If copyright law is to survive in the digital age, it will have to emerge as a co-operative process between creator and public, says Mira Sundara Rajan.

Sundara Rajan is the Canada Research Chair in Intellectual Property Law and an associate professor at UBC’s Faculty of Law.

"Copyright law doesn’t work anymore in practice," said Sundara Rajan. "Once a work is in digital form, people can do whatever they want with it."

In fact, she says the ever-growing frequency of file sharing has put great pressure on traditional copyright industries, including music, and change is bitterly resented by powerful corporations. Their efforts to protect their interests have polarized opinions on copyright.

"People see corporations making money in the name of artists," Sundara Rajan said. "The only way for copyright to work is to restore its moral credibility. People need to feel it’s important to respect the rights of authors and artists, and to protect their work."

These pressures may ultimately end up democratizing copyright. Sundara Rajan says that there’s an opportunity to re-examine the purpose of the law, and in particular, to affirm human creativity in an environment that seems increasingly corporate and technological.

She argues that copyright should focus on the moral and creative rights of authors, while also responding to the public need for access to knowledge. "It’s an issue of human rights."

Sundara Rajan’s interest in protecting artists’ rights is not solely legal. An accomplished musician, she tours about six times a year, performing internationally as a concert pianist.

Her family enjoys a storied cultural past. Her late great-grandfather, C. Subramania Bharati, is the National Poet of India.

Sundara Rajan’s interest in copyright was sparked when she learned of the injustices that occurred after Bharati’s premature death in 1921, largely due to the Indian government’s controversial decision to give his copyright as a gift to the people of India.

Sundara Rajan studies intellectual property issues in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Western and Eastern Europe, Russia, and India.

She predicts that "funky and interesting" developments will continue to force the entertainment industry, record companies and publishers to adapt to the Bittorrent reality.

Ideally, people would be able to do most of what they do now, but it would be accepted as perfectly legal, she says.

"The iTunes model seems to be working really well and appeals to people because of its ease and reasonableness."

As well, consumers seem to like the pricing and the flexibility of being able to purchase one song versus an entire album, she says.