Intellectual Property Law

Balazs Bodo has a nice post on copynorms (the social norms governing the conduct regulated by copyright law) on his CIS blog.  Here is a taste:

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

Read his post, which has some helpful citations to the copynorms literature.