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Abstract

Traditional regulation of copyright has recently been criticized from two opposing angles: While copyright holders and industries bemoan insufficient protection of copyrighted material in the digital era of lossless copying and file-sharing, a diverse coalition of dissident copyright lawyers, artists and activists claims that the prevalent copyright regime hinders new forms of content creation and distribution. In this paper, we compare the resource mobilization of industry-led Digital Rights Management (DRM) initiatives and the Creative Commons copyright licenses project. While the former was, despite the resourcefulness of the actors, fraught with collective action problems, the latter was, despite an originally weak resource position, able to mobilize support from a broad range of civil society groups and users. We conclude that there is something inherently political in the governance of new digital markets which provides opportunities for civil society actors to counterbalance the influence of large companies.