The ability to make multiple perfect digital copies, accessible instantly to millions of users worldwide, is an exciting prospect, but it can also be a license to steal intellectual property cheaply, easily, and in a way that destroys incentives for future creativity … Recognizing that the Internet has grown up within a culture that thrives on sharing information and research, commercial information providers have approached the network with great caution. Commercial authors and publishers are concerned that their works will be accessed, easily downloaded, and redistributed without appropriate authorization and remuneration. The scale of a network such as the Internet makes this prospect a substantial deterrent to making information available.
Predictor: National Research Council
Prediction, in context:In 1994, the NRENaissance Committee, appointed by the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council, produced a special report titled “Realizing the Information Future: The Internet and Beyond.” Among the committee members were Internet pioneers Leonard Kleinrock, David Clark, David Farber, Lawrence Landweber and Robert Kahn. The committee’s goal was to “study issues raised by the shift to a larger, more truly national networking capability.” Among its statements about the blossoming of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) is this: ”Where there is fundamental disagreement about intellectual property protection is in the area of charging for both acquisition of the item itself and then for each use, since property rights – a form of ownership – carry with them an inherent ability to reap value through sales … the ability to make multiple perfect digital copies, accessible instantly to millions of users worldwide, is an exciting prospect, but it can also be a license to steal intellectual property cheaply, easily, and in a way that destroys incentives for future creativity … Recognizing that the Internet has grown up within a culture that thrives on sharing information and research, commercial information providers have approached the network with great caution. Commercial authors and publishers are concerned that their works will be accessed, easily downloaded, and redistributed without appropriate authorization and remuneration. The scale of a network such as the Internet makes this prospect a substantial deterrent to making information available.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues
Subtopic: Copyright/Intellectual Property/Plagiarism
Name of publication: Realizing the Information Future: The Internet and Beyond
Title, headline, chapter name: Flow of Information
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://stills.nap.edu/html/rtif/
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney