Paul Raven over at Futurismic notes the complicating factor that live-streaming video entails when the camera/viewer looks at copyrighted material. As digital video encounters a greater and greater proportion of the experienced world — including books, telecasts, sports events, concerts, stageplays — then copyright and transmission restrictions will face greater and greater pressure to give way. Will we really ask that theatres install video-disabling jammers, that all digital video appliances include compliant kill-switch receivers, and that customers and the legal system bear the burden of perpetuating an anachronistic technological regime for the benefit of copyright holders? And what happens when you want to take perfectly legitimate video footage of your family just outside Ibrox (where anti-video transmissions would be on to prevent Rangers fans from watching football through their chums’ video specs)?
May we please be governed by policies that look forward, rather than lumbered by policies designed to deny the reality of the present and command the tide of the future to retreat?