THE DIGITAL DILEMMA: A Perspective on Intellectual Property in the Information Age

Pamela Samuelson, University of California, Berkeley, and Randall Davis, MIT

1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 9/23/2000)

Advances in technology have often posed challenges for intellectual property (IP) law. Congress has, for instance, periodically amended copyright law to regulate new technology products (such as photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings, and cable television) or new uses of works made possible by advances of technology. In addition, new technologies have often given rise to contentious copyright litigations, such as those involving photocopying of scientific articles and home videotaping. Given this history, it should not be surprising that the advent of digital technologies and networks would bring about some perturbations in intellectual property law. The first set of battles over copyright and digital information focused on software copyrights and patents. Intense in their day, these battles have now largely ended in a new status quo. Equally or more intense have been more recent battles over the role of copyright on the Internet and the World Wide Web. In recognition of both the difficulty and the significance of the problems that underlay these debates, the National Science Foundation, acting on a recommendation by the Federal Networking Council Advisory Committee, commissioned a study of intellectual property and new technology issues by the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Academies.