Final Project Proposal for my Law Class in the MCDM
Topic: Stealing the stolen
Seemingly innumerable amounts of copyrighted materials are published and shared by millions on-line today. Much of these cultural artifacts are distributed by copyright owners through approved channels. However, a great deal of this IP is being distributed illegally, be it through file-sharing, torrents, mashups, remixes, piracy, or other means. Just as ‘return on investment’ is difficult to measure when copyright owners license or otherwise publish their content on-line, it is not unreasonable to assume that the lasting impact of user appropriation or piracy of material published is equally difficult to measure. Nevertheless, measuring this potential impact is critical to copyright owners; the subject itself is rife with problems, and finding solutions to this new world of stealing and appropriating IP is of major importance. The cultural production sector, as Benkler would call it in his seminal work, The Wealth of Networks, is a sector built on social production (2006). IP finds its way on-line, and thereafter is commoditized and commodified by the masses for their own social production. Once IP reaches the web, it is no longer controllable – it is stolen and re-stolen time and time again. This arena of lawlessness is where I wish to center my research.
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