The basis of copyright law is individuality and creativity. Yet
ever increasing computing power and storage space could mean
that in just a few short years, computing could throw copyright
into chaos. The relationship between technology and law is a
difficult one. Law attempts to put rigid walls around society,
to define can and cannot. Technology, on the other hand,
attempts to turn cannot into can. Making it even harder is the
reality that laws tend to lag about a decade behind technology.
It took 10 years for the legality of the video cassette to be
decided, and even now new laws are being written to deal with
P2P, a decade after BitTorrent was first debuted. While these
two technologies have caused problems for copyright owners, by
disrupting the status-quo around distribution, the incredibly
fast growth in both computing power and storage could soon lead
to a fundamental shake-up in copyright. As it stands in US law
(and remember, US law rules throughout the world, even if it’s
legal, or you’ve not been