homepage that contained the encryption key for the AACS digital rights management protection of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Then Digg, "acting on the advice of its lawyers", removed posting submissions about the secret number from its database and banned several users for submitting it. The removals were seen by many Digg users as a capitulation to corporate interests and an assault on free speech. A statement by Jay Adelson attributed the article’s take-down to an attempt to comply with cease and desist letters from the Advanced Access Content System consortium and cited Digg’s Terms of Use as justification for taking down the article.

Although some users defended Digg's actions, as a whole the community staged a wide-spread revolt with numerous articles and comments being made using the encryption key. The scope of the user response was so great that one of the Digg users referred to it as a "digital Boston Tea Party". The response was also directly responsible for Digg reversing the policy and stating:

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go own fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

There's more information about this rebellion and its background in Wikipedia here.

Finally, the Free Software Foundation posted this last year: Don't give Microsoft the remote control.

Cory Doctorow wrote (in 2007, apropos of Steve Jobs' much discussed essay, Thoughts on Music, "Far from protecting music from illicit copying, DRM practically demands illicit copying. With DRM, the only way to get music that plays on all your devices, past and present, is to rip it off." The Economist ran a piece entitled, Selling digital music without copy-protection makes sense.

3)  Copyright

Working in pairs in the lesson, look at this article on Wikipedia, History of Copyright.  Questions requiring answers:

a)  What is regarded as the first copyright law, when it was passed and where, what made it distinctive, what was it designed to copyright and for how long?
b)  Look at this and list the kinds of works UK copyright law now covers.
c)  Finally, from this what can you learn about the changes to copyright longevity and to the current state of debate about UK copyright law?
d)  How would you answer the question, "What is the purpose of copyright?".

You'll discuss these questions in class.

4)  Final thoughts

In 2007 iTunes started in a modest way with DRM-free (higher priced) downloads, announcing it would go fully DRM-free by April of this year.  In The Guardian in 2008, Tim Anderson wrote:

Last year, EMI began offering songs without it on iTunes. "The industry has finally been able to get some hard data about how removing DRM restrictions from legitimately purchased tracks affects piracy," says Bill Rosenplatt, DRM specialist and president of GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies. "The statistics show that there's no effect on piracy." No effect. The assertion is remarkable. If DRM does not in fact discourage piracy, then it is merely a nuisance for the user. Now the Guardian understands that most download stores will remove DRM on permanent music downloads. "We are going to be selling non-DRM music from the summer", says Dave Elston, HMV's digital content manager, adding that it would solve "obvious interoperability issues" - primarily compatibility with Apple's iPod. Amazon has announced that its DRM-free MP3 download store, already online in the US, will be rolled out internationally later this year. Napster in the US is moving to MP3 for non-subscription downloads, and sources close to the company implied that the UK service will follow suit. And Apple offers DRM-free downloads for an increasing number of tracks. 
Ironically, the music companies are now abandoning DRM because it worked too well. Apple wouldn't license its version to rivals - so the best-selling iPod drove the iTunes store to its present position, where it is the third-largest music retailer in any form in the US. Rosenblatt says that record labels "have been desperate to find a viable competitor to Apple and iTunes". Industry sources suggest that Apple's iTunes store has more than 70% of the UK download market, and growing. "The record companies don't like dealing with Apple, because Apple is in a position where it can dictate the economic terms and dictate the business models," says Rosenblatt. "What's going to draw people away from iTunes? One answer is to get rid of DRM."

Prep

1)  Explore Flickr Commons ...

Here's another angle on how ideas about copyright are developing.  Flickr: The Commons is an example of crowd-sourcing at work: "in June of 2007, we began our first collaboration with a civic institution to facilitate giving people a voice in describing the content of a publicly-held photography collection, The Library of Congress. The pilot project we created together launched on January 16, 2008. (More info on the pilot.) The key goals of The Commons are to firstly give you a taste of the hidden treasures in the world's public photography archives, and secondly to show how your input and knowledge can help make these collections even richer."

Photos are appearing with the new rights statement, "no known copyright restrictions?": it is a requirement for participation in the program that institutions may rightly claim "no known copyright restrictions" on the content they share. The new rights statement runs:

Participating institutions may have various reasons for determining that “no known copyright restrictions” exist:

1. The copyright is in the public domain because it has expired.
2. The copyright was injected into the public domain for other reasons, such as failure to adhere to required formalities or conditions.
3. The institution owns the copyright but is not interested in exercising control.
4. The institution has legal rights sufficient to authorize others to use the work without restrictions.

Usage Rights on Photographs

Under “The Commons,” cultural institutions that have reasonably concluded that a photograph is free of copyright restrictions are invited to share photographs under a new usage guideline called “no known copyright restrictions.”

Photographs can be difficult to analyze under copyright law, not only because laws around the world differ with respect to scope and duration of protection, but because the photographs themselves often lack credit lines, dates and other identifying information. Libraries, museums and other cultural institutions have a great deal of experience with photographs because they frequently collect, preserve, document and study them in accordance with their nonprofit missions. However, in many instances, a cultural institution will not be the rights holder under copyright law. Therefore, it can neither grant permission to others who wish to use a photograph nor provide a guarantee that the photograph is in the public domain.

By using “no known copyright restrictions,” participating institutions are sharing the benefit of their research without providing an express or implied warranty to others who would like to use or reproduce the photograph. If you make use of a photo from The Commons, you are reminded to conduct an independent analysis of applicable law before proceeding with a particular new use.