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At The Crossroads
from the defining-freedom-online-in-the-Corporate-Republic dept.
As any number of legal and constitutional scholars have written, the Internet has breached many of the walls built around information, ideas and intellectual property.
Perhaps the primary reason the Net has been so free is its architecture, no doubt the greatest protector of free speech online and the reason that issues relating to the distribution of software and hardware are taken so seriously. If politicians, lawyers, businesspeople and journalists have grown alarmed to the point of hysteria because of the Net's wall-busting capabilities, the digital infrastructure has been freedom's best pal and the reason we are all freer than our non-wired counterparts.
Some in the media, a number of affected artists and copyright holders, and many large corporations -- even some people involved in technological movements like open source -- have a tendency to oversimplify copyright issues. Piracy, they say, is wrong, and copyright isn't necessarily a bad thing.
This is, to say the least, stating the obvious. They're right. Piracy, like murder, arson and theft, is unequivocably a bad thing. Who, exactly, is for it? And ownership of ideas is an important tradition. Unfortunately, the issue isn't that copyright is a good or bad witch, but that like the one in Oz, a very big house has fallen on it.
This isn''t a Sunday School morality play, with clearly defined good guys and bad guys. The reality is that the very definition of copyright has been shattered by the Net, along, perhaps with conventional wisdoms about piracy and theft. Finding a fair and workable response will be difficult.
The relative anonymity, the tools of encryption, decentralized distribution, multiple points of access, the irrelevance of traditional geographical boundaries, the challenges to conventional policing, the lack of systems to identify content -- those features designed by the far-sighted wizards who built the Net three decades ago have made it difficult, if not impossible, to control speech in cyberspace.
Not that people haven't tried. Congress passed not one but two Communications Decency Acts to curb speech online, and millions of dollars worth of blocking, filtering and censoring programs have been sold to schools, businesses and parents. Corporate lawyers are cranking out print and e-warning patent and copyright letters by the thousands, sometimes even the hundreds of thousands.
There is no special reason to believe that the current architecture will remain in place. The next generation of Net architects -- more and more likely to work for businesses, with radically different interests than the Net's original designers -- may well build in more controls over the movement of content and information.
Even the U.S. government is beginning to grasp the impact that corporatism is having on technology. In a California speech last week, Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers noted three features of the information revolution: its dependence on brainpower more than conventional economic resources; the globalization of information technology and markets; and its tendency to produce successive monopolies, with a single firm often dominating each generation of technology and products.
Monopolies, as economists know, are obsessive wall-builders. "We can already see the beginnings of this reconstruction," writes Harvard Constitutional expert Lawrence Lessig in his book "Code; and other laws of cyberspace." "Already the architecture is being remade to reregulate what real-space architecture before made regulable. Already the Net is changing from free to controlled."
True. We are clearly passing from one phase to another, though it's far from clear exactly how free the Net will or won't remain. Technology is inherently unpredictable. No one foresaw the Internet, no one can state with certainty how it will evolve. Everyone reading this is well aware of the growing number of lawsuits, patent and copyright issues cropping up online dealing with text, ideas, music, words, software. One primary instrument of legal architecture being deployed to control the Net is the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), little mentioned until a few months ago, but by now familiar to almost everyone interested in speech, copyright or intellectual property matters.
It says a lot about the sad state of media and politics that few people in the country understand how much is at stake when it comes to Net architecture and other issues directly related to this uniquely free environment.
"The architecture of the Internet, as it is right now is perhaps the most important model of free speech since the founding [of the American Republic]," writes Lessig. "This model has implications far beyond e-mail and web pages. Two hundred years after the framers ratified the Constitution, the Net has taught us what the First Amendment means. If we take this meaning seriously, then the First Amendment will require a fairly radical restructuring of the architectures of speech off the Net as well."
This is a powerful idea, much closer to Thomas Jefferson's visions -- he didn't believe ideas could or should be owned -- than to those of contemporary political leaders. He also foresaw that the politics surrounding ideas could change.
But the kind of restructuring Lessig is talking about will take time, and involve complexities and controversies beyond the existing public debates over speech and copyright, i.e. you're-a-thief; no-I'm-not.
In a way, technology and copyright have always been at war. Before the printing press, the idea of copyright was almost incomprehensible: copying was so cumbersome and expensive that nature and time itself protected an author or creator.
Copying is no longer difficult. As each generation has developed better technologies, the ability of copyright holders to protect their intellectual property has eroded to the point where copyright either has to be re-defined or abandoned.
This has brought the Net to a distinct, profoundly significant fork in the road. There are really only two choices when it comes to defining and enforcing free speech and the ownership of ideas and intellectual property. As a society, we can try to make cyberspace conform to the rules of physical space. Or we can recognize the extraordinary potential of this new culture, and invest cyberspace with laws and values and properties that are fundamentally different.
Before the Internet, copyright law and the means to enforce it were relatively simple. Cyberspace changes not only the technology of copying but also the power of law and legislators to protect against illegal copying. In a sense, the Net is a giant Xerox machine, cranking out digital copies at almost no cost, in staggering quantities, to incalculable numbers of people -- all at unbelievable speed. Pity the cop whose job it is to enforce existing copyright -- tracing and punishing violators -- online. Talk about a crime wave.
This has enormous implications for free speech and intellectual property. Technologies that work have always gotten used, whether they should be or not. It's still true. People who can download text, columns, games, ideas, music and software will do so, if for no other reason than because they can. People who can use technology to comment freely, distribute code, challenge authority and criticize powerful corporate interests will do so, not only because they have the right but because they are able. This is the immutable reality of cyberspace, the new political consciousness emanating from the Internet.
All along the Internet Edge, legal and political conflicts are intensifying over the ownership of music, patents, programs, code, content and ideas.
This battle will sorely test a system that hasn't even begun to come to grips with the impact of the Internet on freedom, or on traditional models of commerce and information distribution. The libertarian ethic that has always defined much of the Internet associates government with threats to liberty. Traditionally, the libertarian is concerned about reducing the power of government. But threats to liberty change: in our time, they increasingly arise from corporate, not governmental power. And there is no mainstream political movement primarily concerned with that, in part because corporatism has acquired much of the press and now provides the primary funding for the political system.
To date, there's no consensus about which Internet choice should be made -- to make it conform to existing laws and values, or to recognize it as a new kind of space. Nor is there anything like broad agreement about what changes might be made, if there are to be any.
But the issue is becoming more distinct every day. Computer users, members of Web communities, software developers and Web site operators are increasingly confronted with lawyers, arguments and new kinds of questions about the movement of information and ideas. The Net is, as a result, in danger of losing at least some of the freedom that characterized its first decades.
The United States has always had a love-hate relationship both with freedom and government. America has been a country that self-righteously espouses the notion of individual liberty, even as many Americans and institutions from the Puritans to the sponsors of the DMCA -- have continuously tried to take it away. Since freedom involves not a single idea but a complex system of values, the struggle to define what it is is a never-ending intellectual, economic, personal and political --and increasingly, technological -- struggle, one which is now engulfing the Internet.
The Net gave America a freer culture than it had ever had, or even quite imagined. The next few years will decide if it stays that way. Were the founders alive -- people like Paine, Jefferson and Franklin -- they would find in the Internet many of their values and dreams for a free and democratic society. And they'd fight to keep it that way.
"New circumstances," wrote Jefferson in 1813, "...call for new words, new phrases, and for the transfer of old words to new objects."
New BIBLE patent applied for at USPTO! (Score:3)
Jon, corporations are not the danger (Score:3)
Forget corporations, stop bashing them, they are a distraction from the real problem which is the fact that the laws themselves do not respect rights.
- Porn laws and piracy laws ignore the right to free speech and thought.
- Decency laws, euthanasia laws and forced self-safety laws ignore the right of self ownership.
- Zoning rules, antitrust, workplace regulations and most taxes or tariffs ignore the right of private property.
- And so on.
A Fundamental Flaw In This Story (Score:3)
We are not dealing with a closed system here, which Katz seems to assume. The 'net could (however unlikely) be ruled completetly illegal by, say, the US gov't and then what? The access we all hold so dear would vanish overnight. The backbone providers could be forced to shut down, thus killing the access for all. What good would "virtual" freedom do us if the police could simply bust down the door of any service provider and pull plugs from the wall?
I heartily agree that a new form of freedom is at work in the Internet. Right or wrong, millions of people have begun to take it for granted, this newfound freedom. We must always remember, however, that while we "exist" on line and have certain freedoms therein, there are still physical ties that can easily be cut by any government brazen enough.
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Gutenberg's eternal struggle (Score:3)
No, you couldn't. Because the government wouldn't let you.
Soon after Gutenberg pressed the first book (it was the Bible), governments sought a firm control on the written word. Where a monarchy didn't exist to firmly control printing presses, guilds sprang up to limit the ability to publish to a chosen few. They knew how much power freedom of information had. In a few decades, protestants -- who now had bibles they could read -- rebelled against catholic power and new nations were created. All because the common man now had the ability to print books.
When the industrial revolution came around, steam and electrical power gave everybody the ability to run a printing press. Small publishers sprang up and started printing inexpensive books for the masses. But the big publishers, out of greed, lobbied the government to pass laws limiting reprints of anything but very old texts. Thus the copyright law we have today.
Now, with the internet, we're at a third plateau of publishing possibilities for the common man. And it's time we decided how much free speech we really want. If we really believe speech should be free, then copyright law has to be changed or erased, and a lot of big businesses are going down. The only other option is to accept less-than-free speech. Will the populace allow that? Time will tell.
But don't tell me that it is natural for information to be considered protected property, because it isn't. IP is an unnatural phenomenon that was created by business owners in the past few hundreds of years. It's a legal construct, and like all legal constructs it is subject to review and change. Hopefully we'll begin to look at what is best for humanity, and not what is best for any one person's pockets.
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This post is a rehash of opinions from people better than I. Particularly one column [2kjournal.com] at 2k journal. [2kjournal.com]
And finally, an example of speech that is truly humanitarian and free: Project Gutenberg. [gutenberg.net]
Re:What's Katz Doing About It? (Score:3)
The thing about this article that I like is that Katz is not giving us a list of things to do. I think this was intended to be food for thought. I think the action he expects is for us to hash out some ideas in response to his article. His article is just a starting point for a conversation. It's the comments you read and write that will give you some insight if not an exact answer. More talk is still necessary.
numb
the copying vs copyright clause (Score:3)
I think this is going just a bit too far. As the technology progresses, so does the ability to copy. When you had people carving books in stone, it took just as many hours to copy as it did to create the original... but then again, you could always have just done a rubbing to make a copy. When the printing press was invented, no longer did some monk have to write out the bible word by word in shorthand... you could crank out hundreds of them in a week. The ability to copy has always been hand in hand with the ability to create. Now that it takes 30 seconds to print a cd, it takes just as long to make a copy of it.
This doesn't mean that the IP is worth less. And it doesn't mean the the owner of the IP should just give up protecting their property. And it doesn't mean that the whole system is flawed. It means that if you believe that your property is being taken away from you, you have to fight harder to protect it.
yes, there are bogus patents out there, and protective patents (patenting just to make sure somebody else doesn't and use it against you). But if you've noticed, the bogus patents aren't standing up in court due to the judge's becoming a bit more enlightened when it comes to technology. Thusly, in filing the patent, you need to be prepared to protect your property. If not, sell it to someone that is prepared to do this.
But nothing's really changed in this area, it's just gotten a bit more over-reactive, over-protective, and overly-hyped.
If it's your property, and you feel strongly in that being your property, then you need to protect it. There is nothing really wrong with the system, it has enough checks and balances built in that nobody really gets away with pulling a fast one. I could provide tons of examples of this if required. The system is intact, so stop hyping how bad it needs to be destroyed.
Re:Some copyright is good (heresy, heresy!) (Score:3)
At the moment the publishers have all the power. They decide when a book will be published. What information will be published and what price they will charge the public.
Copyright is not a natural right while freespeech is we need to recognize that fact and move on.
Threats to liberty (Score:3)
The primary threat to freedom is still governmental power. The problem is that governmental power is increasingly controlled and directed by corporate interests. The DMCA and its kin benefit and are driven by corporate interests, but they are still laws. They are backed by the threat of governmental force. Until such time as corporations begin fielding their own armies, government remains the primary threat.
Re:Coherent. (Score:3)
It's interesting, too, how times have changed. Now, it seems that "youth" on the so-called front-lines are primarily concerned with information and the ramifications of how that information is disseminated. (And belive me, I don't denigrate this; I believe it's an important battle, and one that must be fought and decided.)
30 years ago, the front-line was Vietnam -- bombing Cambodia, nightly incursions into Laos, and the difficulties (and deceptions) of withdrawing troops from Southeast Asia.
It seems to me -- and I can't really problematize or more clearly elucidate this yet because I'm thinking as I'm typing -- but that there has been a large-scale social (and perhaps economic?) shift from the ideological and political dogma of the late 1960's to the information wars that we're witnessing now. To me, at least, this shift is *from* the usual layers of a stratified society -- the poor, the middle-class, the upper-class -- *toward* something entirely different -- something that (curiously) transcends politics and even the idea of democracy. I mean, it's true on the one hand that democracy encourages all voices to join the fray -- but if each voice is equal -- truly equal -- then how is it possible to maintain the levels of hierarchical order that democracy depends upon? The idea of majority/minority (it would seem to me) disappears when a democracy in its pure form exists. Who sets the rules? Who says the majority wins? Why not the minority? I mean, democracy presupposes the very hierarchies it attempts to subvert, right?
Information 30 years ago was controlled in a way that's simply not possible now, and as a result, the stratification (or "Democratization") of society was able to be manipulated by forces outside (and inside) the system -- the government and various social services, schools, churches, etc. Now these forces are struggling against the growing "blob" of information -- the more that 'information' (and I mean information in its pure form, encompassing everything from government documents to MP3 files to propaganda) becomes available, the more the hierarchies start to lose their persusasive force.
This is not to say we've been under the illusion of democracy for 200+ years, but it's more to wonder -- and it's early in the morning -- just where democracy starts and what -- specifically -- makes democracy possible.
The answer, I think, is information -- information is the key to maintaining order. And if the order is now somehow maintained -- via the courts, most likely -- then it's not that the democracy will cease to be, it'll just be rendered impotent.
Which is to say: I think I know how much of the so-called information war will be settled: it'll be settled so that the status quo will be maintained. It'll be settled (I would think) so that, like 30 years ago, it's possible to maintain the levels of hierarchical power which facilitate the "illusion" -- bad word, I know -- of democracy.
It's a scary thing when you try to think beyond 'democracy' as we know and attempt to posit the power relations that make it possible. Are those relations democratic? How do those relations achieve their power? I would argue that it's far from democratic. This doesn't necessarily make it right or wrong -- just that, ya know, there's more than meets the eye.
Katz, you care to comment on this?
Napster is NOT theft, and I can prove it. (Score:3)
Okay, maybe I can't exactly prove it, but I have can make a rational argument for it, and that's more than most people involved in this debate can seem to do.
Theft involves taking something that belongs to someone else. The common argument in the case of Napster is that Napster users are "stealing" from record companies and artists, and that the alleged theft takes place in the form of lost sales. The underlying assumption is that the Napster user would have purchased the music had they not been able to download it for free. In many cases this simply isn't true. Most people I know aren't willing to buy a CD for $12-$15 just because they hear a single song they like. If you, the Napster user, want to be 100% sure that you can never rightly be called a thief, make a solemn vow to yourself right now that you will never again buy a CD, and stick to it. There - your actions are no longer the source of any "lost sales." After all, you wouldn't have bought the CD's anyway.
What Napster users are doing is called "unauthorized use," not "theft" or "stealing." Some would argue that unauthorized use is just as wrong, but that's another argument for another time. In any case, I suspect most people would agree that unauthorized use in this context is a lesser offense than stealing.
Another popular (and wrong) argument is that Napster users drive up the prices of CD's, or at least keep them at their current, excessively-high levels. This also is crap. CD's aren't getting more expensive; they've hovered around their current price point for years. Let's suppose, however, that Napster really is costing the music industry huge amounts of money, and let's also assume that Napster disappears overnight and all those "lost sales" suddenly aren't there to drive up the price of CD's any more. Are CD's going to get cheaper? No way - no way in hell. The prices will never come down - the only difference will be that the record companies stocks all surge due to a sudden increase in profits. Rest assured, consumers will continue to pay the same high prices they always have.
Only one thing forces down prices - competition. There is no competition in the music industry. Sure, there are multiple record companies, but artists sign with one company only, which then has a monopoly on that artist. People don't buy CD's because they want to own shiny, round pieces of plastic; they buy them because they contain music by the artists they like. It's not like a drop in Metallica CD prices is going to force down the cost of Britney Spears CD's. For competition to exist, artists would have to be able to sign with multiple record companies and let those companies duke it out in the marketplace. There's almost no chance that'll ever happen - unless, of course, something comes along that fundamentally changes the nature of the music industry. I'm not saying that Napster is that "something," but it's obviously having some real impact on the music industry, and sooner or later either Napster or something like it is going to force some major changes in the way the music industry operates.
So, does this mean intellectual property has ceased to have value? Er... no - not even close. I don't know what the ultimate impact of Napster-like technologies will be or what will change in the music industry (or any other industry based primarily on intellectual property). All I know is this: the companies who acknowledge that this technology isn't going to go away and who change their business models to take advantage of it are going to be the ones that turn a profit. The sooner a business realizes this and takes action, the sooner they'll have that ever-so-elusive "edge" over their competitors.
Freedom is a Hot Topic (Score:3)
Man this topic is a hot potato...
Some of y'all can rant about it being Katz just self-aggrandizing, but look at mainstream media. Why is any story POSTed? To be read! Ulterior motives vary, but I think mainly people write these stories because they feel the issue is important enough to publish their opinion on the subject, and they realize that while many will disagree, at least it should stimulate the public discussion that could lead to a good solution to any "problem" with the issue.
In the specific case of the "freedom" on the Internet, we are certainly facing a problem and many attacks from gov'ts and corp's who fear the implications of unrestricted information flow.
Existing "meatspace" laws only come up short because of the current difficulty inherent in enforcing them when the medium used to violate them is as distributed, twisted and mutable as the Internet's vast web of connections. The ultimate control point, of course, would be the major Telcos. They own the wires, fibers, etc, that the Internet's information exchanges travel on. Fortunately, the gov't hasn't decided to attack that point yet, probably because it would still be extraordinarily difficult to efficiently block and trace back "prohibited" packets, especially if they are encrypted.
We educated users of the Internet care about this because we use the 'net almost every day, and have come to rely upon it for much of our information gathering and sharing. It is also an important medium for disseminating ones opinions to a very large possible audience. As such, it is of course an important tool for Free Speech.
It comes back down to the existing laws and the country that spawned them, however. The Internet does have physical components, and the access points to it have physical locations, as do the users. Said physical locations are bound by the laws in that location. In countries where Speech is (mostly) Protected, like here in the US, we can expect that there will be little if any direct control over the "data conduits" and their connections to sites outside of the US. (I'm leaving IP law aside for the moment...) In countries where Speech does not have similar Protection, we can expect that there will at least be a vigorous attempt to control the "data conduits" in a similar fashion to other media. As another poster mentioned, a gov't can do considerable damage before it realises that it's goals are unattainable. However, they will not be resisted overmuch as long as the public that supported the creation of the laws still supports their enforcement. That this is difficult is not an issue to the majority, witness the current War On Drugs in the US...
Corporations are an "enemy" in this issue because they desire to protect their profits. That is their sole function, to create and protect their sources of profit. At least this is the case under current Capitolistic economic systems. If they see a threat to their profits, they will do everything in their power to neutralize that threat. This includes using their economic power to lobby for the passage and/or enforcement of laws against the rest of the public. Whether this is right or wrong is up to the individuals involved to decide, but until there is enough popular support for a change in the current model nothing significant will happen.
Perhaps the best way to ensure the continued expansion of communication and ease of information sharing would be to maximise the number of people who have access to the Internet. If everyone was on the Internet and came to value it as a vital tool for sharing information, opinions, etc. about all topics, including dissenting political ideas, revolutionary ideas, etc. then any attempt to shut off this medium would lead to a huge public outcry against such an attempt.
As it is, we do not have the support of the majority, because the majority do not have Internet access and therefore only have the information about it supplied by the predominant media forms of newspapers, radio, television and schools. And those of us who know realize that such sources are far from being unbiased, especially to those who have to work so hard to make ends meet they don't have time for anything more than the TV news soundbites they catch on the TV during meals and/or the radio soundbites they hear. Until we get the masses online, we will not have their support, and they will continue to base their opinions on the opinions of the popular media.
This is why it is so important to fight "filtering systems" in schools, libraries, and other public access locations, or at least to stimulate vigorous wide-scale public discussion about it, in order to get our point across that maximal access to information is VERY IMPORTANT to allow our children to develop into adults capable of dealing rationally with all sorts of information that they will be exposed to in their lives.
Perhaps an acceptable idea would be to get the schools to use Linux or Unix based operating systems and text-only browsers. Not only would they learn more about how the computers they use operate, but it should satisfy 95% of the parents who object to certain kinds of content on the Internet.
Of course, there are those who beleive that the role of parents and schools is to mold and socialize their kids to want to act the way we want them to, to want the same things we want, to value things the same way we do, etc. rather than teaching them how to decide such things for themselves...
If you want to preserve the access rights for "us techies", you needn't worry. It is relatively easy to get a "codeless technician class" Amateur Radio liscense, and for the motivated the higher class liscenses should be easy as well. Packet radio can and is done, and it is legal. Advances in error-detection and correction will need to be made because of the high amount of noise and the spurious contact quality from time to time. Simple encryption would defeat most attempts to "listen in". Basically a huge wireless LAN. One could also use various "line of sight" connection techniques, including lasers, microwaves, directional antennas, etc. For the truly paranoid, mobile "burst" transmitters. Transmission would be less instantaneous, but for mostly text-based information it could be very useful. Server in a van with a reciever and a transmitter. When the buffer is full, burst transmit. Coded-in callkeys to identify the intended reciever. All sorts of ideas, and all hard to track down. Especially the recievers.
You can be as free as you want to be, but TANSTAAFL...
Re:Boundaries (Score:4)
Doesn't mean it's not going to try, though.
A misguided government of a large and fairly rich country can do an incredible amount of damage during the time it takes it to realize that its goals are unachievable.
Kaa
Some copyright is good (heresy, heresy!) (Score:4)
In my case, I co-wrote a book last year. I spent a lot of time researching the subject, testing the subject and writing the book. I made a modest amount of money, enough to help pay for a downpayment on my house.
If someone were to take my book, cut off the binding, and duplicate it on a high speed duplicator (perhaps a Xerox brand duplicator) and resell, I would be irked. If this were common, I may not write another book.
If someone were to use my book as reference, along with the other books in the same field, and write a new book that improves on mine, I would flattered, they added some value.
Quick, someone dig up the link about what happened when copyright was removed after the French Revolution. IIRC, literature quickly devolved into pornography, there was no incentive to create lasting works.
In summation, copyright works with a creator's greed (and desire to provide for one's family), let's not be so quick to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
George
Re:Coherent....ramble..[ot] kinda (Score:4)
Point is...although I, like others...use mp3s to find rare music or preview you it..do the same for games...or games Ill play once in a blue moon@lan parties and just want the cd to install it...and though I don't feel like a criminal..seeming how I do purchase games/cds/software etc,etc...from the very same people I "steal" from...I *ACCEPT* the fact I am commiting a crime. There is no justification. The next time you want to 'justify' piracy...just think of someone coming into your home and taking your belongings....cause that, though not exactly, is what it is--theft.
Yes, we need to protect copyright holders. No..we shouldn't give companies fucking 90 year copyrights...yes we should look out for artists, no we shouldnt go on witchhunts and hunt down the 'criminals' who d/l their mp3s...cause you know what, they are the same people who buy the album...
sorry bout that...Im just sick of all the justification