The world’s first copyright law, the Statute of Anne, was enacted in England in 1710. Its purpose was to protect copyright owners from unscrupulous printers who, at the time, would copy and sell almost anything they could get their hands on, regardless of whether they created it or not. Since then an ongoing battle has been joined between copyright owners, who seek to protect their copyrighted content, and infringers, who use advanced technology to facilitate unauthorized instantaneous copying and worldwide distribution. The very same advanced technology that permits convenient access for authorized users of copyrighted content opens the floodgates to unauthorized worldwide distribution. Thus, the copyright owners search for cost-effective ways to protect their copyrighted content, while simultaneously permitting convenient access to authorized parties, continues unabated.
Traditionally copyright enforcement ran the gamut from discreet cease-and-desist campaigns against established commercial infringers and ambitious Internet start-ups to persistent, well-publicized lawsuits against large groups of private individuals. While the tactics varied, all had one common theme—curtailing infringement of copyrighted content through actual or threatened litigation. The goal was simply to reduce the number of instances of infringement or the damage caused. Now it appears that a new breed of copyright owner has surfaced deploying highly aggressive tactics calculated to not only reduce infringement, but by using economies of scale, to make litigating these actions significantly more profitable. These strategies include mass defendant file sharing suits (i.e., “reverse class actions”) and the filing of cookie-cutter complaints, with little warning, targeted at a large number of individual defendants. While, to date, these new approaches have not met with overwhelming success, analysis reveals that they could eventually evolve into effective copyright enforcement tools.
Technology Advances
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