Possible Ways to Solve the Dilemma of copyright online

Why is copyright important

In 1787, America declared the first copyright law to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing limited Times to Authors and Discoveries” (From COPYRIGHTS WORLD). Copyright protection is set to encourage new ideas, inventions and accumulation though not all producers care much about commercial award. Tenured Professor in universities is good example.

Copyright makes profit when it produces private goods

Many people get patents for interesting inventions but not all of them could make profit. Only the copyright which produces private goods could make profit. For discoveries, they need to be applied to produce actual product with value in use. For authors, they need to make sure that their works have rivalry and excludability as private stuff. Excludable means that a good or service is possible to prevent people (consumers) who have not paid for it from having access to it.

How is copyright invaded online?

There are mainly three kinds of copyright invasion. First, sharing among individuals online for non-commercial purpose, for which paid content become free to be accessed by other people. Second, reprint online without permission for commercial purpose, for which audience could be distracted from the original source and the traffic of content producer could be reduced. Third, use the content offline without permission for commercial or non-commercial purpose, for which the original copyright owner may not use it elsewhere.

The dilemma of copyright online is that private goods with copyright become public goods which are excludable to all people by reprinting or sharing.

Why could copyright be invaded online?

No matter online or offline, the ways to protect copyright are to set barriers for copies and to punish those who invade copyright. Anyway, it is almost impossible to prevent all copyright invasion. But the situation becomes more severe online?

In the architecture aspect, the communication process itself is not excludable. The end-to-end principle is one of the central design principles of the Internet and is implemented in the design of the underlying methods and protocols in the Internet Protocol Suite. It means that computers/IP addresses are combined within a big network and all data transmitted from one end to another end may go through other ends in this network, which leaves a hole for users to reproduce the data based on the trace on ends.

Besides, punishment for copyright invasion has the premise that copyright owner should make a complaint at first. The gap between virtual world and online world is one of the reason for reprinting online copyright in offline activities.

Possible ways to solve the dilemma

Concluded from the above discussion, the question for us is how to set barriers for copying and reprinting in the context of network. Learnt from the experience of encryption, watermark, IP tracking, we know that it’s hard to stop them copying the content without permission since there is “smart” user sitting in front of the “dumb” machine. So the following is possible ways to solve the dilemma.

1. Implanted Ads

It is not new to implant ads at the beginning or the end of the content but in this way, smart audience could easily cut off the unwanted part or even cover up the unwanted logo in the content with digital editing technology. But a better implanted ads to make ads part of your content, like Lu Qi Advertising Cat, a program that presents product with interesting stories.

2. Customized Service

Most content producers sell attention of audience and rely much on ads to make profit. But some of them could earn by providing customized service, which means they produce content as ad for themselves to attract companies with demand of content production and earn by creating customized content which may not be distributed on their channel. For example, YouTuber with good speech skill may be invited to the host of TV programmes.

3. Added value that is unable to be copied——interaction

We know that people are more willing to pay with incentive of added value and goods with much more value would be more attractive. Thanks to the characteristics of the Internet, original producers could create added value which is impossible to be copied—interaction. For good writers, audience are willing to leave views and expect to your reply for your wise advice. For good musician, audience are willing to listen to your live show online which may not be recorded and hope you feel their love as a zealous fan by throwing bunches of virtual stuff bought by real currency.

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