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Lawrence Lessig (email) Registration now open for the Internet Law (ILaw) Program June 30 - July 4, 2003 at Stanford Law School. |
Lessig Blog Archives for May 2003
« April 2003 | Lessig Blog Main Page | June 2003 »
The Economist (that magazine that called for a 14 year copyright term) has a great piece about spectrum. The piece nicely carries this “Commons vs. Property” debate one step further. As Yochai Benkler is increasingly pushing the point, the problem with the “commons” metaphor is that it itself is a “property” metaphor — just a form of “property” where everyone has a right to access.
But that, Benkler argues, is misleading. The question we should be asking is not which form of property makes sense — private or commons — but instead a much more libertarian question: Do we need any “regulation of the spectrum” at all? Or put better: Given today’s technology, is there any reason to believe that the market operating on its own, without any substantial form of regulation, won’t figure out how best to develop devices that radiate? Can’t we depend upon the market to solve whatever coordination problems there are?
I’ve already tagged Benkler “perhaps the best communications theorist of our generation.” I shouldn’t have said “perhaps.”
MediaCon: in a thing worth a 1,000 words
From Sarah Lai Stirland’s post: A picture of the current concentration.
What happened in the Korean election?
There’s an important story about the Korean election that is not well understood by many, including me. I have read all sorts of accounts, but none really seems to capture it. David Moynihan tells an interesting part of the story in a comment to my post on “girrrl revolutions.” That suggested the idea of a community-telling.
So here’s the question: There was a surprising effect produced by the youth in the last Korean election — surprising because the pollsters missed it — and that surprise was in part facilitated by technology. But what’s the real story?
Advanced warning: I intend to be an editor of this community-telling, so off topic and unhelpful posts will be removed.
MediaCon: Ted Turner argues we need to preserve a world where the next Ted Turner can compete
Turner has a great piece in the Post about the dangers in Michael Powell’s June 2 proposal.
Andy Orlowski has an interesting dump on blogs in the Register. But he also makes an interesting mistake.
I’m not sure how one could ever say what the impact of “blogs” is universally. Yet by asking the question like that, you miss important differences in different countries. Joi’s “Emergent Democracy” stuff might seem odd from the perspective of England or the United States (because we of course have such healthy democracies, and soon we’ll have three media companies to tell us so); but within the structures of Japan, this channel becomes very significant. Likewise with the equivalent effect (though not through blogs) that has yet to be understood in the Korean election.
The link to teenage girls is even more mysterious, and yet to be understood. The other extraordinarily significant movement in Japan — dojinshi comics — is also said to have been sparked by teenage girls. That movement now gathers over 400,000 people twice a year to trade in those comics. And Sifry’s estimated number of blogs: 400,000.
Just a coincidence? Who are we to say?
Tonight on PBS, there is a film by a friend’s father. It was his last film before he died. Charles Guggenheim was one of the greatest documentary film makers of the 20th century. If you get a chance, watch Berga: Soldiers of Another War. To find local listings, click here. And if you get a chance to see it, let Davis, Charles Guggenheim’s son, know what you think by emailing him here. (Note: you have to remove the ZIPPOSPAM from the email address).
MediaCon: Edwards questions the FCC’s mandate
John Edwards has joined the long list of opponents to Chairman Powell’s plans to relax media ownership rules. His letter to Powell is posted below. Notice, appropriately, the punchline is a question about the FCC’s mandate: We should ask, exactly who elected Chairman Powell, and upon whose mandate is he pushing this change?
May 28, 2003
The Honorable Michael K. Powell
Chairman, Federal Communications Commission
Washington, D.C. 20554Dear Chairman Powell:
I write to urge you not to increase the national
broadcast ownership cap and not to proceed with the
rulemaking scheduled for June 2.Diversity in the media is enormously important to our
democracy. As consumers, Americans should have
choices in the music they can hear and the television
programs they can watch. As citizens, Americans
should have access to different ideas and points of
view. The government has a responsibility to foster
this diversity of expression. Unfortunately, the
FCC’s new rules are likely to undermine it.The effects on rural America could be particularly
harmful. People in rural communities and small-town
America have distinctive interests, and local stations
offer programming that responds to these interests. In
recent years, local stations in rural North Carolina
have offered prime-time broadcasts of Atlantic Coast
Conference basketball games, Billy Graham crusades,
and muscular dystrophy telethons. All Americans can
appreciate the importance of offering local
programming tailored to local concerns. By
undercutting this diversity, the FCC’s new rules will
do a disservice to all Americans.I have heard you suggest that with the growth of cable
and satellite television, broadcast diversity is no
longer important. That may be true in some affluent
communities, but many Americans do not have cable and
satellite television, especially in rural areas.
These Americans depend on broadcast news and
programming, and their programming should offer real
choices that are responsive to their interests.I am especially troubled that your agency is
implementing these proposals without permitting
further public discussion. The FCC does not have a
mandate to make controversial decisions without giving
the public a full opportunity to comment. The fact
that two Commissioners have requested a delay should
signal to you that the prudent course, at the least,
is to postpone the vote and permit open public
discussion.
Thank you for you consideration of this request.
Yours sincerely,
John Edwardscc: Commissioners Abernathy, Adelstein, Copps, and
Martin
In a paper on Innovation released by the Lieberman campaign today, Senator Lieberman writes,
“Ensure that the Internet continues to provide an open platform for innovation: The Internet is different from the phone network and radio and broadcast television in important ways. It is easier for individuals and small organizations to be producers as well as consumers of information. The Internet allows for “many to many” communication as opposed to the “one to many” communication of broadcast television. Innovation can occur at the edge of the network. A student, an independent software developer, or a small high-tech company can come up with an idea for a new application, protocol, or kind of content. If enough people find it useful or worthwhile, this idea can spread like wildfire. Even as the Internet evolves, it important to ensure that it continues to provide an open platform for rapid and decentralized innovation, and for the exchange of ideas.”End to End has gone presidential.
UPDATE: the link, changed, has been fixed.
According to friends at the wonderful Bumperactive.com, Starbucks says it has no policy about non-media photographs in its stores. Someone should tell the stores…
Scott Leverenz has built a page to collect the results of the weekend photography exercise at your favorite coffee shop. Check it out here. Thanks, Scott!
Dean: “”In my travels around the country, I have discovered that this proposed
deregulation is one of the foremost issues on peoples’ minds. I am asked
about it everywhere--in small towns in New Hampshire, and in major cities
across the nation.”Read his letter to Chairman Powell.
So it you want to read a story about extremists, here’s one that’s hard to beat. These people are looking for help, so anyone in New York who can help should follow up. I have permission to post this, but I haven’t verified the facts.
There were an extraordinary number of people who took up the Starbucks’s challenge. Check out the links here and lots elsewhere on the web.
There were many in the comments to the challenge who suggested there was nothing wrong with Starbucks exercising control over its own property. Of course that is right. And of course it is right that Starbucks should have the right to control people who are bothering people with their cameras, just as Starbucks has the right to control people who are bothering others with a radio. And of course it is right that Starbucks has the right even to be extremist about it — banning anyone who clicks even a picture of a friend, invoking mysterious claims about security or trade-secrets.
But if they exercise these rights to an extreme, then of course we have the right to criticize their extremism. We have the right to link their extremism to a growing phascism about photographs. (See the wonderful summary of your rights by Bert Krages.) For it is bizarre that we increasingly live in this world where every movement is captured by a camera, yet increasingly, ordinary people are not permitted to take pictures with cameras. This is yet another part of a growing obsession with control that seems to mark so much of this society. At a minimum, we have a right to take note of this control, and criticize it where we can.
That’s just what I wondered about when I read these stories about Starbucks’. I’m a terribly untrendy sort — I like Starbucks. But I couldn’t quite tell whether the extremism of these stories was an exception or a policy. And I guess I was relieved to read, and to find, at least some stores where the manager of a place that loves to imagine itself a public place was actually giving members of the public a freedom to feel like they are in public. I understand of course — as everyone should — that this “feeling” is just virtual. It can be withdrawn at anytime.
MediaCon: This is Rich from the NY Times
Frank Rich has a great piece in the Times today about MediaCon.
” Though liberal and conservative organizations alike, from Common Cause to the National Rifle Association, are protesting this further consolidation of media power, most of the country is oblivious to it. That’s partly because the companies that program America’s matrix have shut out all but bare-bones coverage of the imminent F.C.C. action, much as the ruling machines in “The Matrix” do not feed their captive humans any truths that might set them free.”
If you think Frank Rich is right, you might want to write the NY Times and ask, why is it the Times has “shut out all but bare-bones coverage of the imminent F.C.C. action”?
Mr. Richard Bennett accuses me of “latent fascism” for deleting a comment from a post. In fact, I have never deleted any comment from any post, his included. I should think, rather than calling someone a fascist, the decent thing to do when one suspects such a thing is to simply ask.
I’m happy to have you “disagree with [me] on my blog,” Mr. Bennet. And as to the claim you say you posted, viz, that I “can’t be that ignorant” about the Sony Bono Act “harmonizing” the US term with the EU.: in fact, as Professor Karjala nicely demonstrates, the Sonny Bono Act did no such thing. That’s precisely why members of the EU are now pushing to increase terms for recordings — to catch up to the longer term that US law sets.
And if you have trouble posting a comment again, let me know. I’m happy to help.
So on May 22, at 11:49am I posted my offer to spammers that I’d be happy to read their spam sent to a special spam email address if they promise to pay $500 for the privilege. At 9:58 this morning — less than 2 days later — I received my first acceptance. How exciting!
dear Starbucks, say it ain’t true?
So I have this from an extremely reliable source, who vouches totally for the facts that follow.
Story one: Last month while visiting Charleston, three women went into a Starbucks. They were spending the weekend together and one of them had a disposable camera with her. To commemorate their time with one and other they decided to take round robin pictures while sitting around communing. The manager evidently careened out of control, screaming at them, “Didn’t they know it was illegal to take photographs in a Starbucks. She insisted that she had to have the disposable camera because this was an absolute violation of Starbuck’s copyright of their entire ‘environment’--that everything in the place is protected and cannot be used with Starbuck’s express permission.
Story two: At our local [North Carolina] Starbucks, a friend’s daughter, who often has her camera with her, was notified that she was not allowed to take pictures in any Starbucks. No explanation was given, but pressed I would think that the manager there would give a similar rationale.I wonder what would happen if hundreds of people from around the country experimented this holiday weekend by taking pictures at their local Starbucks …
MediaCon: the war of ideas is won
While I have no idea what this paragraph means,”[w]e opponents of megamergers and cross-ownership are afflicted with what sociologists call “pluralistic ignorance.” Libertarians pop off from what we assume to be the fringes of the left and right wings, but do not yet realize that we outnumber the exponents of the new collectivist efficiency,” I declare that the war of ideas in this media concentration battle is over. This brilliant piece by Safire ends it.
Let’s now see whether ideas and ideals translate into policy.
The Colorado Governor Bill Owens has vetoed the MPAA’s super-DMCA passed by the Colorado legislature. Very cool.
I got a surprising number of replies to my post about online banks. Bank of America has the most loyal customers by far, with 2.5x the number of positive responses over the next highest rank. Second place was tied between USAA and Citibank. Wells Fargo, HSBC, American Express and eTrade also got strong recommendations.
PC Banker got a particularly strong recommendation from someone I know who apparently has a very interesting passion researching such questions. And First Internet Bank of Indiana got a similarly strong set of recommendations.
There were also a surprising number of missives about the value of local credit unions (indeed, adding them together, credit unions were also tied in second place). I am a member of the Stanford Federal Credit Union, but it has discontinued its online access with Quicken.
The most surprising response, however, came from Citibank itself. On the day I posted the question, a very kind manager at Citibank called to tell me he had been reading my webpage (!). Within a day, all problems with my account at Citibank had been corrected, and my account is live. I didn’t quite know how to respond to this, but I count this as extra effort by Citibank, and so I’ll give them a try. More when there’s something useful to report.
Meanwhile, on the power of blogs…
Mr. Gates has proposed his solution to spam. Unfortunately, it is yet another idea that will not work.
The problem the MSFT solution aims to solve is the problem of distinguishing good spam from bad. The proposal has a clever (though I think dangerous) safe harbor provision to “create incentives for email marketers to adopt best practices, and to certify themselves as trusted senders who can be more easily identified by consumers and filters alike.” Presumably, if we know which marketers are “trusted senders” we can accept their mail, and block all the rest — spam and non-spam alike. Thus, email would become a more effective channel for trusted marketing — but little else.
The safe harbor provision could make sense if there were a background requirement that all spam be labeled. There’s a hint of that requirement in the letter Mr. Gates wrote to the Senate Commerce Committee (“participants would be entitled to avoid the burden of additional labeling requirements (such as “ADV:” )”). But the proposal doesn’t actually endorse a labeling requirement. And without it, the proposal does nothing to distinguish real email from HGH sellers. The proposal would help distinguish HGH sellers from, say, Amazon. Wonderful, but I didn’t know that was the problem.
The proposal does say lots about making sure ISPs and state attorneys general have the power to sue — again, like most (but not all) solutions, centralizing the enforcement function. But all such solutions will fail because a centralized system for enforcing spam regulations will never be enforced. ISPs and state attorneys general have better things to do than enforce spam regulations. They always have; they always will.
This is the key point: the enforcement problem. Whatever the requirement, if it is not effectively enforced — meaning that most spammers do not fear that they will be caught and punished for failing to obey a requirement — then it will fail. And if it is effectively enforced, then it will work even if its penalties are not harsh. Solve the enforcement problem, and a slap on the wrist will work. Fail to solve the enforcement problem, and even the death penalty would be ineffective.
It’s no surprise that Congress doesn’t get this. Congress gets points for “seeming” tough. If you seem tough, it doesn’t matter if your ideas work. So puffed-up “get tough” rhetoric tied to totally ineffective legislation is the norm.
But it is a surprise that a company as skilled as MSFT would make the same Washington (DC) mistakes. Mr. Gates has done extremely well in world where mistakes hurt profits. He is doing extraordinary good in the world where generosity (indeed, astonishing generosity) corrects for policymakers’ mistakes. But as a policymaker himself, he is still MSFT v1.0.
Let’s hope he gets to MSFT v3.1 soon.
Dear Spammer:
I don’t have much time to read emails, and I especially don’t have much time to read unsolicited commercial emails. But I have decided to make an exception. If you would like to send me unsolicited commercial emails, then I agree to read them on the condition that you promise to pay me $500, and subject to the additional conditions mentioned below. You can accept this offer by sending unsolicited commercial email to me at mailto:make-my-day-q2wxe4q1@pobox.com.
In accepting this offer, you also agree (1) to be subject to the laws of California for the purpose of enforcing our contract, (2) to pay any costs, including attorney fees, incurred in enforcing our contract, (3) to pay your obligation under this agreement within 10 days of sending the email, by mailing a check to me at the address referenced in the Contact section of this site, and (4) to accept service and costs associated with any bill collector that I hire to help collect obligations owed me under this contract.
Good luck with your business.
MediaCon: two truths from the dean
Howard Dean says at least two important and true things here: (1) “The way to deal with a leader is to be another leader, and to be strong in your views and present the American people with a choice”; (2) “For me, when the Cumulus Corporation, which owns a lot of radio stations, kicked the Dixie Chicks off their networks – a couple hundred radio stations – I realized that media corporations have too much power.”
(e) William Gibson on Singapore
Re: the agreement to extend copyright terms:
But when you read this criticism of them, remember, it applies doubly to us.
Timothy Phillips, one of the most active people pushing to reclaim the public domain, writes in a comment to my post yesterday,
““Monitor the issue ?” Why doesn’t the representative introduce the bill, if it has not already been introduced ?”
Why Timothy? Because as one person who had spoken to someone on the hill wrote me, “no congressperson yet sees ANY possible benefit to them from introducing this bill, and they all see SIGNIFICANT political costs. This is like taking on the NRA, but these people have more than one movie star on their side.”
Derek Slater has put together an excellent letter that you can use to ping your Congresscritter. A much improved version of the 4 page “two pager” that I posted. Use it and ping your congressperson here.
ADV: iLaw: cyberspace law summer camp
Stanford is hosting this year’s iLaw program — a program begun by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. It is the third American edition of the course (we’ve given it twice overseas as well — once in Singapore, and this March in Brazil), and it is getting, imho, quite good. The class is always a mix of lawyers, government officials, technologists, and others, always from across the world.
If you’re interested, check it out here.
The W3C has taken an extremely important step. The step was taken in the context of patent policy. The substance of the step is important enough: W3C has taken the position that it will not recommend a standard that depends upon a patent that is not offered on a Royalty-Free basis. Some wanted a stronger position — no patents at all. But the W3C position will at least assure that Web standards will not be blocked by patents.
But the more important decision is the procedure taken in releasing this decision: W3C has released its public version of the decision with the reasoning behind the direcor’s action attached. Danny Weitzner reports this is a first. I don’t know of any example to contradict that claim. Let it be the first of many from this important organization that continues the work of the web’s founder.
MediaCon: the most obvious point (you’d think they’d at least fake it for now)
Dan Gillmor has picked up the MediaCon story — thankfully. His eJournal has begun collecting stories about the obvious effect of concentrated media: that the news will begin to sing in harmony with the interests of the owners. Here’s a snippet from Salon on this. And here’s his announcement of a mediacon channel.
I don’t know who owns the SJ Merc, but whoever does, I guess Gillmor is at least some evidence against my concern that big media will compromise journalism. Some.
MediaCon: but then the Internet took its ball and went home
Mikael Pawlo, among the world’s, and certainly Sweden’s, most active lawyers monitoring of all things cyber, wrote a terrifying story about the law regulating the net last year. Seems a newspaper ran an online forum where readers could post. A reader posted speech that was deemed “hate speech.” The newspaper was held liable — not because it failed to remove the speech quickly enough. The newspaper was liable the moment the speech was posted. Thus, the message from the Swedish courts: Do not create fora where people get to speak unless an editor reads their speech first. The story is here.
And they say the Internet will check “big media” …
Chris Kelly has been keeping a keen eye out for silliness. Here’s his latest find.
(E) Act: Locating Congress-critters
Here’s a better link to locate Congress-critters who you can write to about the Eldred Act. And here’s a description of the proposal and its purposes.
So I’ve gotten tons of mail from people who have taken up the challenge to spread the idea of the Eldred Act. I’ll be reporting on this feedback over time. Christopher Kantarjiev sent a letter to Congresswoman Eshoo (CA, Democrat) who represents Stanford. Here’s her reply:
> Thank you for your e-mail about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to
> uphold the constitutionality of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension
> Act (CTEA), which adds 20 years to the terms of existing and future
> copyrights.
>
> The case of Eldred v. Ashcroft challenged the constitutionality of CTEA,
> charging that CTEA fails constitutional review under both the Copyright
> Clause’s “limited times” prescription and the First Amendment’s free
> speech guarantee. The framers of the Constitution wanted to promote
> science and arts by allowing Congress to grant exclusive rights to
> creations “for limited times.” Congress has extended this period
> gradually over time and the Court held that Congress acted within its
> authority and did not transgress Constitutional limitations when it passed
> CTEA.
>
> While I appreciate the importance of the public domain and I remain
> dedicated to preserving such fundamental rights as freedom of speech and
> freedom of the press, I do believe that Congress must also act to ensure
> the international protection of copyrighted works. We must balance the
> tensions between these two sets of interests carefully.
>
> As you mentioned in your email, one possible compromise is the Eric Eldred
> Act, which takes a common sense approach to move unused copyrighted work
> with no continuing commercial value into the public domain. The Eric
> Eldred Act has not yet been introduced in the Congress, but I shall
> continue to monitor this issue, keeping your important thoughts in mind.
>
>
> If you have any other questions or comments, let me hear from you. I
> always appreciate hearing from my constituents and ask that you continue
> to inform me on issues you care about. I need your thoughts and benefit
> from your ideas.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Anna G. Eshoo
> Member of Congress“common sense” — I count that as good news. Keep those letter going…
Jerry Lawson has a great piece for lawyers about weblogs, or bLAWgs as I’ve seen them referred to.
would amazon please become a bank?
I know it’s trendy to say nasty things about Amazon (one-click, etc.), but man do I wish they’d expand into really useful services, like banking. I’ve been struggling through nightmare experiences with “online banks” — none of which have online services that are half as reliable or convenient as Amazon.
I’ve been through Merrill Lynch (awful awful awful), and then TD Waterhouse (sleek, but thin on service: no download to Quicken, for example), and now the latest was Citibank.
Citibank was recommended to me by Intuit. Said to be one of the “best” online banks. So I applied — in February. Today, three months and at least 10 calls and 5 faxes later, I stopped the “application” process. Seems they were unable to verify my address (a house we’ve owned since September 2000) after my wife and I sent in document after document. Today it took them 15 minutes to determine that they weren’t “sure” which documents would be needed, but then they helpfully gave me a list of three more I could fax in and they’d then determine whether that was enough.
Forget it, I told them. So I’m back to square-one: Does anyone recommend an online bank which: (1) has direct download to Quicken, (2) Amazon-like-reliability online?
MediaCon: Glenn Reynolds into the breach
Glenn has a great column on the “internet will save us” meme. The final paragraph captures it perfectly:
So, Michael, here’s the deal: if you think that concentration in Old Media is okay because New Media will provide the discipline, then stand up for freeing the New Media from the shackles that the Old Media are trying to weld on. Because if you’re not serious about freeing the New Media, then you’re not serious about competition, and what you’re describing isn’t a bold new world, but a sellout.Exactly right.
This is a great piece about the mistake in the administration’s recent trade agreement with Singapore — requiring it (and us) to stick to the DMCA. Less noticed is article 16.4.4 which increases the term of copyright from 50 pma to 70 pma. (Remember, we had to increase our term to harmonize with the rest of the world; now the administration is pushing the rest of the world to increase its term to harmonize with us).
The frustration in all this is the total disconnect between criticism and governmental response. It is the form of a democracy, but with none of the substance. We make mistakes, and we force them on the rest of the world. The world then simply adopts the mistakes we make — in the face of overwhelming criticism.
For example, has anyone explained why, if a country needs a DMCA law, it can’t pass a law that respects fair-use like exceptions? Or if a country needs to extend copyright terms, it can’t limit the extension to works with commercial value?
The world loves to criticize the US, and criticize they often should. Yet the criticism would look a bit more credible if critics didn’t dress like puppets.
Memo to the few:
Two important items for today.
(1) This Internet is getting out of control. I just learned that when you search on news in Google, for example, it actually returns results with the work of people, not Incs. This has got to be stopped. Get Google to change its code. Incs. before people. Always.
(2) Research shows that the best way to resist the increasing public criticism of Mikey’s plan to relax rules on media ownership is to focus on the internet. Why worry about 3 companies controlling all of media when we have the internet as a competitor?
(BTW: ever notice?: Mikey + (c) = Mickey)
Doc is writing about a meme we have got to get right early on.
One (not the only) general way to describe what’s important about the Net we knew is competition. The end-to-end Internet is a platform for fostering and supporting competition.
One general kind of competition that this platform will enable is competition between commercial and noncommercial content and innovation. A richer public domain, and more in the creative commons will mean more to choose among when creating or sharing or criticizing culture.
Competitors hate competition. They will always work to increase barriers to entry. And they will use a string of silly excuses to increase the barriers to the free.
We should resist these excuses. We should be fighting to preserve this competition. “How can you compete with free?” Jack Valenti asks, again and again? By making stuff better, again and again.
But the important point is this: It is wrong wrong wrong to bias the rules against the free. Free societies make closed societies harder to sustain. The same should be true of culture. If you find it hard to be closed and important, then either accept irrelevance or accept the Internet.
You build the hard stuff, and we’ll build the middle ground (“Some Rights Reserved)”). As you know, we’ve been planning our Conservancy Project for sometime, and are eager to find the right code/protocol/content to fuel its launch.
So the Register has a piece about my post yesterday, attacking Dr. Pangloss and his predictions that the Internet will save us all from the dangers of media concentration. Midway through, Andrew Orlowski writes, “’The Internet is dying,’ he writes.” Actually, that’s not quite what I wrote, the quotes not withstanding. What I wrote was: “’The Internet’ that is to be the savior is a dying breed.” That is, the “end-to-end Internet,” where the edge holds the intelligence, is a dying breed. Something called “the Internet” will be with us forever, so in that sense, “the Internet” will never die. But the end-to-end internet (the only internet that really matters to any important issue) is a more fragile beast.
About a month ago, I started sounding optimistic about getting a bill introduced into Congress to help right the wrong of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. I was optimistic because we had found a congressperson who was willing to introduce the bill. But after pressure from lobbyists, that is no longer clear. And so we need help to counter that pressure, and to find a sponsor.The idea is a simple one: Fifty years after a work has been published, the copyright owner must pay a $1 maintanence fee. If the copyright owner pays the fee, then the copyright continues. If the owner fails to pay the fee, the work passes into the public domain. Based on historical precedent, we expect 98% of copyrighted works would pass into the public domain after just 50 years. They could keep Mickey for as long as Congress lets them. But we would get a public domain.
The need for even this tiny compromise is becoming clearer each day. Stanford’s library, for example, has announced a digitization project to digitize books. They have technology that can scan 1,000 pages an hour. They are chafing for the opportunity to scan books that are no longer commercially available, but that under current law remain under copyright. If this proposal passed, 98% of books just 50 years old could be scanned and posted for free on the Internet.
Stanford is not alone. This has long been a passion of Brewster Kahle and his Internet Archive, as well as many others. Yet because of current copyright regulation, these projects — that would lower the cost of libraries dramatically, and spread knowledge broadly — cannot go forward. The costs of clearing the rights to makes these works available is extraordinarily high.
Yet the lobbyists are fighting even this tiny compromise. The public domain is competition for them. They will fight this competition. And so long as they have the lobbyists, and the rest of the world remains silent, they will win.
We need to your help to resist this now. At this stage, all that we need is one congressperson to introduce the proposal. Whether you call it the Copyright Term Deregulation Act, or the Public Domain Enhancement Act, doesn’t matter. What matters is finding a sponsor, so we can begin to show the world just how extreme this debate has become: They have already gotten a 20 year extension of all copyrights just so 2% can benefit; and now they object to paying just $1 for that benefit, so that no one else might compete with them.
If you believe this is wrong, here are two things you can do: (1) Write your Representative and Senator, and ask them to be the first to introduce this statute; point them to the website http://eldred.cc, and ask them to respond. And even more importantly, (2) blog this request, so that others who think about these issues can get involved in the conversation.
I have given this movement as much as I can over the past four years, and I will not stop until we have reclaimed the public domain. Stay tuned for more litigation, and more ideas from Creative Commons. But please take these two steps now.
There’s a very cool new featured commoner at the Creative Commons site.
Tom Barger has a nice story about changing his mind. If ideology didn’t govern in DC, perhaps it would do some good.
MediaCon: “but there’s the internet”
Of all the lines that Dr. Pangloss pesters me with (and you know who you are), the one that gets me the most goes something like this: “But there’s an internet now. Why do you worry about media concentration when there’s an internet?”
So there’s a million reasons why this is silly — despite the importance of blogs, etc. But the one that’s most relevant is this:
At the same time that media concentration restrictions are being removed, such that 3 companies will own everything, so too are neutrality restrictions for the network being eliminated, so that those same three companies — who will also control broadband access — are totally free to architect broadband however they wish. “The Internet” that is to be the savior is a dying breed. The end-to-end architecture that gave us its power will. in effect, be inverted. And so the games networks play to benefit their own will bleed to this space too.
And then Dr. Pangloss says, “but what about spectrum. Won’t unlicensed spectrum guarantee our freedom?” And it is true: Here at least there was some hope from this FCC. But the latest from DC is that a tiny chunk of new unlicensed spectrum will be released. And then after that, no more. Spectrum too will be sold — to the same companies, no doubt.
So then, Dr. Pangloss: When the content layer, the logical layer, and the physical layer are all effectively owned by a handful of companies, free of any requirements of neutrality or openness, what will you ask then?
David Weinberger has been contributing small and important pieces to our collective cluetrain of thought (ok, that was too cute, sorry). He’s got it right here.
Nothing can compete with a good cartoon, but if there were a great op-ed about the dangers of concentration, this would be at the top of the list.
This is a brilliant cartoon by Toles which captures this whole debate best.
The link to link all things important.
There is growing criticism of the June 2 planned announcement at the FCC. MoveOn.org has joined the fight, as has BoingBoing, ReinRadar, and Aaron.
binary “thought”: Bruce Lehman
Bruce Lehman — the Clinton Administration’s IP czar and a debate no-show (he’s scheduled and not shown at at least two debates that I know of — one with Jamie Boyle, and one with me) — has been doing more good in the world. As reported in Technology Review and commented upon at TeleRead, when a Cairo consortium called WIPO to ask for advice about images of Egyptian artifacts that they wanted to place on the web, Lehman’s new international organization sent a lawyer to Cairo to advise them against spreading such knowledge freely. Better to copyright and control access to such knowledge. The images, he is reported to have said, “should be licensed.”
We’d suggest a Creative Commons license, or at least some way to keep Mr. Lehman at home.
MediaCon: A view from down under
An Australian sent me this interesting rant about “deregulation” of the media:
You might like to bring your readers’ attention to the state of the
media in Australia.Our government has already gone down the path of creeping
“deregulation”. Brisbane, the city I live in, now has only one daily
newspaper - Murdoch’s “Courier-Mail”. Interestingly enough Queensland
Newspapers (which is The Courier-Mail and some regional weekly
advertising newspapers) is the company Murdoch plundered during some of
his cash-flow problems a number of years ago. He was never called to
account by any regulatory body to answer for the fact that QNP employee
pension money that went missing for many months.Once media concentration is allowed to creep past a certain point you
are in trouble. The media owners can push for more concentration due to
the fact that they control public opinion via TV and print media.They got their present media concentration allowances by promising
politicians “more balanced reporting in the future”. Everyone knew they
abused the power they had, but the politicians sold the general public
on the belief they could safely trade MORE power for promises of reduced
abuse! Crazy.Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer are a media duopoly with very close
business ties that ensure that casino, cable-TV, digital spectrum and
broadband operation licenses all go to them. Competitors are removed or
regulated out of the market by politicians who have pressure applied
from the press - owned by these two astute businessmen.Now that they own a great percentage of media they can, and do, use this
to finish off their quality competitors with their inferior but
ubiquitous newspapers, radio stations and TV stations. Kerry Packer’s
“ninemsn.com.au” partnership with Microsoft ensures that the country’s
PCs roll out with ninemsn.com.au as the default page in their web
browser, thus extending Packer’s reach. Murdich and Packer now own the
rights to all major football codes in Australia, plus cricket and
tennis.It is a nightmare. Newsworthy events either have to advertise with the
duopoly or risk only negative publicity. If it bleeds, it leads. Be it
red ink or red blood. Financial disaster or human tragedy are your only
hope of making the papers unless you pay or are owned by Packer, Murdoch
or Fairfax in which case your miracle arthritis cure gets front-page
space.If you want to show people what will happen with “deregulation” study
the Australian experience.
Bob McChesney has been studying concentration in media for a long time. His challenge is worth reading.
This story is beginning to walk. Donna launched it. JD Lasica has collected a bunch of links on his page. JD points to a great little piece by Jesse Walker of Reason. And Amy from the Harvard blog has been writing about this for a while.It is a month till D(eregulation) Day. We’ve given them the language (how is it “deregulation” when it will produce 3 companies owning everything?); there’s much more to do if the call mediageek has echoed is to have any effect.
Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren today introduced her REDUCE Spam Act. That Act is in part based upon the idea that I have bet my job on. This has led some friends to write that they hope the law is not passed — some because they believe it won’t work, some because they don’t like this or any regulation. To the first group, I appreciate the concern, but remain unworried. To the second, I understand the concerns, but remain convinced.
The general idea of the statute is that spammers must label UCE, and if they don’t, then the law enables a bounty system to pay people who hunt down those who fail properly to label. I’ve been getting lots of questions about how this would work, and as many are similar, it would obviously help to post a FAQ. It would be great to get more questions beyond the first wave, and a FAQ would certainly help.
This final draft does have a nice modification that was suggested by a particularly skeptical friend. The label requirement initially is a simple ADV: in the subject line. There are obvious problems with mandated protocols, and so the modification requires either an ADV: or “an identification that complies with the standards adopted by the Internet Engineering Task Force for identification of unsolicited commercial electronic mail messages.” This is a nice modification that both creates an incentive for the development of other protocols, but vests that process within a body that so far has resisted capture. I was originally worried that any industry standards group would be open to capture. But I have lots of confidence that the IETF will be able to suss out spammers.
The key to this idea is, as Congresswoman Lofgren puts it, that the Act would enlist a bunch of 18 year olds in the battle against non-complying spammers. “Between the 18 year olds and the spamsters,” as she puts it, “I’ll bet on the 18 year olds.”
Me too.
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