My first interest in computers, programming, etc. was video games. It made for an obvious choice when I went into college. A Computer Science curriculum however has much more to do with math than video games. Conceptually there is some overlap, but most of what you learn and do is more like math than anything most people would associate with video games. That is a major weed out factor in would-be CS graduates. You like video games or computers? Great. You like thinking and learning mathematical concepts? No? GTFO.
Lucky for me, I am someone who gets mathematics. It's not my primary interest, but there are some neat things when you look at the bigger picture. It's also a useful way to look at the world. For me, one those neat things about computer science that keeps me interested is the abstraction of it. The concepts of the mathematical operations that computers perform are the same regardless of the physical device you use to represent it.
The first computers were mechanical devices like the abacus, or on the more complex and modern side, the difference engine; the configuration of mechanical parts represented values, and the movement of the mechanical parts represented performing operations on those values. Today we use electronics to do the same thing; various tiny electrical components store electrical or magnetic charges that represent value, and the movement of these charges down electrical circuits represent the operations performed on these values. In future we're going to hit the limit of what we can do with electronic computing. Scientists are working on representing computing using different materials like light, sub atomic particles, or DNA.
In a similar manner, most media (books, newspapers, music, photographs, film) has gone through this same transition from physical to electronic: electronic books replacing printed type, websites replacing newspapers, digital audio files replacing records, digital image files replacing photographs, and digital video replacing film. All of these examples have seen their respective industries shaken up by this in some form: book pricing has dropped to rock-bottom levels, newspapers' business model are no longer viable, the major music studios' clout has been diminished, amateur digital photography has undercut professional photographers, and video rental stores are folding everywhere. These are just a small number of examples of the disruption caused by the transition to digital media.
Naturally, when you start fucking around with people's source of income and they'll start doing something about it. Companies have used all sorts of tools of the law, from suing anyone and everyone suspected of copyright infringement to extending copyright for long past when it should expire to protect their business model. Technology and the underlying impact its having on the economics, moves much faster than any legal action could hope to be. In these cases the problem is a technical/economic one; solving it with legislation and litigation will not work.
Here's an example why. The file above is a copyrighted image; it's Google's logo. I've shrank it to tiny proportions to demonstrate my point. All computer data (images, text, or whatever) are ultimately stored as a number. The data is structured so that a computer can make it usable, but the end file is stored as binary data (the 1's & 0's you hear about in computing). This binary data is essentially a number. Using a simple program I created, we can take this file and see that in binary it looks like:
10001001010100000100111001000111000011010000101000011010000010100000000000000000000000000000110101001001010010000100010001010010000000000000000000000000001010100000000000000000000000000000111100001000000001100000000000000000000000001001001010100010010111011101111000000000000000000000000000000001011100110101001001000111010000100000000010101110110011100001110011101001000000000000000000000000000001000110011101000001010011010100000100000000000000001011000110001111000010111111110001100001000001010000000000000000000000000000100101110000010010000101100101110011000000000000000000001110110001000000000000000000000011101100010000000001100101010010101100001110000110110000000000000000000001001000001101001001010001000100000101010100010010000100101110111101010101010111110101001100010110110101010100010100111111111011110111010111000000100011001011111001110110100100000010110110110010010001000001010000001100110011010000100100011111000100010000100100101100000010110000101010000000100110000101110001011010101100001011111110000100001000110000111010001100100110010101001011001001000111001100011011011011000001001010100011000100011010001101100001001001001001101011100000000010000000100101011001000110001101001101100001000001100111010110011011011011100010111011100010100100000010000011001011000100001010011101011000011000010100101111000111110001101111011100101000110111111001010001000010101000010010110110010100111101101001010110110110111011110111100011011011101100100100001000000011101100101001100110001000111001111001111101110111110011110011100110111111011110111100111001111001101111110111101111101110101110010001110000110001110000011010001001011100111011110000011001101010100110111000110110110000010110001000110000110000000010010001101110010000000100001110001110001101011111011010100111011100001111011111011110111010011111001111111100011010101111111000000111111101011111011111100100001000010101101111100111100011100101111010110000011111111111110011100110000111101111010101000000100010100100011001111001111100110110110100010000000101001001010011011110001001000001000011010111010011000101111001100001001001010010111110111100011110000111110010000101101100100110011010001010100010010100110100101000100111011011001001110100100100101110001110111000001001001110100111101000101110011111111100110111101000101100000001011110111001111001010010110110100010101011111011111101101101010111010001010110011000111100110110000100001011010110011100110110111010011101010010101011010001000110010011011011111000101001110000100000111010011111001111111011001000100110100011100111111000100010110111001001000000001101111010010011000100101111101010110011011000010101010110100110101111001111001001111000001000100010011010011110111111100110111100111101110100111000010011110011100110001010110010101001100001111010111110111001011010101110010100011101010000010000001101111111110011001001011100010010010001011000101000100000001011010000110010101111111100100011011011011110000000011010110001110110000100001111110111101010000001001100110111010100001011100000000001010111100000111011001100110101100111010110110000011000010101100011000011000001010100100111011000000111100101001010111001011000000011110011101100111011100100101111110110100100010000111100010110101010000010000111010010010110111101011111110000111101001110101010101101000010011111100110011000100111001001110110000101100010011000010100100101111111000100110010000010101101101111010000101001001101010111111000001101101000100111101010101100101011010000001001011011111100000000001111100010010000000111000001100010111000001001111000101010111111100001001100001000111101010110001110011111110000111010001000111001000001010001001110000000000111001110101010000100010001110001111001010000110011010010110111101101001111100000101010011110000001100001010001110101101010101011001000001011101001100010100100000110101000001100110111011101100111011001001100000110010001100100011000000011011001101000001100110011010001011100000000001000110001000110101101100011100111111100000011010000101111101101111111110111010011110000100000011000111001110110011101100110011100100010110111011011110110100001011100000110000110110101101011010000101011101010100000101001010000100110111010101010111000110001110110110000100011001101010111000000110100100011101111010110000100101001100101001011100111110011000100110011001001011111011001101101110101100101100110111010000011011101100111110001000101010101110101110000111000101100010111100000100100101011001000010100000101000111100101011001011100110100000011100111110110010011001011001001010000001110110101111110010000111001110101101111001111101001110010011101010011011111110101111110111101011000100110110111111001101110001000001001100111010111010101100101001011001010110110111000100011110111100101010101101010100000010100000100101011101110110010111010011011011000011100010001101101110011011011011001110111110000011111110011110011001100100001010000110110001000100011111000000101100100010100110010010000000110010010111100111000000010000010111001011100100000101100011111001011110000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000000000000000000000000000000000100100101000101010011100100010010101110010000100110000010000010
And when we convert to our standard number system we get:
847832597307642143293186540633128032603498909401480356814716866828694514855234147317877510447722858287974862333350351760604385180085440866655026669331118289660462317187237124577995849840006183410393648427523845669176295432352877713451565201106046407371040724218812417110366356611335061560366670116380100877279050419337203247277533596524782173303272874855081838032015819567340290269692744119195245388543993026662032967014356351292431804484073595441417174419395763556626259792598624683226478022089880504118155159199451030392942189161317889254342608716588332030194493694451895989126095845142683501641558209346389940316709113282296571899306041695876845299567740419540641106246171223021791948546189756870898978163462920581130080799588668026351571535164918106515737847619249021709808931436285724006124976384091979912650878720401841013565865155353137070673569223473770194034890304582328502222342506264201446587946468351525632936652162592929858942517433367763447855497462620087246263559717900276334790788351675822967085011851620796196524702812916543494381741467794447575956499272136597020802638141845076202914025549928831668937299275769891367150395150111445746265468550333070475109757685801914538364081879922426241535416255656537990358871986496958393361972337820910300542281157058873165656210294861005168093702576427133043010178861360353985145050330488802483574094560305209668531081965314516511937367013960461649198629802932351119533399388321474321677888999564101685359535323060858641951160253265898857414693235377283129381887346494917416753790645471237318959560095367677968708010897362345566918863468589182685592472128105591760429142292295444472135967493837968957831587544992574319759675194434997881177509941563164025428432915886567366089356596176061333445686822069129403002327332261612316340466245407907781388909038361517462274342869179907381780200860429186654161541169549039473078370080463887872077101296753912478778017841146191718899801629137332649365739273573434377291672599953472521710631295290256130224384135772832334265405739954101680028863860643433135040162999498235251706935023723785653445087177812894506296694347860538833237488764397303724096156245867252588837930806548043952461530534050364086671433678335368666417326383993903512030677032827352689506034771871828724405882146634242258456452268546687369764761580109937067535394356870039094916191875456499215919443970441917325502087627441867162787843023831519216763026423711412981931767079434934028776468433299532702660018011504571357805738547661801134653794080591125191160591783682430557020136314930880269100085541790544451844077173764539941155100587817122395517323561207741109903183381046321089481815352830712891008114969714032243590431573506099534808838156130296874045316458529113481059813745861596672103122775118577631825139039714762784272906092520650865423389871333450373955692763733468852409168360790616595466988073026898183537090775597999512112183256152184456566915943372242957043787114886515156120862594470042915978977743580744224348190067295406241839339035434739956077102129897603
It certainly is a lot larger than the image above, but its the same data just displayed differently. This is the same for any digital media file that exists out there. From this perspective, trying to claim ownership of a digital file is like trying to claim ownership of number. This isn't what copyright law attempts to do. However, when it comes to enforcing copyright law over a digital representation of a copyrighted work, that is close to what's going on. It sounds absurd.
It gets more absurd. Copying data is a fundamental part of how computers work. With any sort of copyrighted digital media, you can expect it to be copied multiple times just to consume the data. Let me give you a good example. Right now I'm writing this post. The text, being my written work, is copyrighted by me. The data is stored in my web browser memory as write it. When I hit send, it will travel across the Internet, from my ISP to GoDaddy's web servers. This trip will have my copyrighted data copied at least 2 or 3 times as it jumps across various network devices across the Internet.
Once at GoDaddy's web server, it will be copied to a couple servers that run my website (not to mention whatever backup servers GoDaddy has). Once my copyrighted text is on the web site, Google, FaceBook, other web crawlers, spam bots, etc, will have requested this copyrighted data from my website. Each request will have multiple copies made to traverse to its destination across the Internet. Eventually, depending on your source for this copyrighted data, you will have requested this data off a server where the data will be copied to your own web browser. That number (that represents my copyrighted text) is now in many different places. The Google logo above is probably in millions of places at least.
Here's where the economics comes in. There's a very simple concept in economics called scarcity. Goods have value because they are more or less scarce. The more scarce (less abundant) a good is the more value it has per unit. Vice versa applies as well. The more abundant a good is the less value it will have. With a good that is purely a digital product, scarcity no longer exists; excluding the upfront cost of electricity and computer hardware, it can be copied indefinitely. It terms of economics, when the supply of a good (the ability to copy a digital product indefinitely) is infinitely greater than demand (the time we have to consume media products) the price will go to 0.
Of course the cost of producing that original copyrighted product isn't 0, only the reproduction of the digital representation (that number I talked about above). Writers, musicians, photographers, and so on need to be paid to keep doing what they do, assuming that they don't have any other source of income. Even worse, depending on your perspective, the barrier to entry by any would-be artist is lowered by technological progress (cheaper and better tools to write, record, and film) and abundant digital reproduction. Further competition produces even less scarcity which pushes costs even lower. For professional media, this is where large companies are useful. They can assume the upfront costs (paying everyone involved) and make large purchases on equipment needed for highly professional media (printers, high quality recording and photography equipment).
The burden of recouping those costs falls to those companies. Naturally, you can expect it to do all that is possible to recoup those costs and prevent any losses from piracy. However, suing people isn't profitable and I think it's counterproductive at some point. Whatever money you recoup (after fees to win litigation) won't make up for the negative publicity it generates. Suing organizations or other companies that facility piracy is just as pointless. In the past 10 years Napster, Morpheus, Grokster, Sharman Networks, Limewire, IsoHunt, and The Pirate Bay all have been sued. It has done nothing to stop the availability of pirated media over the Internet in the least. The economics of the situation works too well to stop everyone.
The other major attempt to stem piracy (and thus recoup costs) is a technical one, applying DRM to a digital media file. DRM is a generic term for a technical solution to prevent unauthorized copying. In the example I gave above, DRM takes the number representing that Google image, scrambles it in some fashion that obscures its true value, and places some program in front it. This program ultimately decides who and what gets a copy of the true value. In other words, DRM creates an artificial scarcity with the digital reproduction that would otherwise cost next to nothing.
The problem with this is that the economics still haven't fundamentally changed. It still costs next to nothing to reproduce that number. You've just obfuscated the copying process with your DRM program. All it takes is one person with the technical knowledge, especially one with a strong financial incentive (a counter-fitter, someone with more time than money to buy your product, etc.), to find out a way to subvert your DRM program. Once subverted, that obscured number is no longer obscured; it's out there free to be copied by everyone, or at least everyone who is technically savvy. For the non-technically savvy (i.e. the majority of consumers), they are likely to be hammered by a DRM program that will restrict copying in some form or another. If you've ever had to update a BluRay player before it would play a movie, this is a good example.
The problem isn't digital technology, the problem is the business model. Old business models in the pre-digital world, were built on an assumption of physical scarcity associated with the media. With this no longer the case, new business models must be created that don't rely on physical scarcity. The Economist put a special report on television a few weeks ago that really hit this point well. It remarks on how TV has best adapted to the new digital media world.
The most salient insight taken from the report is that TV has succeeded because of the service & experience it provides, not the digital bits it serves up. TV piracy is just a prevalent as other media, however its timeliness, instance gratification, and ease of use make it worth the cost to consumers. Other media has already started down this route. Witness the rise of Netflix for movies or Steam for video games. Others should take note.