“Mob of scofflaws,beware!”

In an aside entitled "Copyright infringement in the Workplace" Poltorak and Lerner speak to some very legitimate concerns, but do so with language that highlights the stark lag I've been seeing between the legal attitudes and the technology uses that it is supposed to reside over.

The piece, essentially is a warning to those readers who my have copyright infringer in their own workplaces – remember,the book is intended for business executives and IP managers. "Otherwise honest and law-abiding citizens routinely make copies of magazine and technical articles and duplicate computer software," it cautions, "if you are a part of this mob of scofflaws, beware!"

After some discussion of the various organizations that police copyright infringement, it closes with an example of a firm that had to pay $480,000 for illegal use of MS and IBM software. However, it doesn't end before issuing the following dire statement:

If you are making photocopies and just can't break the habit, or have lots of unlicensed copies of software in use, it's probably best to find these folks before they find you."

Their basic advice is reasonable, and the justification for the fines and policing legitimate (I think). But does the way they speak about photocopying a magazine article resonate at all with the prevalent attitudes towards the uses of information? Do we generally feel a theft has taken place we send a friend a copy of an interesting article?

This question, I think, is worthwhile. One response might be that it doesn't matter if the law and social norms are asynchronous, that the law exists to constrain social behavior. Rule of law and all that. But while social stability is an important element of law, social rigidity probably ought not to be – certainly not for a social order seeking durability.

As nearly effortless access to and communication of information becomes increasingly ubiquitous, its accepted proprietorship may come to reflect it's availability. To use a stretched anology, it is difficult to speak of owning "air" because it is a)everywhere, b)used by everyone and c.)not destroyed by use. Information, generally, may begin to be something like air in this way.

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