The digital dilemma

Reviewer: Joan Catherine Horvath

This paper is itself a summary and review of a report by the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Academies: "The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Information Age" (National Academy Press, February 2000). This paper covers the key issues in balancing the need to create incentives for creative people to create digital content, versus the societal desire to be able to transmit information as easily and cheaply as possible. The key difference between a physical and digital access to a work lies in the fact that digital access virtually always involves making a copy. This means that to control copying -- the traditional key to enforcing author's rights -- one has to control access, which is a far more difficult (and potentially intrusive) thing to do. Furthermore, anyone with a personal computer potentially has the ability to make almost limitless copies of anything digital, the legal ramifications of which are often poorly understood by individuals. The author reviews ways to manage these issues, the most promising of which seems to be the development of good business models that will make it uneconomical or at least inconvenient to create or obtain illicit copies. For example, one can create digital products so customized for each customer that there is little incentive to copy that custom set for others. The paper makes clear that this is a rapidly-evolving area that will need the assistance of people in many disciplines to make good and workable policy.