Dealing with Piracy:: Intellectual Asset Management in Music and Software

The music and software industry are employing copy-protection devices in CDs and digital downloads to strengthen their weak appropriability regimes that leave ample opportunities for modern-day piracy. The effectiveness of the strategy is explained on the grounds that (a) the knowledge involved in copy protection is generally too sophisticated for consumers to circumvent, and (b) consumers are not allowed to use circumvention techniques created by knowledgeable third parties. Copy protection is controversial, because it deprives consumers of making home copies of music and software, and hence overrules copyright law that exempts the copying for private use. It is argued that the technical enforcement of copyright protection in the home domain of millions of individuals necessitates a wide consensus between business and society about the legitimacy of private and fair use.