One of the limits on enforcing copyright on the Net is the ease of setting up private, informal exchanges of works between friends. Not black markets exactly, but “friend-to-friend markets.” If one of my friends has a video, song, book, or piece of software that I want, I can easily get it privately through the Net, and the cops won’t be any the wiser. There will be no stopping these personal exchanges online, just as home taping could not be stopped … Can we all get the works we want cheaply or for free among private, interlocking circles of friends? This is a tempting thought, but friend-to-friend markets are far more likely to remain small and self-limiting … A symbolic legal attack every now and then will keep these groups in check.
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. ”One of the limits on enforcing copyright on the Net is the ease of setting up private, informal exchanges of works between friends. Not black markets exactly, but ‘friend-to-friend markets.’ If one of my friends has a video, song, book, or piece of software that I want, I can easily get it privately through the Net, and the cops won’t be any the wiser. There will be no stopping these personal exchanges online, just as home taping could not be stopped. Indeed, just last year, Congress threw in the towel on physical taping and added a provision to the Copyright Act making it legal for us to make noncommercial music tapes for our friends. Can the Net be leveraged to extend friend-to-friend exchanges to include far larger groups of people? Can we all get the works we want cheaply or for free among private, interlocking circles of friends? This is a tempting thought, but friend-to-friend markets are far more likely to remain small and self-limiting … A symbolic legal attack every now and then will keep these groups in check, using the recently increased criminal provisions of the Copyright Act to send digital traders to jail for the felony of possessing 10 or more illicitly made copies of copyrighted works worth a total of $2,500 or more.”
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