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Updating Copyright Laws

In todays world it seems that in every step you take, whether it is building your business website or advertising your new product, you are breaking some sort of copyright law. With all the ways that people transfer data and information on the web it is not surprising that these outdated laws are being broken by businesses and consumers alike. The only legitimate solution for this problem is to change these laws to fit the technological situation in which we are in.

Using the new communication tools to speed up the flow of ideas and culture is an opportunity we won?t be able to seize if copyright laws remain as they are. The publishing world makes it easy to understand which changes are needed. Indeed, copyright laws were created for a publishing world where books were tangible, printed in limited number and sold within territory based markets. Technological changes are opening a new book market where books are intangible, exist in unlimited number of copies and travel worldwide in an increasingly global market.

In this emerging global book market -made possible by the conjunction of the Internet, e-book technologies, DRM and print on demand devices- three fundamental concepts traditionally used in copyright laws have become obsolete: territory, property and the way we think about justice in a world of scarcity. The author proposes guidelines to modernize copyright law so that it can foster an adequate use of new communication technologies. For the first time in History, humankind has acquired a technology that allows the creation of a world of cultural affluence and freedom of speech or its opposite.