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Originally Posted by stonetools
There is a strong government interest in protecting against IP infringement . In the US A, the government Established IP rights at the very beginning, putting it in the Constitution. ( fwiw, it's also in the UN Declaration of Human Rights). Their decision to emphasize the protection of IP Rights paid off in a flourishing of arts, science and technology in the United States that continues to this day.
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In fact, there is a very good thread on here about how US Publishers became established by refusing to respect copyright laws. In the US and some other countries there is a strong government interest in protecting against IP infringement. In China and many other developing countries, there is an interest in not doing so, though in China this is changing as the economy develops.
Generally speaking the laws being proposed are not intellectual property laws per se. They are laws to try to make enforcement of such rights in cyberspace feasible. The problem is that the nature of the internet makes this almost impossible. No one country controls the internet. The actions of US Government Agencies in seizing domain names has already resulted in some sites leaving the United States, and has spurred the development of more robust alternatives to the DNS system. As an earlier poster pointed out, the internet treats this type of interference as damage to be routed around. Efforts by China and many of the Middle Eastern countries to censor the Net have effectively failed. It is trivially easy for even relatively unsophisticated users to connect through proxy servers, the Tor Network, Freenet or many other alternatives. To criminalise such encrypted communications denies their legitimate and important uses, and would require extensive resources to monitor. And, of course, such monitoring would develop into a battle between the hackers and the governments, such as is already occurring with the so-called great firewall of China. To stand any chance of success, effective enforcement would require unprecedented co-operation between sovereign nations, the like of which the World has never seen. Not to mention draconian restrictions on individual freedoms.
And why? Publishing has until relatively recently been protected from the situation faced by the Movie and Music Industries by the fact that copying paper books was simply not generally worthwhile. Copying of EBooks is trivially easy, and difficult to detect. So is production of EBooks. The traditional role of publishers has changed dramatically, and also become far less valuable. Barriers to entry into the industry have been dramatically reduced. New Business Models have been implemented by businesses like Smashwords and Lulu, not to mention Amazon. They offer authors a much greater share of revenues than they have enjoyed in the past. My experience is that prices outside of the agency publishers are much lower, yet most authors are probably making as much or more than they otherwise would have. Some of the better books I have read recently cost no more than a few dollars. But, like other industries, the Agency Publishers are trying to preserve their existing prices and business models.
Yet it is not the end of the world. When you think about it, it is quite surprising that there is apparently a very large number of people who still buy their books rather than pirate them. I think the piracy problem is much exaggerated. Amazon is thriving, as is Smashwords and Lulu. Even the dinosaurs of the industry continue to flourish, though the writing is on the Wall for them. They must adapt or die. To pass draconian laws to preserve their business model is simply not warranted, and would in my view harm rather than help the vast majority of authors.
There will always be some piracy, though losses from it are usually exaggerated outrageously. Live with it. But be comforted that that human nature is not as bad as it is often painted. It would seem that there are a very large number of people who will do the right thing if treated fairly. If the existing top publishers don't learn this then their successors will be those who do.