Digital symbiosis and a Widening New Digital Divide These patterns continue today with new platforms. Apple (the computer company, not the record label) leveraged the development of the first broadly licensed online music store (i Tunes) to great success in the markets for portable music devices (iPods, iPhones, iPads, and a growing family of consumer electronics) as well as music and now television and film programming. Google has used You Tube and Google Books to enhance and expand its advertising platform. YouTube’s ContentID and Partner Program, under which many copyright owners pre-clear and derive advertising revenue from use of their content, leverages professional content to expand Google’s family of services. Over 3,000 content owners participate in Google’s revenue-sharing model. Facebook leverages music streaming services—such as Spotify—to enrich its social networking platform. Microsoft’s Xbox, Netflix, and a host of other technology platforms develop and expand the symbiotic pathways that bind technology innovators and content creators. Sony’s recent effort to enter the smartphone industry seeks to integrate devices, music, video, and game content seamlessly.

Yet the principal technology and content sectors are deeply divided on how to address the widespread availability of unauthorized copies of copyrighted works on the Internet. The vertical fragmentation of distribution platforms in the Internet age has created a wedge between platform innovators and creative industries that hinders e-symbiosis. Whereas broadcasters historically hosted content and hence bore direct responsibility for infringement, Internet platforms attenuate responsibility. For example, Google profits from advertising impressions and click-through monetization via its search engine and AdSense network that derive from Web sites distributing copyrighted works without authorization. Although Google might be insulated from liability so long as it complies with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) takedown procedures, its bottom line benefits handsomely from delivering advertisements to people searching for pirated content. The same can be said for payment processors working for Web sites distributing copyrighted works without authority.

The major content industries—
music, film, books, as well as some
video game manufacturers—have
called upon Congress to enact strict
new enforcement tools—such as do-
main name blocking, expanded pub-
lic enforcement powers, and broader
private rights of action—to combat
piracy of their works on foreign Web
sites. The major Internet companies
have strongly opposed these measures
on the grounds that they would un-
dermine the Internet’s functioning,
compromise cybersecurity, and ham-
per free expression. They also contend
that these measures could be eas-
ily circumvented. At a minimum, such
measures could substantially increase
the screening costs of advertising net-
works and payment processors.