Copyright in digital era

Question

What is the best copyright enforcement tool in the digital era, when we consider both creators and users? How to create a balance?

Answers: 1 public & 0 private

Lawrence lau
IP Broker

Peer pressure ... copyright at the consumer level is about legitimate expectations, eg Napster was about sharing favorite tracks which were already paid for. Any DRM adds to transactional friction and basically means lower volume. On the other hand, communities evolve their own set of rules, cf OpenSource licensing. Others attempt to embed controls within content distribution networks, which can range from highly structured (cf soft core licensing for chip foundaries) to loose database access rights. When considering the balance between creators and consumers, you also need to factor in that in this age of co-creation, there may not be a clear dividing line (see prosumers) or amateurs "giving" away their works. For whatever DRM you advocate to work, there must be a clear value enunciation and some form of self-enforcement (eg dobbing in people who break rules). This can be seen in some online multiplayer games where cheats are quickly outed, so design of the economics is a worthy study (see The Witcher 3). However, your question is overly broad in that different domains have quite different expectations (eg 3d printing) so unless you wish for a legal opinion, I can only speak in generalities giving examples of what has worked elsewhere.

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