Copyright in 2020

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released a third study on the future of the internet (available through our Knowledge Database). Based on interviews with leading technology experts, the following scenario on the future of copyright was drawn up:

“Content control through copyright-protection technology dominates. In 2020, strict content controls are in place thanks to the efforts of legislatures, courts, the technology industry, and media companies. Those who use copyrighted materials are automatically billed by content owners, and Internet service providers automatically notify authorities when they identify clients who try to subvert this system. Protestors rarely prevail when they make claims that this interferes with free speech and stifles innovation.”

Three out of five respondents (60%) disagreed with the idea that legislatures, courts, the technology industry, and media companies will exercise effective content control by 2020. According to a majority of the experts cracking technology will stay ahead of technology to control intellectual property (IP) or policy regulating IP. Nearly a third of the survey respondents (31%) agreed that IP regulation will be successful by 2020; they said more content will be privatized, some adding that this control might be exercised at the hardware level, through Internet-access devices such as smartphones.

Furthermore, the experts predicted that regulators will not be able to come to a global agreement about intellectual property. Many respondents suggested that new economic models will have to be implemented, with an assumption that much that was once classified as paid content will have to be offered free or in exchange for attention or some other unit of value.