In my previous blog article I wrote about the two big lies of copyright and copy-control. I explained what the lies are, and how we can know they are not true.

As a reminder, the two lies are:

1. There is no alternative to copyright: there is no alternative legal framework for paying digital content creators that would not depend on copy-control.
2. Copy-control can be made to work: DRM will prevent copying of commercial content. All forms of file-sharing, Internet-based or not, will be closed down.

In this article, I give what I think are the main reasons why these lies continue to be told, or at least implied, and believed, in most public discussions about copyright and "piracy".

## 1. Each lie supports the other

I mentioned this in my previous article – that because there is no alternative to copyright, copy-control has to be made to work, and since copy-control can be made to work, there is no need to consider any alternative to copyright.

## 2. The "Black Swan" effect

The Black Swan is a concept popularised by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The idea is that we tend to under-estimate the probability of unique future events that have never happened before. (Until someone "discovered" Australia, Europeans only knew of white swans.)

The complete and utter failure of copy-control will be a unique historical event. It has never happened before, and once it has happened, it will probably never happen again. Therefore, we under-estimate the probability that it will happen at all.

In the day to day life of people who work in the digital content industry, this conservatism is an example of one of those "nobody ever got fired for ..." statements, i.e. nobody ever got fired for doing everything possible to maintain the effectiveness of copyright and copy-control. Not even if your brand new DRM system is broken into two weeks after you release it. Not even if you end up on the nine o-clock news trying to explain why you installed malware on your customers' computers.

The very, very unlikely alternative to the complete failure of copy-control is the rise of the Technological Dictatorship – a society where all future technological progress has been made subservient to the legal requirements of the entertainment industry.

Whoever wins, whether it be the pirates or the copy-controllers, the end of the "copyright battle" is going to be a situation with no historical precedent.

## 3. The technical nature of the arguments

The explanation of why copy-control will fail, unless there is a Technological Dictatorship, depends on various technical arguments, such as:

- The "encryption" in DRM is not really secure, because the "enemy" (which is us), has a copy of the "secret key".
- You can't prevent "peer-to-peer" "file-sharing" on the Internet, at least not without closing down the whole Internet, because sharing files is just the transmission of data from one computer to another, and transmitting data from "peer" to "peer" is exactly what the Internet is designed to do.
- "Controlled" computers like game consoles are not universal computers (at least not until they have been illegally "modded"), and this restricts the possible uses of those computers. In particular it limits the ability of everyone and anyone to develop software for them.
- Technical progress in computer hardware and software depends very much on the amount of freedom that everyone has to write, distribute and run software of their choice, and this is exactly the same freedom that permits piracy. You can't have one without the other.

If a concept is sufficiently technical, then it is safe to assume that only a very small proportion of the population understands it. In the world of politics and public discussion, any argument depending on difficult technical concepts can be treated as if it does not exist. 1% of the population will think you are an idiot. But you only need 51% of the vote to get into power.

## 4. Incrementalism

At any given time, pirates will use whatever is the easiest and least risky method of getting hold of the most desirable content.

This creates the illusion that the "solution" to piracy is always just "one more" enforcement procedure away:

- If pirates copy CDs, then invent a new kind of CD that can't be copied.
- If pirates use Bit Torrent on port 6881, then block all traffic on 6881.
- If pirates bring back copied (and unencrypted) DVD's from their overseas holidays, then get customs to check for DVD's.
- If pirates copy material from their local public library, then don't let public libraries lend out material that can be copied.

The problem is that none of these procedures will prevent piracy, and some of them will cause significant loss to people who aren't pirating content. The most that any of these procedures can do is force the pirates to resort to newer and harder to detect methods of piracy which require slightly more effort.

Most proposed anti-piracy measures depend on attacking public manifestations of piracy. Attacking all public manifestations of piracy will have one result: the complete privatisation of piracy.

To continue the "war" on piracy beyond that point, the "copyright police" will have to monitor or control everything that happens on any computer or other digital device.

## 5. Over-estimating the future value of copyrighted content being paid for now

If everyone knew that copy-control was going to completely fail, perhaps in just a few years, then everyone would take that into account when buying content now. There are two reasons why copy-controlled content can be expected to depreciate:

- DRM increases the probability that purchased content may cease to be playable, due to degradation of the content-playing infrastructure (or due to unilateral decisions made by the content "provider").
- When copy-control fails completely, access to specific content will be independent of whether or not that content was previously purchased, so your past purchases will all be worth nothing.

It follows that nobody selling digital content wants to admit the possibility of copy-control (and therefore copyright) failing completely, because that will lower the perceived value of the content they are selling (in whatever form that might be), and they would have to lower their prices accordingly.

## 6. The moral high-ground

Copyright has progressed from a pragmatic system for paying authors to a full-blown moral theory of "rights" and "property". When people believe that they occupy moral high ground, they do not easily give up their "rights".

It is in the nature of morality to seem as though it is absolute (and perhaps God-given), even though, in the long run, all moral systems are very dependent on the existence of pragmatic systems for their enforcement. Faced with the possible sudden disappearence of the enforcement system for a morally defined system of "rights", which in the case of copyright is copy-control, denial is a natural reaction.

## 7. The moral low-ground

Most people who already enjoy the benefits of "piracy" do not care much about possible alternatives to copyright or the future success or failure of copy-control. If you can get way with piracy, then who cares whether anyone else thinks that what you are doing is immoral or illegal?

## 8. The unwitting victims

The biggest victims of the lies about copyright and copy-control are those people who continue to believe that they, as consumers, have a moral obligation to adhere to the requirements of copyright law.

If copyright was the only alternative, and if copy-control could be made to work, then this would be a reasonable point of view.

But if copy-control is a losing battle, and if there exist other more equitable ways of charging for otherwise "free" content, then those consumers who continue to accept this moral viewpoint are the true victims. Everyone else gets to benefit:

- The content sellers don't care if half of their customers don't pay, as long as there is a second half who still do pay.
- The customers who don't pay, the "pirates", get to enjoy more content and pay less for it. (They even get to have more choices as to what devices they play their content on, because their pirated copies are "unlocked", and not subject to DRM restrictions.)

The longer that these "victims" can be kept in the dark, the longer they will keep paying their unfair share of the costs of producing published content.

A common question about content prices, for example the price of a CD album, is if technology has made production and distribution cheaper, how come prices haven't gone down? One answer is that the percentage of customers who still "believe" in copyright is constantly decreasing, therefore the retail prices have to be kept the same, or even raised, to maintain the total sales revenue.