Summary
The ultimate success of the Internet requires copyright owners, content providers, Internet access providers, and digital content users to cooperate in finding ways to limit unauthorized reproductions and to impede, prevent and identify infringements. If there is a common-sense balance to the enforcement of copyright law, an effective educational campaign of end users, and significant use of copy protection technologies, the Internet will become bigger, fuller, richer — an information utility analogous to universal telephone service or the electrical power transmission infrastructure. What factors must be in place, however, to encourage and preserve cooperation among all parties and, as a result, to achieve this vision of the Internet? In short, on what issues must consensus be achieved?
For the Internet to succeed, digital copyright protection must be: ·
· Empowering. Content owners must have the ability to and must take primary responsibility for securing, identifying and tracking distribution of their copyrighted works – and maintain the rights they have been given in copyright law. Copyright holders must be able to define the level of protection they desire and need to maintain the value of their intellectual property.
· Convenient. Copyright protection must be implemented in ways which do not unreasonably encumber content users or raise inappropriate access barriers. If access providers are required to police sites and/or monitor transmissions, the Internet will become useless.
· Fast. Tools and techniques to protect copyright cannot significantly reduce system response times or otherwise detract from Internet performance.
· Secure. Copyright protections must feature a high degree of security, thereby delivering the desired access controls and defeating unauthorized attempts to gain access to copyrighted works.
· Robust. All parties benefit when rich content is available on the Internet. Copyright protections must facilitate the availability of such content, providing new means for content owners and service providers to offer protected material to the public.
· Fair and Reasonable. Copyright protection on the Internet cannot favor one group over another but must apply equally to all segments of the marketplace.
· Enriching. Innovations such as the printing press, photocopier, personal computer, facsimile machine, video cassette recorder, and other tools of communication have demonstrated that technology can, if properly channeled, greatly amplify the value of copyright to the copyright holder. Protecting content in the Internet environment must be consistent and have this same effect, leveraging the power of the network for buyer and seller while controlling the distribution of protected works.
· Accessible. Protections must not become economic, cultural, social or political barriers to access. Rather, effective digital copyright protections will reinforce the Internet’s potential to become the global information utility.
· Affordable. Both the technology tools that protect content and the technology which delivers that content must remain affordable.