Who owns the information?, 2005-07-08
Since the eighties, we've been told that we've begun an Information Revolution similar in scope to the great industrial revolution - in fact we've been told this so often that it now seems like little more than an overused cliché. At the same time, the growth of the personal computer has indeed revolutionized how we interact with our world. Many of us have moved from interacting primarily in a physical world to an electronic one, first where only a few pioneers were found, but then finally into a world that anyone can watch and experience. You no longer have to know how to play music by ear or from sheet to enjoy the music. Your understanding of the world is no longer limited by the size of your "dead tree" library. Much more information is available from your easy chair, but what does this mean for the ownership of information?
Setting the laws
Enforcing both physical security and information security is built upon a scaffolding of social expectations and laws. These laws are built by society as the thinkers and commentators influence government and social policies. In our past, famous people like Dickens had made a tremendous impact by identifying the injustices that the social change was creating all around him, and his skill in crafting a message had influenced many laws that were to come later. Where is the Dickens of the 21st century for our information revolution? Once this role model has been chosen, what is he saying about responsibility, privacy, and security of information? Ask your favorite luminary and you might be surprised with their answers.
Change during the industrial revolution was not a technological one, it was primarily a social change - the invention of a technology simply brought about the conditions for the societal shift . The same is true today. The technology is being refined, old ways of thinking are slowly being re-examined, and limits are being pushed.
From your bank account to your iTunes music purchases, who owns the bits of data? It seems like such a simple concept, but it's really not and the answer to this question proves to be elusive.
Digital rights management
The problem remains difficult when we compare the bits of information we can purchase that bear a close resemblance to some physical merchandise. Music, video, and other media are a flashpoint in this social change. If I buy a CD, what can I do with the music on it? The CD by itself is essentially worthless, a piece of plastic and pitted foil worth a couple cents. Obviously what I have paid for is the information encoded on it. What can I do with the CD, however, and what can I do with the information on it? Can I listen to it anywhere? Can I 'take' it off the CD and listen to it on my MP3 player? What if I have it on my computer, my MP3 player and listen to the same CD in the car, does my wife legally get to listen to the MP3 on the computer if I am out for a run with the MP3 player? What if my 16 year old is in the car with her friends listening to the CD at the same time (as if a 16 year old would ever listen to the same music as his father, but let's pretend just for rhetorical purposes)? Even with such a simple example, our technology has vastly outstripped the ability of our social contracts and our laws to deal with the resulting behavior.
