… continued from yesterday.
The idea of secure transmission of information across the Internet is one that has been explored and to a certain degree implemented the world over. This has always been done in an effort to control access to information (Doherty 65.) The idea of securing and controlling information informs not only transmission systems but on the information itself. Secure exchanges demand not only a secure transmission, but also secure information that cannot be exploited once it has reached its destination. Digital Rights Management systems, “lock down content after it has been delivered to customers and business partners… Content should be ‘self-protecting’ and ‘self-describing’” (Doherty 66.) While the importance of self-protecting data cannot be overstated, it is not germane to a discussion of intellectual property rights. The idea of self-describing data on the other hand is extremely pertinent. This technology,
Embeds copy-control information in the content’s data stream. Using a digital watermarking technology, copy-protection levels can follow the content without any special processing… A playback system recognizing only the robust watermark can identify it as an illegal copy and prohibit playback (Doherty 66.)
What this technology allows for is the ability to restrict how a user transmits information after he has acquired it, while at the same time ensuring that information cannot easily be transferred from one user to another. In the context of a Transmission understanding of property rights it allows for information or content to alter itself after it has been transmitted to reflect the limited transfer or rights from creator to user. An e-book with a watermark attached can instruct any technology that acquires it to permit further transfers only as they are allowed by the user’s set of rights. The PDF file may be transferable from a desktop-PC to a handheld display as the user has converted the PDF into a tangible form, but that file cannot then be uploaded from the handheld to another PC, nor can it be transmitted from the original PC to another handheld. The limited rights of the user are entrenched in the content itself. This system does place an emphasis on the original rights-holder to secure their content from unlawful access, but at the same time codifies the rights of the end-user to engage in any proprietary transfers as dictated by the author of the information.
By looking to a technological establishment of a new understanding of intellectual property rights, an alternative to the prevailing concepts of intellectual property online can be offered. Technology has always had a tremendous influence on the relationship between production and reproduction, but in a cyberspace technology completely undermines the relationship between the two. This necessitates a complete re-evaluation of how we perceive labour or work as impacting rights to intellectual property. The idea of a set of Transmission-centred rights would seem to be the logical conclusion of such a process. With the advent of certain technologies this allows for the implementation of an entirely new intellectual property rights regime: one where the intellectual efforts of the creator of a property are qualified by the user who acquires their property and converts it into a tangible form. The seemingly countervailing rights of creators and users are mediated by technology that dictates how the end user can use the product of the creator’s imagination, and their labour in producing it for consumption.
Works Cited
Castells, Manuel. The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet , Business, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Doherty, Sean. “Managing Your Digital Rights.” Network Computing 13.19 (2002): 65-69
Lessig, Lawrence. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1999.
McFarland, Micheal. “Intellectual Property, Information, and the Common Good.” The Intellectual Property and Technology Forum 4 Jun. 1999. 15 Dec. 2003.
URL: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/st_org/iptf/commentary/content/mcfarland.html
Potter, Andrew. Second Essay Assignment. 18 Dec. 2003
URL: http://www.trentu.ca/philosophy/apotter/courses/essay2.htm
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