On the Net, you don’t need heavy equipment to infringe. Any college kid with a tuition-paid account can readily copy any digital work and send it to thousands of places online for no fee. Add to this the recently developed Net service known as the “anonymous remailer,” and no one will be able to identify that kid as the wrongdoer … The field of potential infringers, once limited to a few well-heeled players, has broadened to everyone with access to computer networks and services – as many as 25 to 50 million Net users worldwide at the moment.
Predictor: Rose, Lance
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, attorney and writer Lance Rose comments on copyright issues on the Internet. Rose writes. ”Can copyrights be enforced on the Net at all? For traditional physical goods, the factories that produce pirate books, T-shirts, and records don’t move around much, making them easy targets for investigators. Once found, the large profits reaped by infringers make a tantalizing prize for copyright owners, fueling lawsuits and even leaving a little over for the owners after paying off the lawyers. There is also a natural cap on the universe of infringing activities in the physical world. The hefty start-up investment needed for copying equipment and setting up distribution channels limits big-time bootlegging to a few rich players. Pursuing these mass infringers is the copyright owners’ version of one-stop shopping: you can collect legal damages for many small rip-offs by suing just one mass infringer. The small-time infringers are all but ignored. In contrast, on the Net, you don’t need heavy equipment to infringe. Any college kid with a tuition-paid account can readily copy any digital work and send it to thousands of places online for no fee. Add to this the recently developed Net service known as the ‘anonymous remailer,’ and no one will be able to identify that kid as the wrongdoer. For instance, I can scan this issue of Wired into digitized form, zip it up, and pump it out anonymously to thousands of newsgroups and bulletin boards. No one will ever track me down. If others do the same, why would anyone want to pay for Wired, or anything else we can digitize? The field of potential infringers, once limited to a few well-heeled players, has broadened to everyone with access to computer networks and services – as many as 25 to 50 million Net users worldwide at the moment.”
Biography:Lance Rose, a lawyer, earned a high profile for his expertise in Internet issues in the 1990s. He wrote “Netlaw: Your Rights in the Online World” (1995). (Legislator/Politician/Lawyer.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues
Subtopic: Copyright/Intellectual Property/Plagiarism
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: The Emperor’s Clothes Still Fit Just Fine
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.02/rose.if_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney