Pop Will Eat Itself...

Is there any such thing as copyright in the internet age?

Several years ago, I attended the MIDEM (www.midem.com) event in Cannes. I was working for a company that was interested in mobile music, very much in its infancy at the time.

On the way back to my hotel one evening I read an extraordinary article. For the first time I read an opinion that Digital Rights Management (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management) was a total waste of time, doomed to failure. Sadly I do not remember the author’s name.

I have never forgotten the premise though: computers are basically digital photocopiers. Whether by intent or accident the fact people own PCs means they can copy files simply. Like it or not, any digital protection models can surely only be short term fixes. The conclusion was as follows: get real and find some new business models because DRM is not going to work – anything published will be free to distribute, so find a new way to make money.

Five or more years later, this view is probably seen as just as radical now as it was then.

Despite the best efforts of the Internet Service Providers and the government (http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/news/20080726_filesharing.shtml) the problem of protecting copyright in an internet age is a massive issue that is not being resolved by DRM. Simply put, the debate has not moved on.

For the record, apparently more than 95% of music downloads are illegal. In my middle class, middle aged (almost) world, lots of people download legally. Seemingly they are less the minority, more a soon to be extinct species.

Maybe this is tough on new music artists, who now need to rely on other methods to gain fame and fortune (http://www.realbusiness.co.uk/news/finance-and-banking/5340691/dragon-peter-jones-backs-indie-band.thtml). On the other hand, new artists are mostly from the internet generation so maybe they are more suited to understanding how to maximise their revenue in the digital age.

Film, music, television. People love this stuff – it brings meaning and pleasure to their lives. It cannot be impossible to find an equitable way for the creators of this content to make a living in the internet world, can it?

If all the effort that has gone into creating and managing new methods of DRM had been put into finding new business models more suited to the digital age, I wonder if we would already be there?