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Copy protection efforts currently being initiated by national lawmakers at the behest of the entertainment industry are based on a model of Internet use that will soon become obsolete, according to Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig.

In the near future, it will be far easier for music fans to tap into a universal content library than it will be to accumulate audio files and manage them as databases, he claims—all that's needed is wider penetration of high-speed broadband connections.

On Wednesday, February 19, speaking at the Digital Rights Summit at Intel Corporation headquarters, Lessig said that current copy protection efforts are "legislating against a background of the Internet's current architecture of content distribution, and this is a fundamental mistake."(see related story)

With widespread use of broadband, it would be "easier to pay for subscription services than to be an amateur database administrator who moves content from device to device," Lessig said. The legislative move to support the music industry's long-standing physical commodity model could "strike a lethal blow" to the technology industry, he claimed.

Slow Internet connections make it easier to download and save recordings than to "stream" them from centralized servers. Slow speeds and memory run-out cause hiccups and glitches in the stream, and loss of synchronization between sound and images. Most modern PCs are fast enough to handle broadband access, but cable providers have been slow to deliver it.

The US is far behind other countries in percentage of broadband penetration. South Korea reportedly has achieved more than 70% penetration of broadband, said to be six times faster than needed to deliver the highest-resolution variety of high definition television.