Norms

The last, but not least important field, is that of norms. These are the norms, views and ideas that make up the public opinion. It is how people think about IP, how they act towards it, and also how they view others' behaviour towards it. Most effective laws depend on, and correspond to, widely held norms, rather than on constant policing.

As historians know, norms differ with time and place, and are often determined by historic factors. Specific ways in which norms can be (partially) steered are public relations campaigns, and ideologies and views expressed in movies and the press. In addition, as Michel Foucault made clear, language itself - in the form of discourses - also co-determines what is considered reasonable, and what is marginalized. Important for this are the analogies used, and the framing of the situation: whether one equates data to physical goods, and thus considers copying comparable to the stealing of a purse; or whether one calls it sharing like the sharing of ideas with a friend.

In general the public opinion is divided. While almost everyone in the West sees property-rights as useful for physical goods, many doubt its effects when applied to ideas and expressions. There seems to be a generational divide too, as especially among the people who grew up with the web, and have a fuller understanding of digital world (and arguably a lesser of the world of professionals), many are opposed to strict IP. In addition more than 60% of internet-users, and thus more than 100 million people in the US alone, take part in file-sharing. For youth this number is even higher as 95% partakes in file-sharing in the UK, and of the music on their MP3 players, about half was copied illegally.