[h2o-discuss] digital dystopia?

[Eric Eldred <eldred@mediaone.net>]

in seizing upon intellectual property as the key to
understanding the digital revolution in information
cyberspace it does seem at times that we are being
dragged behind the chariots of progress, there is so
much information to keep up with.

i believe we do need to do more work in bringing
together the disparate domains we are each concerned
with--online books, MP3 downloads, genetic codes,
courseware, computer software, web pages and domain
names, etc., etc., including all the digital media
and everything that affects the internet.

particularly distressing to me are the weak arguments
by analogy from the success of the free software
movement (GPL, open source, whatever) to the other
domains.  For example, rms and i agreed that much
fruitful work could be done to adapt the GPL to
other domains such as books or music--there really
need to be a lot of different licenses depending
on authors' requirements.  where are the creative
lawyers who will sit down down with the smelly
technical experts and hammer out some of those
licenses?  without that, and some case law, it
might be hard to generalize issues from software
to the other digital domains.

it is not good enough to shout and wave hands in the
air to convince others that all you need to do is
apply the GPL to everything.  for example, the argument
that the code be allowed to be reused without royalty
falls down when the case becomes a printed book that
now assumes a cost for paper and editors and so on--
Tim O'Reilly has already encountered this problem and
has indicated that some other license is needed, but
nobody seems to have come up with one yet for printed
books that he likes.

the point that "public domain" and "copyleft" are
orthogonal is another that needs to be addressed.

i'll try to come up with some further discussion of my
own on these points in later messages.

but on a related subject, i suggest we now read the
important speech today by Sir John Birt, retiring
director-general of the BBC.  at the moment it is at:
http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/BBC/Story/0,2763,63775,00.html
and the beeb will have the transcript and an audio
edition of it at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/speech
and after you try the speech, read this
(free registration required):
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/07/biztech/articles/05tivo.html

in a way birt reflects my own clouded state of mind,
as one who, neither a socialist nor a libertarian,
has sought to bring free books to internet users,
but finds instead that the internet is considered by
most people a quick way to make a lot of bucks--
but a couple of main points should not be missed,
since they are very similar to our own concerns
as we grapple with intellectual property policy
in digital media.

one is that the technology progresses fast, but
humans need to be on top.  we need to be careful
that powerful interests do not hijack it and
so we would end up with a digital dystopia--a
state where the internet, digital tv and other
digital media, all promote increased INEQUALITY
rather than the equal, free access that some of
us rather naively hoped would be the result of the
new digital technologies such as the world wide web.

sir john thus warns of the tendency to make digital
media resemble pay-tv.  i have warned of the same issue
with the new "ebook" gadgets such as the Rocket
eBook, and others have warned against this with
respect to music being "copyprotected", similar to
the DIVX technology, which has now failed in the
marketplace.

the difference may be that at least in the U.S.
the airwaves are considered publicly owned and
so regulated.  but our government has shown no
inclination to regulate anything like the equal
access sir john mentions.  i believe it to be
the case that all digital televisions made so far
already have "copyprotection" chips inside them
so that all digital media can become like pay-tv.
i do not see governments being concerned that
@home cable modem users now are not being allowed
to run web or MP3 servers from their homes.

lacking a leader such as sir john, we need here to
develop our case much stronger.  now that public
broadcasting in the u.s. seems to have just as
many commercials as other stations, it is hard to
argue for some sort of "public preserve" to be
set up similar to sir john proposes continue with
a strong bbc.

the issue of "access" and the concept of "equality"
here seem central to our arguments.   on may 20
a lot of us gave examples of how control of
intellectual property, patents and copyrights alike,
had led to companies preventing others from
accessing information, in order to make money,
rather than leading to rapid technological progress.

yes, the idea of "equality" does bring up the taboo
of socialism and so raise a red flag in the faces
of the new internet entrepreneurs.  but i am thinking
of another sort of equality, a better balance, more
like the wise policies that Robert H. Frank has
proposed to remedy the excessive inequalities that
permeate our society from baseball salaries to the
size of our garages.  but more on that later.

for right now, a few questions for our discussion:

-- so what is wrong with pay-tv, if that is what the
market wants?  what is wrong with masses of digital
media users giving up their privacy--if that is what
they want--so that advertisers and sellers can target
directly to their demographics?

-- what are effective arguments to combat the
tendency toward increased inequality?  we need to
have some economic studies, not just anecdotes.

-- what can we think of for unifying principles that
rest under all the digital networked media?  can't we
dream up better arguments for "openness" than the
idea that by inviting kibitzers it might somehow work
better?

-- don't we need stronger arguments on the economic
front as well as the legal, constitutional side?  who
is the leader who will stand up and say that trying
to run a university like a business is nonsense, and
give good reasons why?

-- how can we elucidate, educate, the "public domain"
concept to a public, when nobody has ever explained
its meaning to them?  how can we bridge the gap between
"public domain" and "copylefted" digital material?
look at the analogy between the public domain and
the "commons" or the "environment"--how much water
does that really hold, when it come to teasing out
all the details?

-- aren't matters going to get worse in a few years 
when instead of microsoft and pc's we will have
all sorts of computers on the internet actually
exchanging code, not just web page data?  what
happens to the principles of open access and
protection of intellectual property when it comes
down to code snippets that seem to have no physical
location?  will it make sense to envisage a return
to the public domain after a proper term, so that
the code can be reused then?

-- after deciding on some remedial policies we can
work toward, what new or adapted institutions do we
need to join together on?  where are the funds going
to come from and how much is really needed?

-- 
"Eric"    Eric Eldred      Eldritch Press
mailto:EricEldred@usa.net  http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/
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