august
The comments have been reallly interesting.
I love the Warhol Campbell Soup example. I wonder if Campbell's would sue him today. doubt it. in fact that is what is always so fascinating. the amount of people who face legal consequences for things like samples or parodies is so miniscule compared to the amount of their use. Music sample lawsuits, for example are really only done by successful artists against successful artists because it just isn't worth it to pursue. Every once in awhile "artistic integrity" comes into play, but rarely.
Public Enemy was genius. Did they lose their mojo because they stopped sampling?
I'm impressed with the balance and thoughts expressed in the comments.
One thing that Larry and I have always agreed on is that the licensing systems for all copyright owners are often antiquated and unresponsive to today's needs. While most copyright owners with a significant investment in work have made great strides in addressing this issue, there are so many small owners who are either regularly unavailable or not willing to use collective licensing (when it is available) As I have learned over the years, it is particularly difficult in the academic and research settings where university or grant policies often require licenses that are impossible to get or even impossible to trace ownership. That is a very good and important set of examples.
One more bit of info before I head to the beach today - relevant to the Fox News example. I believe the following story is little known.
1988. It is 2:30 in the morning. I am sitting in the House Commerce Committee room with four or five congressional staffers and only three or four lobbyists/lawyers. The final mark-up for the DMCA is the next morning in the Full Commerce Committee. The Bill had already passed out of the Judiciary Committee but it had a sequential referral to Commerce which needed to approve it before we went to the floor for House Passage. And we were hung up. Hung up on the very issue you raised. What would happen when legitimate fair use needs arose and the required content wasn't available in upprotected formats? While we knew it wasn't a "dreamers" issue and that technology was moving rapidly enough that protected content could be a reality quite soon, it wasn't yet at the time. And several of us, including most importantly by that time, the Committee Chairman who had heretofore been opposed to the Bill, wanted to get it done.
So, I pulled out a long used legislative tactic and suggested we put a "study" in the statute. That we empower the Copyright Office to do a regular study on the impact of the law on fair use and the accessibility of works. The tech lobbyist and committee staffer suggested the C.O. was too pro-copyright owners and suggested that the Commerce Department have a role in the study as well. We got a Bill passed the next day.
So, the example you raise, is just the sort of thing that the law envisions be monitored thoughtfully. One such study has already been done and found no adverse impact to date on Fair use. They will keep going.
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Comments (262)
Hilary,
Will you be responding directly to any comments within the threads or will you simply be in lecture mode and stick to top-level posts the entire visit? I hope not as that would defeat the beauty of blogging...
Anyway, still curious if you read "Promises to Keep" and what you think of the idea of artists and consumers taking control of creations whilst using an attribution right and the Internet to trade, track, and count files in an automated compensation system.
No more costly middle man. That is, no more RIAA or MPAA - or at least, a wholly different meaning and purpose for those organizations. They would then become organizations with a mission to actually help artists as a whole - which they have not done at all. They have simply made a small minority rich and placed billions into the pockets of the organization's leaders and shareholders.
Peter: Hilary doesn't respond to "little people". She's a policy maker. Her role is to decide how the world should look. That role requires she not engage in discussion of issues outside of those "selected" for the final cut process. Fair Use issues quickly lead to "Promises To Keep" thinking, and that threatens to shift economics drastically away from obsolete corporations, as does anything remotely akin to technology advances.
I loved her rationalization of avoiding Fair Use with the brilliant (in her mind) logic pursued by WIPO's Bruce Lehman back in 1994 (or before?). Eliminate Fair Use and in its place, initiate study after study about impact, as a token gesture.
you mean 1998?
Ms. Rosen alludes to the point that much of the problem is a market problem rather than a legal problem, which I think is exactly right. How much revenue are copyright owners foregoing by the current "licensing systems"? I'm guessing quite a bit. Much revenue is also lost, I suspect, because of copyright owners overvaluing their rights. A better rights marketplace, with reduced transaction costs and more data on which prices can be set, would appear to address this. And address it better, IMHO, then nuking rights altogether (as many here appear to favor, or at least nuking rights from being owned by the unworthy such as "obsolete corporations").
Peter Rock, Tom Poe, may we remind you that Ms Rosen is a GUEST here and deserves to be treated accordingly. show a little respect. (we would also like to point out that professor lessig very rarely participates in the threads he starts, and no one ever complains about it. not once has he responded directly to anything we have written and you don't see us crying about it.)
How much revenue are copyright owners foregoing by the current “licensing systems”? I’m guessing quite a bit.
point well taken rodander, but clearly it's not a uniform problem. jay kay, madonna, coldplay, and many other artists seem to be doing very well indeed under the existing market structure. brad pitt, tom hanks, sean penn, and johnny depp seem as well to have plenty of coin in their pockets.
lesser artists remain poor under the current structure because... well... maybe they suck.
Tom Poe, as a pedantic point of fact Bruce Lehman was assistant sec. of commerce between 1993 and 1998 and commissioner of patents and trademarks. Lehman never had any official responsibility for US copyrights. (the US copyright office is part of the library of congress.) he never worked for for WIPO, but served as the US delegate TO WIPO in 1996. if you're going to slag him at least do so correctly.
the Wikipedia has a (not surprisingly) biased, unflattering, and undeserving biography on him. it is worthless except for the dates.
Three Blind Mice: Who is the "we" and the "us" as if I or Peter is a "you" or "them"? Am I not part of the commentors group? What about Peter? Weird!
AxCx asked if I meant 1998. Actually, I was referring to Bruce Lehman in his position as chairman for undertaking the task of the Green Paper on Cyberights in 1993. At that point, I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, we saw the formal recommendation to eliminate "Fair Use" issues from existence. To those who squealed like stuck pigs, he threw out the old let's go ahead, and in the interim, we'll do a study on the matter of how to bring "Fair Use" provisions back into existence at some later time. [cynical me]
Tom Poe, sorry for the confusion.
the we is us and the us is we.
we are three blind mice. a plural identity. yes, it is somewhat confusing, but it allows us to avoid gender specific pronouns, permits us to use the royal "we" while remaining lowly rodents, and is just a bit of on-line fun to remind us not to take ourselves too seriously. it also allows us to contradict ourselves whenever necessary! our opinions are based on a majority vote and there is rarely unanimous agreement. the swing vote is a particularly unreliable little mouse who drinks too much and works too late. the other two are however pretty consistent.
yes, you are correct about Lehman's involvement and his bad idea to throw out fair use and replace it with a let's wait and see what happens study. we are all for fair use. it is an important and necessary and well-established part of copyright law. it does not exist in the statute without reason. fair use should not, however, subvert copyright law and that was what Lehman (he of little vision) had concluded.
comparing it to the DMCA is a bit unfair. the DMCA was new legislation. it was not throwing out a long established principle. although we think the DMCA was a good and necessary idea.. it is a miserably written piece of legislation that well deserves an annual review... and a re-writing.
in fact that is what is always so fascinating. the amount of people who face legal consequences for things like samples or parodies is so miniscule compared to the amount of their use. Music sample lawsuits, for example are really only done by successful artists against successful artists because it just isnt worth it to pursue.
What? All you have to do is open Prof. Lessig's _Free Culture_ for counterexamples to your claim. Besides, the fact that the threat of a lawsuit exists is enough to keep non-wealthy artists from using samples without permission. The chance of being sued may be miniscule, but a lawsuit would be devastating.
"Fair use" is obsolete.
What about your tax return? If I should stumble upon that while browsing kazaa, how much of your personal tax information should I be entitled to republish owing to "fair use?"
Bits of data have real, tangible value. They don't call the web "the personal media" for nothing; this is not just madonna and flavah flav we are talking about now...it's your creations and my creations - pictures of your kids and home movies shared on personal web spaces. How much "fair usage right" of your personal space are you willing to give the next Michael Moore?
poptones: Perhaps it is a limitation of the system, but it seems like we should not support overly zealous copyright laws just because they allow us to protect personal data such as tax returns and personal pictures. What we should do instead is refine the idea of "publication". Things that are not meant to be consumed by others, things which have not been published should be protected because they are private and things that have been published should be protected under copyright. Such a distinction would allow the two domains to get the different types of protection which they deserve.
A good suggestion on the surface, but how do we define what is "personal" and what is "public?" The point I am trying to convey here is that line is now very blurred for ALL of us. Are your browser cookies "personal?" The information in them is of no use to you, only to the websites you visit. In fact one could even argue the information in them doesn't really even belong to you - it belongs to those who created it, and those who created it are those who wrote the code that ran when you clicked to their site and accepted the terms of use for their site. So if someone hijacks your computer and gobbles and resells all your cookies, who is infringed? Is it you? Is it the operators of those sites catalogged in your cookie folder? Since the data is to some large degree public is anyone's privacy or secrecy even infringed?
Various members of the EU have been setting about this tactic with privacy laws and yet they also end up deploying copyright laws that make our DMCA look like a communist approach by comparison.
Consider the example of the kids again: you put up a website with pictures of your kids because you want to share their lives with other members of your family. So what if someone in your family passes along that clip of the 8 year old getting out of the bath to a friend who then posts it to usenet? Whose privacy has been violated? Who violated your privacy? It is a work you published yourself (because we ALL can do this now), so how do you prove harm?
The DMCA allows you yourself to quickly, acting on your own behalf, demand immediate action. Privacy, trust - all that is irrelevant. All that you need prove is that it is your work and it is being distributed in a manner without your consent - end of story. You really think having to go to the police or a lawyer, file reports and affidavits and beg for someone to act for you is a better solution? By the time you get the laywer on the phone your kid's video is being shared on e-donkey and no one can stop it.
Of course, many of us feel the same way about our artistic creations that parents feel about their children. This is the basis for granting, in some cultures, "moral rights" on creative works. So "children" can in this example be literal or metaphorical, the point (and the reality) is the same.
People must have the right to be unreasonable. To demand anything less is to demand we sacrifice our freedom of expression.
So dividing the spheres creates difficulties. I do not see the problem with that since we have plenty of difficulties now, and this gets rid of a lot of them, in my opinion. I can think of a simplistic but probably salvagable solution to the labeling problem without much thought: something is published, protected under copyright, if you mark it as such. Otherwise, it is private. The picture scenario you bring up would be solved: it would be a private thing. Private things would be protected by stronger laws than things which are copyrighted but could not be used commercially.
As for people feeling towards their art as they do towards their children, there is nothing keeping them from making their art private. The difference between private and published should not be ones feelings towards them but how they are used (is the difference between commercial property and the property you build your home on the way you "feel" about the land itself or how you use it?).
And people do not really have the "right to be unreasonable". They have rights, which they may use unreasonably, but that is not the same. Oh, and please, please stop trying to make your point with emotional "what if"s.
Here's a good example of free culture, especially the middle link for Grand Theft Submarine: http://home.comcast.net/%7Ebeefypapal/Pages/DFauntleroy.htm
A nationally syndicated radio call-in show combined with hand-drawn animation and assorted sound clips.
Tom Poe, sorry for the confusion.
I didn't as you, I asked Hilary re her "story". i didn't even read your comment.
The picture scenario you bring up would be solved: it would be a private thing.
No, it isn't. Because it was published on a website where the audience was - perhaps naively - intended to be limited to close friends and family. How can something be both "published" and "private?"
These are not "emotional what ifs" these are very real scenarios. I have known a father who had to deal with exactly the situation described earlier. If you go to a usenet archive and search for "amanda" you will likely still find images of her being shared in forums that her father had never intended.
And what about currency? DRM systems could finally allow us to have virtual atms in our own homes. No paying five or fifteen percent handling fees to the paypal and egold money changers, DRM and trusted computing platforms will bring these things into our homes. This isn't an "if" it is a "when" and the laws need to be shaped in such a way that they protect everyone - even those without giant legal staffs. and for every intrusion you make into the property rights of Hollywood you weaken yourself just the same.
And people do not really have the “right to be unreasonable”. They have rights, which they may use unreasonably, but that is not the same.
If the law does not protect the people's ability to act in a selfish and unreasonable manner, then the law has failed to protect their rights.
“Fair use” is obsolete
I agree to a certain extent.
I am from Australia and as you may know we do not have an open-ended fair use defence to copyright infringement like our American cousins. Rather copyright defence is segmented so the purpose of the use is only protected if it falls within specific categories: research and review, comedy etc. The doctrine cannot be extended by judicial considerations in Australia beyond those categories (No Sony here thank you very much).
I think the question of an open ended fair use doctrine can be put like this:-
What specific standard is used to determine whether a potential infringement is 'fair use'?
Well the standard in s 107 of the Copyright Act (US) says there has to be some 'fair use' purpose but leaves this open to new categories then states that we must consider four key topics:-
1. The purpose and the character of the use.
2. The nature of the work
3. The amount and proportion of copied work
4. The effect upon the potential market.
Now although this potential market may be different to the market debated above the relevance of the consideration would impact on the resulting decision in a similar way.
So to Tom Poe & Rodander and Co
Back off, market considerations and public policy are vital considerations to application of the Fair Use under the law. Take it up with your congressman.
At the same time I note to poptones
Fair use is vital and not obsolete. The limitation in the system is that it remains open ended and therefore open to further interpretations. The simple answer would be to get congress to make up thier minds about the true identity of fair use.
So lets get to the nub of it:-
Does Fair Use make the right of copyright devoid of value?
No, the act envisages the monopoly itself being subject to policy considerations.
Is there potential for the Fair Use doctrine to water down the monopoly granted under the Copyright Act?
Yes, certainly an open ended exception that is continually tested may come up with interpretations that limit an authors ability to establish an infringement against persons that reproduce thier works.
Does fair use cover reproduction by individuals?
No, every infringement that is not subject to fair use is actionable. Furthermore, the system used to infringe may also be liable (IE Grokster).
Now the biggie
Does Copyright Law inhibit Free Culture?
NO, Copyright law is a personal right which can be licenced or "waived". Free culture is the sum of the copyright material which is subject to this licencing and "waiving" combined with the material that is subject to "Fair Use" or any other copyright defence.
I do not see how this point is so hard to grasp. Why do you think you have a right to something that is not yours!!!!!
"lesser artists remain poor under the current structure because… well… maybe they suck."
Oh come on, do we have to hasten the death of culture? You seem occasionally reasonable and I don't want to believe that reasonable people equate artistic merit with ability to sell CDs en masse. It reeks of the fetishization of commodities. Do you want Marx to have been right?
American Idol is a silly show but I think it proves once and for all that you can make anyone a pop star with sufficient marketing. I think that's sad, but the attitude that good =profitable is exactly what enables it.
"Music sample lawsuits, for example are really only done by successful artists against successful artists because it just isn’t worth it to pursue."
That isn't an entirely fair picture. Successful artist's lawyers might not have authorization to pursue full-scale litigation against every sampler, but they can certainly send out a form "cease and desist or face litigation" letter, billing 1/10th of an hour to their client for the time it takes to address the envelope.
Those letters, in combination with the few highly publicized suits that DO get prosecuted, have just as much chilling effect on sampling as prosecuting every case to the full extent of the law would.
The RIAA knows this tactic well, in fact, it seems to have been your strategy when you started suing "judgement proof" college students for p2p use. Those kids settled for the entire contents of their college fund, which was less than the RIAA's legal costs I am sure. But having spent that money, you can now simply draft a threatening letter that refers to those cases and get the same effect for the price of a stamp.
This isn't an attack, I will admit for the purposes of this discussion that those people facilitated infringement, even though I strongly disagree with the severity of the individual punishments.
But I think the same process works to discourage fair use. People stopping the practice of sampling or parody out of fear of injurious prosecution proves that they "face legal consequences" for fair use. Public Enemy DID lose some of their creative mojo when lawyers forced a change in their practiced style of expression. (Of course Flava Flav going off the deep end didn't help either)
I don't want to be skeptical of the pull towards the middle exercised by the Commerce Department's "role" in the study of fair use... but I just can't help it. :)
It reeks of the fetishization of commodities.
Corey, certainly big media can, through marketing and promotion, create a "star" who does not really merit being a star. we totally agree with you - not everyone who rises to the top does not suck. it is, of course, something of a matter of taste. appeal to enough tastes and you create market value.
but on the other side of the coin (and further to Erika's and your comment about the "chilling effects") you can't measure what you don't see. sure you can argue that copyright laws are "chilling" hot new talent, but since no one can ever prove or disprove it what's the point? you see giants, we see windmills.
as regards the discussion over tax returns, etc. this is in some ways a total derail. trade secrets and copyright are TWO different things. personal private information is not copyrighted, it is secret. there is no fair use when it comes to secrets. lumping them both into the "digital data" and trying to craft one-size-fits-all legislation to deal with "digital data" is destined to fail. miserably.
"the internet" as a blind, deaf, and dumb transport layer is an unsustainable technology. get over it. the days of manifest destiny are coming to an end; it's time to start stringing barbed wire. the OSI stack needs another layer - a legality layer - and the sooner the better.
But if you put your own tax return in your kazaa "share this junk with the world" folder then how can you call it "secret?" If you open your wallet to the world it may still be illegal for us to remove the cash from it, but you cannot blame us for peering inside when it was you who held it open for inspection.
Of course, in a properly designed system your tax return would have a file marker indicating it was not for broadcast. Or the machine itself would be smart enough to know "hey, this file is not supposed to appear on the kazaa file search index" and so it would keep that file both invisible and protected from unauthorized eyes even when the operator was too forgetful or ignorant (or malicious) to treat it otherwise.
This is why my entire hard drive is encrypted. For a while I tried the "I'll just encrypt this stuff" approach but when you do that it is far too easy to forget and drag this "bad" file over to the "good place." In an instant all that encryption is for naught.
It has taken Hollywood almost a decade to pressure the technology industries into putting some serious effort into making the personal computer "smart" enough to know the difference between a tax return and baby's first steps - and to be able to act accordingly. If this had instead been left completely up to the John p barlows and the EFF we would still be waiting. I'n glad the EFF is there, but I'm not about to stand in the way of Hollywood's drive to foster a technology that will create an entirely new paradigm for the way we think of "data."
"sure you can argue that copyright laws are “chilling” hot new talent, but since no one can ever prove or disprove it what’s the point? you see giants, we see windmills."
Back in the days before technocrats, people had less trouble relying on collective common sense in the absense of absolute proof either way. The question "what should we ideally incent?" can be answered via a number of methods, not the least of which would be a democratic inquiry into the values of the people in regard to which side to err on. Or if you prefer you could ask God.
"“the internet” as a blind, deaf, and dumb transport layer is an unsustainable technology. get over it."
The internet sustained itself fine under the auspices of the military industrial complex, then it prospered under the trust of universities, then desperate politicians "invented" it, and still it grew, the pornographers, spammers and booksellers learned to exploit it... and now finally, as you indicate, it is the lawyers turn. Attempting to apply yet another cultural redefinition to the underlying technology. For what ends I wonder? You will excuse me perhaps if I don't herald the coming of cryptofacism to the network we have all come to depend on for access to porn, consumer product info, and counter-factual wiki entries?
corey, you give us the impression of someone who is awed by technology. as engineers, we approach this from the point of view that technology is a tool to serve mankind - it is not a God that mankind must bow before.
"cryptofascism" dear sir can be as much a result of the hegemony of an uncontrolled technology over our lives as it can be a result of our attempts to control that technology. as george washington observed about fire, technology is a useful servant and a dangerous master.
in a democracy only anarchists would want to see technology subvert the will of the majority.
so put your guns away wild bill hickcock: civilisation is coming to the internet and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
TBM: Most democracies have built in mechanisms to make sure they do 'subvert' the will of the majority in order to protect the rights of the minorities. These measures range from demands for qualified majorities for many decisions, overrepresenation of smaller groups/areas (US Senate is an example of this) and many other variations. Unfortunatly the respect for diversity seems to be weakening in the world and some people seems to think that if you can claim 50,1 percent in favour for something it gives you a moral and legal right to do so. Which leads us to a situation where democracy might become a tool for the majority to supress the minority, which I guess is slightly better than the historic situation of a minority supressing the majority, but not a whole lot better. I think and hope a much wider group than anarchists wouldn't mind technology playing a part in subverting the ability of the majority to become abusive.
So mouseboy please stop confusing your Orwellian wetdreams with civilisation.
in a democracy only anarchists would want to see technology subvert the will of the majority.
And Poptones glances around nervously...
Christian, ok, so that was obviously too complicated for you.
let's see if we can make it more simpler... why should the on-line community exist under a different legal regime than the real world?
is there really any difference if your "rights" are taken away by a Republican majority or a failure in network design?
the wet dream, x-tian, is one where the internet exists outside the realm of law. that is the situation today and you are in total denial if you a) think it is healthy or b) think it will continue for much longer.
Christian, on review, our apologies. yes, we were a bit unclear.
as poptones highlighted, we wrote:
in a democracy only anarchists would want to see technology subvert the will of the majority.
what we should have said is, in a democracy only anarchists would want to see technology subvert the rule of law.
And despite the fact I am strongly defending Hollywood and DRM and wholeheartedly embrace a technological evolution the majority seems to greatly fear, I'm still sitting around the campfire singalong with the anarchists...
Hey, ACS, why did you throw me under the same bus as Tom Poe regarding fair use?
I really don't have much of a problem with fair use as it is. (see my wrangling with Aaron in the previous thread). It seems too many here want to have fair use safe harbors that are defined in advance (no doubt, defined to cover exactly only their desired uses and nobody else's). Having a court sort out fair use in difficult cases, based on those facts, is not a bad result, IMHO. Nor is it a bad thing to have a "use at your own risk" default if you use someone else's work without permission.
At the risk of being repetitiously redundant, my only point so far in this thread was that there appears to be a practical snag in the market system for some rights that keeps some buyers and sellers (licensors and licensees) apart and that gets in the way of supply/demand pricing for certain rights. In this day of worldwide instant communication and ebay commerce, one would think that an online licensing marketplace could spring up.
But it is misguided to solve a problem of transaction logistics for conveying rights by eviscerating the rights themselves.
I don't think that the debate is about whether or not the internet will or should be governed by laws....but of what type of laws. There seems to be two forms of production that are competing with one another....one that is based on rents and exclusion (the Garrett Hardin argument) and one based on a commons that is self healing (ala FOSS; see Yokai Benkler). They can co-exist, but in competition with one another. Such competition leads to strategic behaviour by those whose buisness models are threatened (proprietary software manufacturers, recording companies, the movie industry, etc.)
When I look at legistlation such as the DMCA, the push for more patents by Microsoft or the statements from WIPO that ONLY favour stronger and more restricive copyright enforcement, I can't but help but think that this fight is one sided and just a little biased.
Tom Poe:
Hi Tom. I understand where you are coming from but my understanding was that Hilary was no longer working as a voice for the corporations. Therefore, I thought there was a chance that she - as a human being unencumbered by corporate directives - would address my question (or at least say "No, I haven't read the book - not interested"). I realize there are some bigwigs out there who actually believe they are "big people" and pay little or no attention to "little people", but I really have no idea about Hilary. I've never conversed with her and do not know her at all. She might not fit the bigwig category - I'd like to give her that chance and find out. Like I said, I wouldn't have even bothered asking if she still worked for the RIAA as responding to my question in a positive manner could open her up for dismissal by the organization. Perhaps I'm living in a dream world, but I am quite impressed that she is on Lessig's blog so I figured that - just maybe - she is slowly shedding her biases and old alliances and looking at the whole issue of digital file transmission with a whole new mind. Then again, I'm probably fooling myself if I think that just because Hilary doesn't *officially* work for the RIAA anymore that she is completely free from their economic/political agendas. I guess we'll see in time. Can't hurt to find out...no?
To the 3 Mice:
I'm not sure what it is I wrote that you thought attacked Hilary Rosen's "guesthood" on this blog. Regardless, I'm sure she can handle herself by either ignoring or responding to any offensive comments. In fact, having "The Mice" stick up for her is about as offensive a manouvre as one can imagine as it simultaneously reeks of a very brown nose...
I don’t think that the debate is about whether or not the internet will or should be governed by laws….but of what type of laws.
preferrably the existing laws Fiepoto. the economy of rents and exclusion is every bit as self-healing and as productive as the kum-ba-yah of the commons.
we would argue that the rents and exclusions model is more productive, more sustainable, and like capitalism, more consistent with the principles and ideals of liberal democracy than is commons-ism. consider, if you will, that linux would not exist save for the market for proprietary microprocessors that windows created. it is a follow-on technology - not a leading edge technology. (the same may be said for open office, thunderbird, firefox and many of the other open source alternatives to existing proprietary software.)
co-existence is a fine thing. competition is a good thing. we are all for it. the problem is that the commons does not want co-existence because the commons stops where the property of others begins. to keep up, whether in software or in music the commons wants - the commons needs - to follow the leader.
so the commons wants to change the rules. the solution offered by the commons-ists is, not surpringly, is to confiscate the property of others (the leaders and the innovators) or to otherwise make it impossible for property owners to prevent trespass. that's not co-existence. it's not competition... it's copying.
if real creativity and real innovation occurred within the commons and within the FOSS community, there would be NO need to be concerned about the property of others.
Will you be responding directly to any comments within the threads or will you simply be in lecture mode and stick to top-level posts the entire visit?
well Peter Rock, where we come from guests in our home are treated better than the host. you would not (and do not) speak like this to professor lessig.
In fact, having “The Mice” stick up for her is about as offensive a manouvre as one can imagine as it simultaneously reeks of a very brown nose…
*mice turn the other cheeks*
how sweet. sir, the anonymous voices of the three blind mice have no need to suck up to anyone. pray tell, what would be the point? unlike others who wish to draw attention to themselves, we don't post a URL, we don't post an e-mail address, and we provide no connection to the real person behind the words. we're totally anonymous. get it?
that being said, like it or not Peter Rock we are all members of this blog family and this is our collective home... our (yours and ours and everyone else's) commons if you will. one of the remarkable things about this commons is that those who visit are generally polite, occassionally intelligent, at times witty, all too infrequently funny, but almost always devoid of ad hominen intent. in the echo chambers of cyberspace, this is - you must agree - highly unusual.
we do ask (most kindly) that you refrain from littering the commons. keep the lessig blog beautiful. it makes for a more pleasant visit and creates a better enviroment for the exchange of ideas.
Time for me to stick up for the mice.
The three blind mice and I have had quite heated disagreement on at least on past topic, to be sure. But the mice don't keep personal grudges; on later topics, they've listened to what I've said and when they agree with me, they've said so. Same goes for poptones. That speaks well for the open-mindedness of the mice and of poptones, and in general for the commenters on this blog. And that is what gives me the confidence of posting comments here -- I know that most will read what I have to say and comment fairly, whether they agree or disagree.
So, Peter Rock, I advise you to follow the lead of the mice and poptones, and let's keep the sandbox clean.
"why should the on-line community exist under a different legal regime than the real world? "
Oh, lets see... perhaps because the online community isn't really real, or perhaps because it is but it encompasses more people and cultures than any single legal regime including the Anglo-American one you would presumably adopt for us all.
"corey, you give us the impression of someone who is awed by technology."
No, actually I was an engineer for 8 years. There are things I helped develop inside your computer most likely. Many people get confused though, I have become somewhat of a techno-skeptic and resemble an anarchist.
"and like capitalism, more consistent with the principles and ideals of liberal democracy than is commons-ism."
There you go again, postulating the superiority of neoliberalism. By the way, all graphical browser software including IE can be traced back to Mosaic, which was a government/university project that was distributed for free.
Netscape and IE were "follow-ons" designed most obviously to extract property from something previously "common"
There is a critical difference between the "Internet" and other spaces governed by US laws.
For one - the "Internet" is truly global (I think the last country without connectivity has now been connected) and while it is true that US legal decisions have a way of being written into treaties and/or copied around the world - as we have recently seen in the case of the EU rejecting Software Patents this is by no means universally true.
So when the US, as in many recent laws like the DCMA, tries to legislate for the Internet as a whole it may in a very real sense be fighting a losing battle, with the biggest losers possibly being US citizens (and our corporations) who will be prevented from the full potential of digital technology.
In the case of online gambling, for example, this is a complex subject - but it is also very clearly one where companies (and their millions of customers) in other countries are seeing a great deal of innovation and revenues.
In the case of innovation in less politically charged realms - from patents to music - I personally find it striking that some of the most innovative music I have heard recently have been mashups, mostly from Europeans (though they are likely difficult to license in Europe as well as the US).
On a more legally clear example, I listen to a large number of podcasts - however here in the US they are restricted heavily by limitations (specifically the lack of legal universal licenses ala radio licenses) to allow podcasters to mix and play any song they would like to. However other countries have adopted radio-like universal licenses and the result is one of my favorite podcasts and a mix of music better by leaps and bounds than any radio station I have ever heard (on or offline) - Karin's Themed podcasts. These are about 1 hour blocks of music bound by a common theme - often a very international selection of music, but even when she selects only English language songs her groupings and selections cause me to hear old songs in new ways.
She pays the licensing fees in the Netherlands to be in legal compliance - so the artists she plays do get compensation from her playing of the music, in much the same way they do when a radio station plays them - and as a fan I gain the great benefit of hearing old music in new, creative ways.
I think for many forms of non-duplicative creative use (i.e. not selling a CD that is an exact copy of the artist's CD) a form of universal license such as the radio license - though probably tiered and/or with a per-unit percentage of price capped fee - could make much more sense than the current "clear every right with every possible rightsholder". Especially since the number of "orphaned" copyrights is huge and growing (even works created just years ago can be difficult if not impossible to track down the copyright holder of. A simple example, I wrote to many USENET newsgroups in the early 90's - my writing gained am immediate copyright - however if you were now to want to print, in full, the content of a specific USENET newsgroup you would have to find each poster and get permission. I am no longer at the email address I posted under, which was a university account, a quick google search of the Internet does turn me up as the first "Shannon Clark" and indeed I list on my profiles that I attended the university where the posts came from - so it is probable that I am the same Shannon Clark - but how can you be certain? There are literally dozens of other Shannon Clark's in the US. And I did this fairly simply, I posted under my own name - what about someone like "three blind mice" - how would you go about including his comments, in full, in another creative work?)
The point is that the requirement "get permission first" is increasingly untenable.
Here in the US we do not currently separate out commerical and moral rights - in the EU they have taken the approach that these rights are separate (which creates the complication that in the EU creative commons licenses or attempts to put new content into the public domain may still be bound by "moral rights" which apparently the authors may not be able to waive completely).
I think we should make it easy for the "public domain" to grow again - both by cleaning up orphaned copyrights (Lessig's suggestion of a minimal registration fee would clear things up pretty quickly and separate out "commercially viable" copyrights from the millions of orphaned ones - and have the further advantage of making it clearer which works were/were not in the public domain) and by making the process of offering up works to the public domain easier (and perhaps making some areas, such as comments especially anonymous ones, USENET etc areas where the public domain is assumed - that is by posting publically unless you attach restrictions you waive future need to contact you for permission to quote, remix, etc)
Moral rights - i.e. the right not to have your words used in ways you do not agree with are a much trickier issue. I think, however, it might be possible to expand the concept of "misrepresentation" (and/or libel) to cover this without much difficulty. (i.e. you can use what I right without first clearing it with me - but you can't use it in a way that makes it appear that your changes/remixes are my original work - i.e. use my works to claim that "Shannon Clark wants there to be no public domain at all" via the means of selective editing and insertation of new words into my text.
You could, however, use my words in a quotation (even an extended one that might go beyond "fair use") as part of your pamphlet or book arguing against my position. If my writings had a way of being placed in the public domain OR if you had a way of obtaining a "radio like" license then I (in the US at least) couldn't object to your usage and use that objection to prevent (or make commercially onorous) the publication of the book.
It is not always going to be a clear line - and multimedia examples will be complicated (does the music playing a documentary imply that the musicians condone the actions appearing on screen to their music? what if it isn't a documentary but a commercial? what if it isn't a 'commercial' but is a 'reality tv show'?) but I think there are alternatives which offer great benefit than the current stasis and uncertainty.
Shannon
TBM, thankyou for your comments. Although I would agree with you that allot of innovation does occur in proprietary production methods, i believe you overstate the case that commons projects (especially FOSS projects such as Linux, or what we now know as the internet for that matter) would never have been possible without proprietary exclusion licenses in place. I don't really think this is a matter of opinion or argument, but of fact. (the body of literature on this point is rather extensive, prof. Lessig himself points this out in OPEN ARCHITECTURE AS COMMUNICATIONS POLICY, pgs 44-54)
Now, as far as "innovation" is concerned...one of, if not the primary advantage that commons production has over proprietary production (for the record, let me point out that I'm talking about digital/idea production, NOT material production) is that you do not have to expend resources on distributing labour. Labour distributes itself, people work on things that interest them...this has enormous concequences for both the innovation of technologies and long term effeciency.
There is a critical difference between the “Internet” and other spaces governed by US laws.
excellent observation Shannon Clarke and a well-written and well-argued post.
no one said it would be easy lest of all us. we think there are few people outside the US republican party that want to see more US hegemony. especially when that US hegemony is controlled by the US republican party.
*mice get cold shivers*
the internet will change. is it changing. there is no question about it. in countries such as china it isn't the same internet as it is in america. there is nothing that says the solution need be one-size-fits all.
the OSI stack gave us seven layers, separated bearer services from transport and that opened up the floodgates for applications... what the OSI model didn't provide is a legality layer and this is what is now hindering innovation. as we have said before the internet is literally starved for rich content of legal music, movies, photographs, archives, etc. that are being withheld because once they are released they can no longer be controlled.
the legality layer will have to introduce legal policies. ownership of those policies will have to be distributed among individuals and regional governments... and the machine will have to obey those policies/legalities because apparently individual users will not.
like the march of technology, the introduction of law and the means to enforce it seems inevitable.
the frustrating thing for us Shannon Clark that instead of working together to achieve compromise, we are engaged in binary struggle over ideology.
Fiepoto: i believe you overstate the case that commons projects .. would never have been possible without proprietary exclusion licenses in place.
proprietary windows created the economy of scale that resulted in all of those proprietary microprocessors on which linux runs. it ain't all free and it never has been. the FOSS community needs to give a nod to "old-fashioned" methods of development.
and finally Corey... the recovering engineer.
There you go again, postulating the superiority of neoliberalism. By the way, all graphical browser software including IE can be traced back to Mosaic, which was a government/university project that was distributed for free.
good point about Mosaic. if it had been GPL:d neither Netscape nor Microsoft could have swiped it. but then again, had Netscape patented some of the features they added, IE wouldn't have been able to steal it from them and the brower market - and perhaps the software industry - might look quite different today.
as regards the superiority of Schumpeterian progress.. well color us capitalist. you will pardon us if we do not share your enthusiasm for commons-ist development.
well it seems most of us have had the chance to repeat beat our usual drums in this thread again!
Peter Rock sorry if we came off as a little condescending. we are not immune to the caustic comment and we hope we haven't put you off. you are one of the strong - although misguided - voices here and it we would have done no service to the community if we made you feel anything less than welcome.
it's boozing time!
thanks for another good discussion everyone.
TBM quoting me:
TBM:
Side question: How would you know how Larry and I communicate?
Regardless, we are now at 116 comments in threads and not one is Hilary's. I don't expect her to respond to everyone, but what is the point of blogging if you are going to be only passively and semi-responsive to your audience? Why is she here? Why not just go on television?
I want to know if she considers the future of digital culture for stakeholders (rather than simply shareholders as was her duty as president of the RIAA) and what it will mean for my children and her children and Lessig's children and Lasica's children and on and on and on...if we continue to use the entertainment industry (i.e. the movie and music corporations in their current form) as a vehicle for art when there could be a radically better way of pursuing and creating digital culture.
Perhaps the RIAA was necessary but technology has revolutionized the status quo. The problem is that the RIAA is interested in maximizing profit instead of looking after artists. They say they are looking out for the artists but they are not. At best, the RIAA is looking after their artists but not artists as a whole. A different approach by consumers (i.e. something resembling Fisher's ideas) and mission (i.e. something resembling a non-profit organization working to defend actual rights instead of privileges), I believe, is something important to pursue.
Peter Rock
we hardly had a chance to pour a whiskey...
How would you know how Larry and I communicate?
well, umm, we read this blog. what you say to professor lessig outside these four walls is your own business.
you do realize, Peter Rock, that Ms Rosen no longer works for the RIAA and she specifically said that she didn't want her guest hosting to become a forum for a discussion over her tenure there.
again, professor lessig does not often participate in the topics he posts and it is not unusual, or troubling, that Ms Rosen has not.
as for your concern for future generations, our advice to you would be to tune in, turn on, and drop out of the entertainment culture. old fashioned books, our mineral friend, that's where the future lies! have you read eats, shoots, and leaves? we know it's so last year, but we bought a copy at the community center book sale this weekend and it's good fun.
still if "digital culture" is your concern, tune into the creative commons database and be enriched... ahh.. but the good stuff, the stuff you want, is controlled by the evil, exploits-their-artists RIAA. what a pity. those silly artists. giving up all that money for nothing. so live without coldplay. the hipsters have already moved on.
Interesting story Hilary.
I must say that I recognize your "long used legislative tactic". It's often used as an excuse not to the legislative job proberly. DMCA and all it's spawn are no exceptions.
These laws deal with something they call "technological protection measures", but any computer scientist who is not trying to make money selling DRM would tell you that such a thing can not be made to work in software. Attempts will only create non-interoperability. You can make secure DRM systems with hardware, but the effect will be the same: incompatible systems.
In the end this quest to get DRM into everything will mean a goodbye to the one thing which made the PC and the Internet a success: That is is open systems. If Hollywood gets their way we will be back in the 1980's where all computersystems were closed, propritary and incompatible... which of course will result in a monopoly.
My goodness! I copy this brief bit of text to my clipboard and read on through twenty posts wondering how I am to put it in context, only to find at the end the perfect setup...
In this day of worldwide instant communication and ebay commerce, one would think that an online licensing marketplace could spring up.
As TBM just pointed out, so many of those "rights" are owned by corporations and so it must be up to them to decide the proper venue for such a clearing house of their own. But such a forum does indeed exist for those who choose to participate and still retain rights which they may themselves license. Magnatune is only one such example and it's made quite easy - as easy as an ebay purchase, in fact. For a few tens to a few hundreds of dollars one can point and click and purchase a license for a a bit of music in only a few minutes.
And I must take exception to those who would dismiss these artists as not quite having "it." Some fantastic music can be found there, but you'll never know if you don't listen. Fortunately this is made quite easy as well, just click a link and enjoy the entire album... as many times as you like.
And somehow these artists manage to be creative without lifting vast sections of their corporate contemporaries. Just as the information embodied in Shannon clark's usenet post (or mine - and trust me, there are megabytes of them) can be conveyed without having to quote directly a single phrase, so too can artists reinterpret.
And I was tempted, but managed to resist, fawning over Ms. Rosen myself. Without taking away from the other guests who have appeared here (and disappeared) over the last weeks I have most looked forward to hearing from Ms. Rosen in this context. Since others are now "out" I will admit I was downright giddy when I first read she would be appearing on this blog.
And, sadly, I must now admit I too am a bit disappointed we have not heard more from her. I can understand priorities and such and "blogging" can be difficult when one is leading the conversation rather than merely reacting within it (that is why I am posting here, now, after all... rather than posting on my own).
Still, it is thursday and so there is still hope we may hear a bit more. Ms. Rosen is one of the few (former) cogs of le mechanique I would truly love to meet outside this tiny box that too often contains "us."
3BM:
?!
For someone who just spoke on software layers in the next paragraph I'm surprised you would say such a thing. The Internet is not changing at all. It hasn't changed since its infancy. The Internet is exactly the same in China as it is anywhere in the world. This is why those in the Chinese government who wish to block access to information must have engineers write code at layers above the Internet protocols (e.g. the browser) in an attempt to stop the dissemination of bits. Or, they can strike deals with self-interested corporations like Microsoft and purchase software like MSN Spaces that are pre-packaged to block content linked to free speech and democratic issues.
See - http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d07011b8-d9d6-11d9-b071-00000e2511c8.html
It is precisely because the Internet is the same in China as it is everywhere else that deals like this and those surrounding DRM through Hollywood occur. The Internet's nature is to be free flowing. And unfortunately, organizations like the RIAA and MPAA are having a huge influence on how the technology (both hard and soft) develops over time when they really should have no say.
Yes, "no say".
You see, the RIAA and MPAA in their curent form are bound by law to seek policies and influence government in a way that maximize profit - not benefit the public. I'm not blaming anyone - that is just an indisputable fact. But the beauty is, the RIAA and MPAA are not people - so we can use "them" and then toss "them" into the garbage once we have a complete troubleshot system ready to be put in place and not feel as though we have hurt anyone in the process. Sure, we can look at some sort of gradual buy-out of these organizations - they need not be financially obliterated overnight...after all, there are people monetarily connected (i.e. shareholders and directors) to these corporations. But their control over culture is not needed anymore - in fact, their control is keeping the potential for the worldwide distribution of digitized culture at bay. That is, it is much of Hollywood's doing that the darknet exists.
I don't want my children or any children to have to go to the darknet in order to participate in culture. And with some imagination and a wholly different approach, I believe they wouldn't have to.
Peter Rock
p.s. Lasica's "Darknet" is a very informative book by the way. I bought it this summer and although I'm only about 3/4 of the way through it, I give it an early and high recommendation. "2 thumbs up" as Ebert would say.
The Internet’s nature is to be free flowing. And unfortunately, organizations like the RIAA and MPAA are having a huge influence on how the technology (both hard and soft) develops over time when they really should have no say.
Your fears are not well founded at all, then. You see, Hollywood and DRM already have "no say" over that flow of information. DRM is itself built upon encryption, and all the encryption in the world will not reroute those packets or reidrect them from their destiny.
DRM (whether protecting content from Hollywood or one's own tax return) depends entirely upon the routers and switches and servers doing exactly as they have always done.
And the notion DRM will not work because people can opt out is as silly as saying banks won't work because people can still stuff dollar bills in their mattresses or barter labor for goods themselves. Of course all those things will work - and they will work better still when we are able to exchange information as securely and give select bits of that information sufficient scarcity as to carry with them meaningful economic value.
I still cannot fathom how one can argue for liberty and freedom and how the internet will enable people to do all these amazing thngs with their lives while at the same time arguing against the very technoilogy we all need in order to do exactly that. Computers need electricity to run and someone has to pay the bills. And to a starving person all a computer represents in an asset that may be traded for food.
We must make DRM work in order to be freed from the credit banks. How can this not be obvious to people?
If Hollywood gets their way we will be back in the 1980’s where all computersystems were closed, propritary and incompatible… which of course will result in a monopoly.
yeah, Peter Mogensen, just like GSM. which by the way STILL has more paying subscribers than the internet has users. think about that commons-ists. patent encumbered, proprietary, non-open GSM is the world's most important communication system. and also the most egalatarian.
as the Economist pointed out a few months ago, GSM also contributes more to the economic development in the 3rd world than the internet does. IWRC, the quote was "the real digitial divide is between nations that have GSM and those that do not." access to the internet (except for nigerian spammers) wasn't even an issue.
Peter Rock don't get all pedantic on us. to some people, internet means TCP/IP, to others it means the world wide web, and to us it means what happens when we launch a browser window. china is introducing the legality layer we talked about, as other countries will do the same independent of the others, this is what will create problems with interoperability.
To Three Blind Mice:
Are you sure that GSM is patent-encumbered, proprietary,
and non-open? According to the FAQ at:
http://www.gsmworld.com/technology/faq.shtml
GSM is an open, non-proprietary system.
I don't know what to make of your misinformation but
you should clarify what you meant or withdraw what
you said.
Joseph Pietro Riolo
<riolo@voicenet.com>
Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this
comment in the public domain.
Poptones:
I understand what you are saying Poptones - I didn't make myself clear. In fact, I spotted my error. I meant (correction in bold) -
-----
organizations like the RIAA and MPAA are having a huge influence on how the technology that sits upon the internet (both hard, soft, and firm) develops over time when they really should have no say.
-----
We've seen Hollywood take down some software at the application level (e.g. Napster). With the "trusted computing" agreement, Non-free BIOSs on ROM chips has become an issue as consumers can be herded into buying particular hardware that will be compliant only with particular operating systems. That layer is now under attack. And at the processor level itself there is already speculation over Intel DRMing (i.e. more "trusted computing") their upcoming VIIV processor. Many are speculating whether or not the upcoming Mac move to Intel has something to do with this.
I agree on one level, Poptones, that all the DRM in the world will not stop packets from switching. But pragmatically, Hollywood is saying that we cannot live in a world of free (as in freedom - not price) software and expect to be a participant in much of our digital culture. The corporations are essentially saying - "Sure, you can do anything you want...anything that is, that we allow to have happen in your little free software prison cell." All the free software in the world won't help if the processors and ROM/BIOSs are controlled by the corporations and turned into black boxes.
You see, I want freedom - not free stuff. I have piles of legally purchased books, CDs and DVDs. I don't even have a p2p file sharing program currently installed on my GNU system at home. In fact, at home, less than 1% of my 500+ CD/DVD collection violates(?) copyright law (and that's only if you consider the unasked-for gifts I've received from friends who've 'burnt' stuff for me as 'illegal'). However, I have downloaded and kept entire "All Rights Reserved" works anonymously through the internet at work. But I must have this access at work and should not be told I need to buy from any particular software or hardware or firmware vendor. My rights to content are protected under fair use, but what is protecting my rights from having to buy from a particular motherboard vendor or a particular processor vendor and run a particular operating system in order to obtain digital culture?
Especially considering my work necessarily requires me to freely share in order to perform my function to the best of my abilities, I must have freedom and so too must those whom I share software and digital culture files with who number in the hundreds. This is why I am shocked when Mice squeak and claim that the creative commons supporters just want free (as in price) stuff.
Bottom line is - I need freedom in order to create the absolute best work environment.
Thank you, Peter, for mentioning "Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation," which speaks to many of the issues raised above. I'll send you a copy, gratis, if you'd like, Ms. Rosen. Seriously. There's a discussion about the issues raised in the book -- incluiding fair use, the DMCA and outmoded business models -- at www.well.com.
What is fascinating, as you write above, is not the miniscule amount of people who face lawsuits by the music companies (not so miniscule if you include file sharing lawsuits), but the chilling effect the entertainment companies' entrenched position has had on remix culture. (Ms. Rosen hasn't addressed grassroots creativity in any of her posts.)
As to the "always get permission first" mindset, no need to buy "Darknet," just check out the free mini-book at Darknet.com, including this: When the studios won't give permission.
http://www.darknet.com/2005/07/when_the_studio.html
And as to this:
>Public Enemy was genius. Did they lose their mojo because they stopped sampling?
Yes, because they (and the majority of hip-hop artists) can no longer afford the cost of sampling multiple 3-second riffs. And we haven't even touched on mash-ups ... :~)
Absurd. Ridiculous. I'm sorry, but no lesser adjectives describe this sort of FUD.
First, look at Apple's recent fiasco with the beta OSX/X86 systems... these have DRM components built right in and yet, miraculously, they run both Windows and linux! Those thinkpads Stallman was talking about, too, include TC components and yet, somehow, I have had no trouble getting them to boot, install, and run linux. There are even people (too few, sadly) working to incorporate those TC "hooks" into linux.
The specifications for the TC platform are available on their website. A full command list and spec is linked right form their front page. Of course, like all trade organizations they have "members only" sections and all that sort of nonsense and we lowly "consumers" of their information have no say upon the direction or development of this technology.
But that is by our own folly. I've been pretty vocal on the ubuntu site about this as well, I finally gave up realizing that the FUD simply runs too deep to garner much support until someone in a leadership position picks up the ball, and it's unlikely Shuttleworth spends even a nanosecond reading posts there anyway.
Not that I'm picking on Shuttleworth... but he's the founder of ubuntu linux. and He's a Millionaire technologist with a political kink. I use ubuntu myself, so this is the first direction I head. But he's not alone; there's Linspire, and Redhat, and Novell, and a host of other smaller companies out there that could easily come up with the $50K/year "membership fee" that would put them on the voting board of the TCG. And TC is not incompatible with linux or with liberty - but until the leaders of this "free community" get over their hypocrisy and zealotry none of that is going to matter. If they truly demand a free hardware platform then one of these leaders needs to fire up the sourceforge and rally some meaningful support for the project. the doomsday scenario outlined in that article you linked already exists and has for some time.
When I install and run ubuntu I do not begin with the kernel source. I may have to recompile the kernel at some point, but even when I do so I am not beginning from a full source tree - most of it is linked from precompiled modules. I have an AMD system and so to even get decent graphics I have to similarly run a proprietary piece of software from them. yes, this is annoying; I bought my motherboard for the sound mixing features but am unable to use any of them because Nvidia refuses to add those features to the proprietary drivers for my motherboard.
So, I am already using proprietary software. and if you are using linux on a system of recent vintage then you are as well: intel, ATi and Nvidia ALL have "proprietary" features in their chipsets and, therefore, the "open" drivers available support only the most basic features. If your computer was made after about 1999 then it is presently impossible to escape this requirement of deploying some proprietary modules upon otherwise "open" linux systems - and yet linux based systems of recent vintage exist. They do their job and they do not betray the owner via backdoors. (To do this would be foolhardy, of course, as they would be found out and their customers would flee to those suppliers who do not betray them.)
There is nothing to prevent Mark Shuttleworth from sponsoring one or more technical members at the TCG, developing a trusted kernel module for ubuntu, and making ubuntu a trusted root authority. Would the module itself be "free?" No, no more than the Nvidia modules I already run on my linux machine. But Mark Shuttleworth has shown himself to be a friend of the community, and the corporation behind ubuntu linux is a bonafied (and, therefore, responsible) party that would surely qualify for membership within this organization (and were they denied such membership one can well imagine the press battle and the governmental antitrust investigations that would follow).
Would this make all linux systems TCPA compliant? No, it would only make those running ubuntu's kernel compliant. Nor would it make all the software run upon these systems "trusted." That does not, however, preclude anyone from choosing to develop software that would be trusted nor would it preclude anyone from choosing to run said software.
TCPA is, at its core, a very good thing for all of us. It builds robust encryption right into the platform which will increase performance. And the entire point of the platform is to allow the machine to keep individual processes segregated from one another, which means you can have "good" and "bad" software running at the same time - this is not a bad thing. It would dramatically increase the security of computing systems regardless of whether the owner of a system chose to link the machine to Hollywood's root authority.
And if you don't want to use that stuff then there's nothing to prevent you from opting out of all of it - as many parts of the world are likely to do. The internet does not begin and end in the US and most of the TCG work is being done right now with an eye toward deployment in the US. In order for it (or for a competing platform - which we are still quite free to develop) to succeed then it will have to offer real benefits to the consumer and it will have to work as advertised.
There are valid objections to this deployment. But DRM of some sort is coming - and it must if the internet (aka the web) is to ever live up to the hype. So long as there is no DRM, every person who uses the web for commerce will be a slave to the credit banks and, ultimately, the world bank and the will of the US.
You want to see creativity stifled? The Noriega factor is a greater hindrance to societal change and artistic expression than all the lawyers and lobbyists in Washington. And until a platform is made available to us all that will allow for the electronic equivalent of a trustworthy cash like system of exchange, JP Barlow's "declaration" amounts to nothing more than a utopian call to martyrdom.
Y'know, TBM, it's funny you mention the innovation Windows provided, considering how it started:
Microsoft shipped Windows on November 20 [1985], and two days later during Fall COMDEX (a huge industry trade show) in Las Vegas, Gates and Sculley signed a confidential, three-page agreement that granted Microsoft a "non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, nontransferable license to use these derivative works in present and future software programs, and to license them to and through third parties for use in their software programs." In other words, Apple got Microsoft's commitment to upgrade Word for Macintosh, delay Excel for Windows until October 1, 1986, plus an acknowledgement that "the visual displays in [Excel, Windows, Word, and Multiplan] are derivative works of the visual displays generated by Apple's Lisa and Macintosh graphic user interface programs." In other words, Microsoft got Apple's crown jewels, and Apple got shafted. Not since British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appeased Adolf Hitler with the Munich Pact of 1938 had the world seen such a fine demonstration of negotiation skills.
And DOS was bought by Bill and Co. from a company, and cleaned up from it.
Microsoft was built on the idea of (very slyly) taking software from other companies. There was actually a movie made a few years back that aired on TNT about Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and the whole start of the computer age, called The Pirates of Silicon Valley (har har har). It's definitely recommended, I would really suggest watching it (everyone, really). In fact, this is great timing! The DVD of the film is about to be released on August 30th.
Of course, Xerox was the originator of the GUI and the mouse in the first place (with more visionary executives, we could be bitching about them today instead of Microsoft or Apple...heh).
TMB, you accused me of hyperbole in a prior post, but now I'm accusing you of simply slinging mud in directions that make no sense. I love a great deal of Creative Commons and indie music. Hell, I'm an artist, too, and my group is actually selling stuff (yay us!), in part because of (not despite) the fact that we're offering the whole works free online. Part of our music was taken from CC sources, and yet I haven't heard anyone accusing us of being unoriginal or mediocre. Sure, our style isn't for everyone, but we worked damn hard on the album. Not everything that is "proprietary" is somehow better than something that is borrowed or changed. Peter Jackson's imagining The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a great example of a derivative work being very powerful, very original, and very innovative. But, you argue, he paid for it (or, more accurately, New Line paid for it). But I've heard you complain on several occasions about non-proprietary somehow being worse (or at least that's the feeling I get from your posts). But does that only apply to free (legal) borrowing, and not bought-and-paid-for borrowing? You seem to equate free borrowing and free music (not "free" as in beer) as somehow lesser figures with fewer talents. I'd like to argue that this is absurd.
Like anything, monetizing something and placing huge backing behind it does create a lovely market. I'm kinda curious how well Tryad would do with a major label backing, actually.
But, I do think that CC is a great step to no longer needing those companies to promote and sell and distribute and market and control. I'm not saying, nor advocating, that they disappear, but just that they will no longer be an integral part of success...you see? And, more importantly, that something that just pops into someone's head is not necessarily better than something borrowed from someone else (especially if that borrowing is legal...or at least if you have a licensing agreement that really screws 'em over, am I right?).
Y'know, TBM, it's funny you mention the innovation Windows provided, considering how it started:
Microsoft shipped Windows on November 20 [1985], and two days later during Fall COMDEX (a huge industry trade show) in Las Vegas, Gates and Sculley signed a confidential, three-page agreement that granted Microsoft a "non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, nontransferable license to use these derivative works in present and future software programs, and to license them to and through third parties for use in their software programs." In other words, Apple got Microsoft's commitment to upgrade Word for Macintosh, delay Excel for Windows until October 1, 1986, plus an acknowledgement that "the visual displays in [Excel, Windows, Word, and Multiplan] are derivative works of the visual displays generated by Apple's Lisa and Macintosh graphic user interface programs." In other words, Microsoft got Apple's crown jewels, and Apple got shafted. Not since British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appeased Adolf Hitler with the Munich Pact of 1938 had the world seen such a fine demonstration of negotiation skills.
And DOS was bought by Bill and Co. from a company, and cleaned up from it.
Microsoft was built on the idea of (very slyly) taking software from other companies. There was actually a movie made a few years back that aired on TNT about Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and the whole start of the computer age, called The Pirates of Silicon Valley (har har har). It's definitely recommended, I would really suggest watching it (everyone, really). In fact, this is great timing! The DVD of the film is about to be released on August 30th.
Of course, Xerox was the originator of the GUI and the mouse in the first place (with more visionary executives, we could be bitching about them today instead of Microsoft or Apple...heh).
TMB, you accused me of hyperbole in a prior post, but now I'm accusing you of simply slinging mud in directions that make no sense. I love a great deal of Creative Commons and indie music. Hell, I'm an artist, too, and my group is actually selling stuff (yay us!), in part because of (not despite) the fact that we're offering the whole works free online. Part of our music was taken from CC sources, and yet I haven't heard anyone accusing us of being unoriginal or mediocre. Sure, our style isn't for everyone, but we worked damn hard on the album. Not everything that is "proprietary" is somehow better than something that is borrowed or changed. Peter Jackson's imagining The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a great example of a derivative work being very powerful, very original, and very innovative. But, you argue, he paid for it (or, more accurately, New Line paid for it). But I've heard you complain on several occasions about non-proprietary somehow being worse (or at least that's the feeling I get from your posts). But does that only apply to free (legal) borrowing, and not bought-and-paid-for borrowing? You seem to equate free borrowing and free music (not "free" as in beer) as somehow lesser figures with fewer talents. I'd like to argue that this is absurd.
Like anything, monetizing something and placing huge backing behind it does create a lovely market. I'm kinda curious how well Tryad would do with a major label backing, actually.
But, I do think that CC is a great step to no longer needing those companies to promote and sell and distribute and market and control. I'm not saying, nor advocating, that they disappear, but just that they will no longer be an integral part of success...you see? And, more importantly, that something that just pops into someone's head is not necessarily better than something borrowed from someone else (especially if that borrowing is legal...or at least if you have a licensing agreement that really screws 'em over, am I right?).
CORRECTION: TBM (not TMB)
I think you correctly point out that civil libertarians, whether they be free-content or anti-patriot act nazis, are terminally paranoid.
@popto