Angus Kidman01 February 2008, 11:46 AM
Just because the notion of making ISPs responsible for blocking users who swap copyrighted content seems stupid and impractical, that doesn't mean it's unlikely to happen, a leading legal academic has warned.
Linux.conf.au 2008, Melbourne | Just because the notion of making ISPs responsible for blocking users who swap copyrighted content seems stupid and impractical, that doesn't mean it's unlikely to happen, a leading legal academic has warned.
In a presentation at linux.conf.au looking at key legal developments affecting open source software in 2007, Kimberlee Weatherall, senior lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Queensland, singled out the growing push to make service providers responsible for policing online content as a major concern. "At the moment, the favoured target is ISPs," she said. "Don't underestimate the power of this push."
In Australia, any moves to control content are likely to emerge in conjunction with Labor's already-announced-but-yet-to-be-flesh-out plans to make ISPs filter for illegal pornographic content. The argument goes something like this: if you block people from accessing pornography via sites, they'll start exchanging it via peer-to-peer. So to achieve effective blocking, you need to block peer-to-peer as well, and you might as well protect copyrighted content at the same time. "Even if it doesn't actually work, they might well want to put such a law in place," Weatherall said.
At the individual level, copy protection also hadn't entirely disappeared despite the increasing prevalence of DRM-free music. "Reports of DRM's death are of course exaggerated," Weatherall noted. "It is the music industry that we have seen moving away, and the music industry were never that good at DRM anyway. If you show me the movie industry or subscription television going DRM-free, then we can talk about the death of DRM."
Efforts to overturn software patents -- a major concern in the open source community -- were likely to fail, Weatherall suggested. "I don't think the fight is over, but I don't think you're going to kill software patents," she said. "There's a lot of them. Every one cost in the five figures to apply for. The amount of investment is enormous, and that's the sort of thing you have to tear down to tear down software patents."
Weatherall also advised concerned hackers not to become ridiculously obsessed with legal issues. "Don't obsess about law reform and changes in the law. Your best protection during law reform processes is success. if you are coding well then people will go out of their way to protect you."
"Getting the patent reforms that you need takes allies. Allies with money come when you code well. You can help, but don't let it dominate your life."