If you happened to visit my blog on the 18th you know that I participated in the SOPA/PIPA black out. I was firmly on the opposition side because those bills are are simply bad policy. They are vague, burdensome of distributors, cruel in punishment, and lack judicial oversight. In fact, had they passed, I’m sure the resulting law would have been struck down in a fairly quick court challenge of constitutionality.
As a 25 year old that is socialized to Internet culture, there are a few generational/cultural divides that I observed during the public debate on SOPA/PIPA. These divides have come up in the past, they will come up again, and understanding them will be key to developing online intellectual property policy:
1.) Remix vs Hollywood – The backlash to SOPA was so strong because, in part, a whole culture felt threatened by a powerful industry from a different culture. Internet culture, and by extension the culture of Millennials, lives and breathes on remixing existing IP as a form of expression. Thus, many saw this bill as an attack on their form of expression.
2.) Market of Ease – Netflix and iTunes have done more this decade to curtail piracy than law or the RIAA/MPAA because they developed a business model from the consumer perspective. They knew that consumers wanted and expected easy and cheap access to media in the Internet age, and have been wildly successful because they are selling this ease of access to consumers. What happens when the industry does not sell easy access but instead dictates obstacles that a consumer must overcome? The consumer becomes a customer of pirates, because the ease of access offering of pirates is superior to anything else on the market. In the wake of the MegaUpload takedown it has been astonishing to see how many people outside of the US relied on pirating sites for access to American media because, in many international markets, there is no other provider of easy access to media.
The final section of The Friendly Guide to Regulating the Internet has been added:
It’s very difficult to say whether interfering with the sovereignty of other nations is good or bad, as it depends a lot on the situation at hand and your own view of the situation. One thing is certain however, some regulations of this global network of ours involve international diplomacy, which can make the creation or implementation of laws way, way, way more difficult.
Read the introduction to online national sovereignty at FriendlyToS.
Another addition to The Friendly Guide to Regulating the Internet
This is intellectual property in a nutshell: IP hurts, but we need it. It encourages the creation of speech by limiting the creation of speech. IP is a confusing concept that is sometimes great, sometimes dangerous, sometimes unnecessary, and thanks to the Internet, a part of your everyday life.
Just put up part 4 of The Friendly Guide to Regulating the Internet.
If you’ve ever uploaded a home video to YouTube then you know the difference between a distributor of content and a creator of content. YouTube did not create the video you uploaded, you did. What YouTube did was distribute the content you created – it provided the tools and infrastructure that allow others to watch your video. And while YouTube didn’t make your video, if your video ended up getting millions of hits, you know your Internet fame would not exist without YouTube’s distribution.
A few weeks ago IBM released its 5 in 5 predictions – five technology trends that the company’s top scientists and executives predict will transform our lives within five years. Below is the video for prediction number 4 by Paul Bloom: The digital divide will cease to exist.
Being a tech and policy nerd, this one caught my attention. What is interesting about this prediction is the list of obstacles left out. Bloom is right to predict that the technology will exist in five years to eliminate the digital divide and do all sorts of cool things. That’s because the technology already exists.
Mr. Bloom fails to discuss what will change about the other obstacles of the digital divide – economics, politics, education – and how those changes will lead to increased access and use of Internet technology. These obstacles are very difficult. They involve competing demands for limited resources, tumultuous histories, complicated interests, and resource intensive practices. Technical innovation can help in addressing these obstacles. But in the end these obstacles are the result of human systems, not technical ignorance.
I am happy to see IBM involved in the digital divide discussion. The discussion needs technical leaders to supply technology, reduce costs, and customize products to varying cultures. However, the digital divide is about a lot more than just the technical difficulties of mobile Internet access. I hope IBM can learn from the mistakes of the One Laptop Per Child project and recognize that technological determinism is not a sound approach to solving the divide.
Part three of The Friendly Guide to Internet Regulation is out.
The power to remove the speech of others is dangerous. Even when used with good intentions, removing the speech of others can end important arguments and innovations. For this reason, speech regulations usually allow a person to challenge the removal of his or her speech. Speech regulations that do not allow challenges are generally considered bad policy, and either do not become law, or do not survive the scrutiny of the courts.
Added a concept to The Friendly Guide to Internet Regulation: prior restraint
Every once in a while somebody proposes a law along the lines of “anybody who wants to talk about puppies will have to get an OK first,” or “nobody will be allowed to talk about nuclear physics” (puppies and nuclear physics are interchangeable with any subject you can think of). The law maker might be well intentioned, saying that discussion of nuclear physics can lead to building a nuclear bomb. The problem is a discussion of nuclear physics can also lead to solving humanity’s energy problems.
Starting a series on the concepts that define Internet regulation over at FriendlyToS. The first concept to be introduced: overbroadness and vagueness.
Suppose your friend wanted to stop people from reproducing a picture she made, so she demands that everybody she knows stop copying any pictures. That sounds like a bit of an overreaction right? Or she says that people cannot share her picture. Well what does “share” mean? Can I post a link to her original picture on Facebook?
A number of activists have voiced their concern over the terms of Google Plus that require users to supply their real names. In particular, the policy has been criticized as inconsistent and favoring the famous (since celebrities have been able to use their stage names), disrespecting of those who choose an identity of their own, and inconsiderate of those who need to hide their identity for their own safety. In the face of these criticisms, Google has announced that in the future, Google Plus users will be able to use pseudonyms on their profiles.
The law allows government agencies to access data about you. Your consent to website terms allows government agencies to access data about you. This is not a comment on the state of citizen rights, nor is it an Orwellian critique of government surveillance. This is simply a reminder that if you put information online, or make use of Internet services, the possibility exists that the government can access that information for some compelling reason.
Seth Woodworth and I have started a site to help consumers understand the legalese of websites: FriendlyToS. Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be coding scrappers and differs to help users identify changes in terms of services when they happen and figure out what those dense blocks of text mean. Along with that, we will also be writing blog posts covering online legalese issues and news. And just like with my Humphrey blog posts, I’m going to put up a summary here when I make a FriendlyToS post. With that said, here is my first FriendlyToS post:
Real harbors do a lot of good for society. They allow commerce and immigration. But its no secret that surely old salts spend a lot of time in harbors. Imagine for a second that you own a harbor. In your harbor, Bluto has been trash-talking Popeye, and now Popeye wants to sue you because of what Bluto said. Does that sound fair to you? And would you want to continue to own your harbor if every bad thing a sailor said on your docks became a lawsuit for you?