Digital Piracy: New rule for old game

To put a curb on digital piracy has been an uphill task largely because of the attitude and conditioning of Internet users and also because of the medium used to download the content. Recently, Center for Copyright Information (CCI) of the US along with various stakeholders like movie production houses, music companies and Internet Service Provider (ISP) have launched a massive surveillance campaign against data theft. Unlike the earlier measures, where recourse to litigation was the only means for redressing the wrong, the new approach emphasises on stakeholders' collaborative effort.

Under the new arrangement, the users who download music, movie, apps or any content covered under the copyright will be debarred from some of the privileges previously enjoyed by them. The punitive measures include slowing down the Internet speed or in extreme cases terminating the users' services altogether. The violators will be issued warning through emails initially and might have to explain his digital behaviour to the service provider. A similar practice is already under work in France, where a user receives three alerts before termination of his/her services.

The new arrangement for curbing copyright infringement, which include stakeholders, however doesn't spell out the commercial ramification. For movie production houses and music companies, it's definitely a win-win situation. It will not only help them safeguard their business interest but would help them generate new paid market for their content. The same is not true for ISP who at the end would be losing its subscriber base. To make this model sustainable in the long run, CCI would have to secure the interest of ISP companies as well.

While highlighting its role in curbing copyright infringement, CCI says it will "implement the Copyright Alert System (“CAS”), aimed at educating Internet subscribers about digital copyright and the potential consequences of inadvertent or purposeful copyright violations through peer-to-peer networks." Understandably, the CCI doesn't enjoy any legal or constitutional standing and has rather set a voluntary and collaborative goal for itself to curb the malpractice. This is a laudable since there has been no initiative from the US government after its Stop Online Piracy Act bill could not see the light of the day.

The global Internet fraternity presumes that curbing digital piracy is a difficult task, if not impossible, largely because of the attitude and conditioning of Internet users over the years. We have witnessed and been part of a generation, for whom downloading free music and movie has been the logical extension of the privileges of the medium. A score of my friends have thousands of movies and music downloaded from the Internet for free and have no moral scruples in circulating it among their peer groups. Some blame, although unjustified, also falls on the pioneers of the medium who didn't educate the users to follow ethical Internet practices. In fact, not many of us even know what constitute an ethical Internet practice.

It's like a Pavlov's law of conditioning, where you provide freebies and condition people to expect the same when he/she uses the Internet. Understandably, it might take some time before people change their digital behaviour. It's a good initiative on CCI's part to educate people but it will have to ensure that it doesn't fall prey to violating individuals rights to access to information.

It seems the very strength of the Internet medium has turned into its fatal weakness. From being a quick, prompt and inexpensive medium of content availability, the effort is now on to restrict the access of content itself. Surely, it makes business sense for both the provider as well to intermediary channels, but the end user is yet to realise this reality. While profit is paramount to every business, it has to come spontaneously and by virtue of merit rather than force manipulation. To ensure that the users get value for their money, the service provider has to ensure value-addition to its services.

To educate people to refrain from digital theft is a long-drawn process and needs governmental support and legal control measures. This is more true in case of developing countries, where computer penetration is still very low and the awareness level dismal. In the US, there has been a considerable decline in digital theft after the government got alert and instituted surveillance measures, something that has been sadly lacking in India and China, where the cases of digital theft is very high.

Although, we are still a long way to achieve ethical Internet practice, a beginning has been made in the right direction, if not in India than in some part of the earth. It will not take much time to travel to India, after all we have only three degrees of separations.