Policing the network: Using DPI for copyright enforcement

Abstract

Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and other network surveillance techniques have become important factors in the policy debate over online copyright infringement. These new technical capabilities reopened an old debate about the responsibility of Internet service providers (ISPs) for policing the Internet. This paper attempts to understand the extent to which new technological capabilities have the power to alter regulatory principles. It examines political conflict and negotiation over proposals to use DPI for online copyright enforcement in the EU and the USA, using a hybrid of actor-network theory from science, technology and society studies and actor-centered institutionalism in political science. It shows that while the technology disrupted a policy equilibrium, neither the EU nor the US applied DPI to copyright policing in a way that realized its radical potential. The key factor preventing such an integrated response was the disjunction between the interests of network operators and the interests of copyright holders. © The author(s), 2012.