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Given the appeal and vulnerability of creative works and the availability of exploitative information technologies, copyright owners have endeavored to control misuse. These efforts have taken several forms.

Owners have mobilized the legal system to control piracy. In the United States, owners have urged lawmakers to provide better protection for creative works. The recording and film industries, for example, asked Congress to increase the penalties for record and film piracy. At the same time, owners have urged lawmakers to regulate exploitative information technologies. The film industry sought to control piracy by getting Congress to prohibit the manufacture and distribution of devices for defeating anti-copying treatments. More recently, copyright industries have asked lawmakers to regulate Internet services that enable people to freely exchange creative works online. In addition, owners have pressed law enforcement officials to identify and prosecute offenders, and many owners have developed programs to assist in this enterprise. They have encouraged people to report wrongdoing, and they have established security offices to investigate complaints, identify offenders, and assist officials in prosecuting them. Although owners have long emphasized the legal process in protecting against misuse, they recognize that it offers limited security and should be supplemented with other modes of control.

Owners have used technology to control piracy. Recognizing the difficulty of identifying and prosecuting offenders, owners have tried to make it difficult for people to misuse their works by erecting technological barriers to misuse. For example, to protect against unauthorized reproduction of works, recording companies have added digital watermarks and inaudible copy protection ciphers to recordings, film studios have applied anti-copying treatments to prerecorded DVDs, and computer software manufacturers have used copy-resistant distribution disks and encryption processes. Although technology has become an important means for controlling piracy, owners acknowledge that technological barriers are more likely to thwart the average user than the sophisticated user.

Owners have used education to control piracy. In the hope of getting people to recognize and honor their proprietary rights, owners have tried to shape popular attitudes toward the use of creative works. Through various media, they have expressed the obligations of consumers and drawn on familiar cultural frameworks in arguing against deviation from these obligations. Owners have claimed, for instance, that piracy is "theft," a breach of "mutual trust," and detrimental to the national good as well as to everyone who benefits from the creative enterprise. It should be noted that persuading people to honor the rights of owners is a formidable task, as many people do not seem to regard creative works as meriting the respect they accord conventional forms of property.

For years, piracy was modest at most, for many people were limited technologically in their capacity to misuse creative works. The tide has turned. The development and proliferation of exploitative information technologies coupled with the diffusion of intellectual products, the ease with which these objects can be obtained and manipulated, and the circulation of values and beliefs encouraging misuse have facilitated piracy and exacerbated the problem of controlling the activity. Not surprisingly, the viability of intellectual property has become a matter of serious concern.

References:

1) Lessig, Lawrence. 2004. Free Culture. New York: Penguin.

2) Luckenbill, David F. and Susan L. Miller. 1998. "Defending Intellectual Property: State Efforts to Protect Creative Works." Justice Quarterly 15:93-120.

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