In the last few weeks I bumped into several articles addressing the question why people feel OK to up- and download mp3s despite all the laws and legal threats, and how to close the gap between existing copyright legislation and social norms, norms that seem to have a much greater effect on how people behave than laws.
Social norms and the law can interact in a variety of ways: norms can encourage or discourage compliance with law, or they can substitute for them entirely. What we have seen so far, is the complete failure of laws (and interests behind that law) to shift norms towards compliance.
For me the question is not if there is a way to change norms to cover current copyright legislation, but the healthy compromise where these two can meet. One good compromise for me would be an agreement where users respect authors expressed wish not to be shared, like the case of Gary Larson, the creator of Far Side cartoons, who wrote a very convincing letter to his fans asking them to take down his works from fan-sites. (http://www.creators.com/a-note-from-gary-larson.html) As far as I can judge this approach is working: Larson is not a widely shared author on the net.
It is clear that you cannot _force_ people into such compliance. Then what is the solution? All of these articles suggest some very basic steps:
- Build communities based on sustained relationships.
- Improve perceptions of fairness. People are spiteful.
- Give people a chance to comply.
- Involve the fans in enforcement.
(taken from Schultz Copynorms)
Which is intuitive, but very simple. Be a part of your fans community, use your authority and their respect, explain them your decisions, and trust them that they are good. Using these assets, build norms within the community and at the end of the day fans will enforce community rules among each other.
Which is good news for us, who are working on a p2p file sharing system that enables fan communities to play by the rules suggested by the author whose works they love so much. (http://arki.uiah.fi/p2p-fusion)
Oh, the articles:
- Schultz, Mark F., “Copynorms: Copyright and Social Norms” (September 27, 2006). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=933656
- Schultz, Mark F., “Fear and Norms and Rock & Roll: What Jambands Can Teach Us about Persuading People to Obey Copyright Law” . Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol. 21, p. 651, 2006 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=864624
- Feldman, Yuval and Nadler, Janice, “Expressive Law and File Sharing Norms” (September 6, 2005). Northwestern Public Law Research Paper No. 05-18 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=799364
- Strahilevitz, Lior, “Charismatic Code, Social Norms, and the Emergence of Cooperation on the File-Swapping Networks” . Virginia Law Review, Vol. 89, 2003 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=329700