IPI Publication Press Release
IPI Issue Brief
Related Publication Title:
Mountains Out of Molehills: How Believing the Worst Makes Technologists Ineffective, And What They Can Do About It
Released by Sonia Blumstein on 05/04/2007
IPI Issue Brief
Related Publication Title:
Mountains Out of Molehills: How Believing the Worst Makes Technologists Ineffective, And What They Can Do About It
Released by Sonia Blumstein on 05/04/2007
Full Text
Press Release (05/04/2007)
Full Text PDF
For Immediate Release
Contact: Sonia Blumstein, soniab@ipi.org or 205.620.2087
WASHINGTON, DC – Rampant piracy is costing the software, movie and music industries (and thus the U.S. economy) billions of dollars, yet many "technologists" miss or dismiss this big picture, focusing instead on minor inconveniences that result from copyright protection and heaping scorn and venom on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
In recent papers critical of the DMCA, both the Cato Institute and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) claim to describe all the problems caused by the DMCA. But the Cato Institute and EFF papers are not particularly constructive additions to the discussions on the DMCA, because they focus on minor issues while ignoring its massive usefulness in dealing with digital piracy.
Ironically, the real effect of these papers is to demonstrate how little real harm the DMCA has caused compared to its benefits.
Why do critics of the DMCA ignore the big picture and make such mountains out of molehills? In a new paper for the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), Lee Hollaar peers into the mentality of technologists, and identifies several reasons why technologists are so critical of the DMCA, and of copyright policy in general.
First, technologists tend to see restrictions such as those in the DMCA as chilling innovation, but they fail to appreciate that not all innovation is good, and that hyperbolic criticism of the DMCA itself has the potential to chill innovation.
Second, technologists tend to look exclusively to technology for solutions, and fail to appreciate that law is sometimes necessary. Further, technologists tend to see courts as something to be avoided. However, courts are the time-tested solution for peacefully resolving disputes, particularly in the copyright area.
Technologists should instead focus on acknowledging and condemning existing problems, understanding the specific context of the law (not just the language of the law), stating real concerns and finally, proposing solutions to those concerns.
“By concentrating on rare hypothetical problems, rather than solutions or pressing ones, technologists will be ineffective during the formulation of policies that directly affect technology, the very time when their expertise would be valuable,” concludes Hollaar.
Copies of the Report, “Mountains Out of Molehills: How Believing the Worst Makes Technologists Ineffective, And What They Can Do About It,” are available at www.ipi.org. The author is available for interview by contacting Sonia Blumstein at soniab@ipi.org or 205.620.2087.
# # #
# # #
