Digital Assets
Apple, Apple Music Store, Copy protection, Copyright infringement, Copyright infringement of software, Digital rights management, Electronic Arts, encryption, File sharing, Intellectual property law, law, Microsoft, on your product, public relations, Recording Industry Association of America, software crackers, Software cracking, software industry, software protection mechanism, software vendors, Warez
The recent fights of the music industry remind me a lot about the early days of the personal computer industry. While I was still a kid then, it seems the software industry went through a similar experience in terms of trying to figure out how to deal with piracy. In this entry, I examine what I consider to be the four stages of dealing with piracy of digital assets. I believe that any industry that is seeing a move of their intellectual assets to a digital medium will go through four basic stages: ignorance, panic, protection and litigation, quiet acceptance. This was the case with software in the 80s and 90s, is currently the case with music, and will soon be the case with movies. I suspect that other industries like the professional photography market are facing similar issues currently or have in the past. Stage 1: Ignorance During this stage, an industry ignores the problem, either because it is seen as the domain of fringe elements or doesn’t seem like it could possibly have a huge impact. Consider this the ostrich strategy. Executives downplay the importance of a new culture (software crackers in the 80s, file-sharing in the mid-90s)…