p2pnet - rss feed: Data transmission summit?
In his weblog here, software designer Dave Winer says, "Over the weekend I sent a simple idea to Cameron Barrett, who works for the Clark campaign, and to Jim Moore who works for Dean. The message: I would love to see their candidates make an impassioned plea to keep the Internet free of interference from the entertainment industry."
He’s backed by law professor Lawrence Lessig who says here:
"Dave Winer has rightly and nicely called for the presidential candidates to say something clear and strong about the internet and how they would propose to keep it free. And he’s right that we don’t yet have clear and strong positions from anyone about issues that are important to preserving the internet?s freedom."
Andy Oram agrees.
Now read on >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Time for a data transmission summit
By Andy Oram - O’Reilly Developer Weblogs
In a widely circulated weblog, software designer Dave Winer has called on major Democratic presidential candidates to issue statements about current intellectual property battles. Winer is backed up by another weblog by noted law professor Lawrence Lessig. Their goal, which I and most other people in high-tech support, is to to "keep the Internet free of interference from the entertainment industry," as reflected in the DMCA and its harsh application, the anti-KaZaa lawsuits by the RIAA, the recent broadcast flag required by the FCC on digital reception and playback equipment, and so forth.
I would go further and say it’s time for a broad-based but officially sanctioned summit on information transmission involving Congress, relevant agencies such as the FCC, technology leaders, and content providers. These would not be the stacked hearings and closed-door negotiations that usually drive policy in these areas, but a frank examination of what technological change is doing to our data. It would not be restricted to the field known as intellectual property. (The term is not really appropriate, of course, and technological change is making that more and more obvious as time goes on.)
Don’t think that current IP battles are just large entertainment firms defending turf. We will all eventually be towed in by the deep currents that the content providers are struggling with now.
The plummeting cost and increasing ease of transmitting material changes everything about information. But policy got off on a bad footing back around 1995 in the first serious government examination of the issues, the notorious document "Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure: The Report of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights," by Bruce Lehman and the Information Infrastructure Task Force. This report founded the original sin of digital policy, defining the movement of bits within a computer as a "copy" of a work and therefore as a copyright-infringing act.
Lehman’s report essentially declared that the government’s approach to protecting copyright holders’ interests would be business as usual. The Clinton administration hereby set itself inexorably against the technological tide and committed itself to a philosophy totally out of touch with reality, a course that led to the dismal results we see today. And yet the doctrine of the infringing computer copy has spread throughout the world and is being urged by copyright holders on governments everywhere.
Similar defenses of business as usual have distorted policy in just about every other area of "intellectual property," including trademarks, patents, and trade secrets. While the World Intellectual Property Organization and its adherents claim to balance technological change with the interests of current big business, decisions always slant toward the latter.
But we must not lose all discernment in our fight against abuses by large intellectual property interests, because they are touching on to something that affects us all. The ease of storing and transmitting information that essentially takes on an eternal existence is a social issue that we all must face. One current manifestation of the problem is the recent decision by many health clubs to ban cell phones because some contain cameras that can catch members in compromising positions.
The spread of cameras, sensors, and wireless networks will lead to more such dilemmas that will make us wish we could sit down with the intellectual property interests and discuss what we all have in common. Too many people fall back on the oft-discredited but easy phrase "information wants to be free," which is no more appropriate to the situation than the "get over it" response to violations of privacy.
We can’t stop the spread of information, but we can try to establish norms and ground rules for its use. We have to celebrate what we can achieve with the potent combinations of new technologies, but try to remain masters of them. And that is why it’s high time for a summit.
Right now, we’re in a battle where those with the most social and political power benefit at the expense of the rest of us. This means large corporations having free rein over information transfer where it benefits them, while they legally restrain its transfer where they sense a loss. A summit will necessarily have to raise questions of power, which are the questions powerful interests are most loath to address. We must push all the harder to make the issues explicit.
