Today's Washington Post contains an exchange over copyright between tech columnist Rob Pegoraro and MPAA exec Fritz Attaway, triggered by a recent Pegoraro column on TiVo. Part of the dialogue went:

Attaway: "Rob -- your disdain for copyright is distressing to me, and a bit hypocritical on your part. Whether you call it 'protection' or 'control,' the idea is to protect investment in valuable intellectual property which real, talented people, like yourself, worked hard to create. The Washington Post is copyrighted and that copyright is aggressively protected (or controlled) by your employer. I assume you accept a paycheck from The Post. The people who create music and movies would also like to keep getting paychecks. What is so awful about that?"

Pegoraro: "First, my answer to your question above is 'nothing.' I have no problem with people trying to get paid for their work. But does the right to make a living in a given profession include the right to force other people to contribute to that living? In the case of other industries challenged by technological change -- travel agents, long-distance phone companies and express-delivery services come to mind -- the answer seems to be, 'No.' I have not yet heard a convincing argument as to why the movie and music industries should be different, and why the electronics and computer industries should be forced to work for their benefit."

Whatever one may think of the TiVo issue, and it presents some tough problems, Pegoraro's examples are off. In each case, the Internet provides an alternative to present methods of doing business. TiVo's relation to the broadcast business is not that of alternative, but that of free rider. It depends on the continuation of the current model for delivering services, and on enough patrons not having TiVo to supporting the current model, so that TiVo users can avoid paying a share of the cost of producing content. TiVo may be a great device ( I must admit to finding commercials very tiresome), but it is a parasite on present system, and like any parasite it depends on draining off enough support to prosper but not so much that it kills the host.

As to the status of the Washington Post, Pegoraro commented:

"It's interesting that you cited my own employer as an example, which brings up the other flaw I see in your argument -- the idea that the Internet will make it impossible for people in creative professions to earn a living. The Post's content, along with that of every other newspaper I can think of, is published online without any technological copy controls, and, last I checked, none of us has asked that the government require other industries to implement any such controls for our sake. I'm not saying that everybody else should adopt our model (last I checked, our Web site, although not those of other papers, was still losing money), but I am saying that the market can sort through these problems on its own."

Again, there are problems with the argument. The Post most certainly does use technological copy controls; like most newspapers, it makes current stories available free, but encrypts past one and charges for access. A problem for broadcasters is that they have been forced to transmit in clear, and this cannot be changed without obsoleting million of existing TVs. They cannot protect themselves in the same manner as the WaPo.

In addition, the Post, and other print media, are insulated from the effects of the digital revolution by technology. A physical book or newspaper is a more convenient way to access the content than is online viewing, and the ad-subsidized price is quite reasonable. Printing out articles costs more for toner than buying the newspaper. As the Internet takes over classified advertising, and as printing keeps getting cheaper, the papers may change their views.

In any event, newspapers are fiercely protective of their copyrights, though they may deploy lawyers as much as techies. See the Post's copyright notice, and read the Free Republic case, in which plaintiffs L.A. Times and (ahem) Washington Post objected to having articles posted on a political website where they served as vehicles for comment by readers.

posted by James DeLong @ 12:53 PM | General

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