Canada’s Debate

In case you didn’t notice, I now have a “Green hosting” icon on my left sidebar. I mention this not to gloat or congratulate myself, but out of a nagging suspicion that it’s utter bullshit. I have no reason do disbelieve Dreamhost’s claims, but I don’t see how a giant building that’s full of nothing but computers and wires can be carbon neutral. Now, I am too busy (looking for a job and an apartment) to investigate myself in any substantial way, but I am more than willing to offer yet another congratulatory beverage purchase to whomever brings me proof that these claims are true (or false.)

During my semi-regular stroll around the blogosphere I came across this photograph. Looks fairly unremarkable, no? Consider this then: it’s not a photograph at all, it’s a digital rendering. Now, does that make you feel impressed, or a little bit disturbed. If you said disturbed, you’re still human, and you have taken your first step into what is known as the Uncanny Valley.

David Morris once wrote (explaining Freud) that, “The Uncanny derives its terror not from something external, alien or unknown but– on the contrary– from something strangely familiar to separate ourselves from it.” This characterization is as good as any… and it’s something that we had all better get used to.

It’s not often that I get to share tangible good news regarding Intellectual Property or digital media, so you’ll forgive me if I’m relaying this instead of blogging about it extensively:

“The Canadian online music store Puretracks (a store I have generally avoided because of their Microsoft-specific solutions) has announced that it will immediately start selling part of its catalog as DRM-free MP3 files. The site’s unprotected catalog, which includes artists such as The Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan, will initially feature only 50,000 of its 1.3 million tracks, but their number will grow weekly. The Globe and Mail says the move will likely profit Puretracks because its DRM-free-music will be playable on iPods. It quotes one industry watcher saying ‘We’re seeing the death of DRM.’”

The author goes on to suggest that we are seeing the beginning of the end of DRM… while I wouldn’t go quite that far, and I do fear the eventual death-pangs that the would CRIA eventually throw out, this is definitely worth noticing.

For the first time a music distributor is recognizing the inherent problems in DRM, as opposed to device-makers or artists. Given the fast-paced nature of the marketplace, it only takes one outlet to take a stand for a new trend to emerge. My fingers are crossed.

… continued from yesterday.

The idea of secure transmission of information across the Internet is one that has been explored and to a certain degree implemented the world over. This has always been done in an effort to control access to information (Doherty 65.) The idea of securing and controlling information informs not only transmission systems but on the information itself. Secure exchanges demand not only a secure transmission, but also secure information that cannot be exploited once it has reached its destination. Digital Rights Management systems, “lock down content after it has been delivered to customers and business partners… Content should be ‘self-protecting’ and ‘self-describing’” (Doherty 66.) While the importance of self-protecting data cannot be overstated, it is not germane to a discussion of intellectual property rights. (Continue reading…)

… continued from yesterday.

For any reconsideration of how we share information to take place it is important for a society to have a clear view of how that information is valued. In the case of intellectual property the “information” or content of the property can be seen as the imaginative work undertaken by the author. How then do we as a society perceive this content as valuable? McFarlane identifies two schools of thought regarding property rights, which are the legal manifestations of a cultural perception of value. In this case two different views are explored, the Lockean (McFarlane 5) and the Hegelian (McFarlane 5) views.

According to Locke, a person acquires property rights to something by investing labor in it. For example if someone goes out into the forest, cuts down a tree and saws it into firewood, that wood becomes his property. Even though he did not own the tree or the land it was on and did nothing to plant the tree or make it grow, by putting the work into turning the tree into something useful, the product is his (McFarlane 5.)

(Continue reading…)

“The ‘Net is a waste of time, and that’s exactly what’s right about it.” - William Gibson

It can be said that a waste is effort without work. If we are to define work as effort expended to accomplish some end then a curious dilemma comes to the forefront. For the first time in human history it is possible to produce or reproduce intellectual property without said effort. The expansion of the Internet raises the question: how does this affect the value of intellectual products, and how do we go about maintaining that value? Technology has always been closely intertwined with production, and intellectual property production in particular. The development of new technologies impacts how we perceive intellectual property and how we come about managing it (McFarland 1.) “In fact it was the technology of the printing press that originally gave rise to intellectual property as a legal and moral issue” (McFarland 1.) In the past the advent of easy reproduction shifted the value of the intellectual property medium of the written word from the ink and paper itself to the actual intellectual investment into the content; the information. In much the same way that the printing press completely reformulated the value of the written word, the Internet demands that we revalue all forms of cultural production. Some have argued that how we regulate information can be determined by selecting from a simple binary; either that “information wants to be free” (Potter,) or “what is worth using is worth paying for” (Potter.) What this essay will do is attempt to tease out some of the ideas of the earlier paper Regulating the Internet: A Neo-liberal Experiment, namely how we perceive our intellectual property and protect it, in an effort to determine a third avenue for development. (Continue reading…)

continued from yesterday…

Governing the Internet is not simply a process of guiding the behaviour of individual users however. The tremendous pervasiveness of business and the government must also be considered. It is only appropriate that law and the market best regulate these two interests. The government’s ability to search and monitor is best combated through extending existing constitutional protections (and expanding them where they are lacking) to privacy online. In the same way that the home is inviolate except in cases of reasonable suspicion online exchanges must be formulated so that the point of origin; the user, becomes the medium of exchange rather than the technology that facilitates it, therefore the same individual rights that extend to that person must extend to the exchange itself.

How then do we regulate business interests online when a system of liberty and personal responsibility prevail? First and foremost advertising online must be exempted from the tax-free status that traditional advertising enjoys. Once advertising is susceptible to the same market forces as all other transactions online it quickly becomes prudent for those who use advertising to find alternate sources of revenue. This will in turn force those who sell advertising to compete in a market where consumers (through their participation in advertising-sponsored sites) determine how advertising should be presented. The more nefarious encroachments of business through monitoring and privacy invasion are combated in much the same way. Although architecture is necessary to prevent nefarious and malicious penetrations of users, the market coupled with a re-coding will again effectively combat privacy exploitation. By simply rewriting the code so that all access is identified (since actual access if free) through a trusted system where teh access is open but the connection is first identified and resolved to an identity; business loses any clandestine initiative it would have, and decisions to operate aggressively would have to be weighed against the response of users. (Continue reading…)

… continued from yesterday.

It is this supposition that demands an answer to the question posed by this essay. Since the Internet is so fully capable of becoming regulated, it is likely that it will be, so how should we as users go about doing this? Using the model of four forms of control it is entirely possible to answer that question. There is little doubt that architecture, as the chief form of control (currently) for the Internet is going to hold the key to future governance, but is that enough? As it stands technology is so fluid that only flexible barriers can restrict the expansion of unregulated behaviour. The advent of trusted systems is a good way to combat piracy when one user unjustly copies the copyrighted material of another online, but this is insufficient. In addition to developing systems of CODE (using Lessig’s conception of the term) real social norms must develop. Intellectual property rights are an amorphous concept at best and beyond the concern of most Internet users. The best way to help people understand the value of property in a digital medium is to simply allow two-way freedom of access. People would be much more conscious of what they downloaded (uncontrolled) if they were unable to control what was uploaded from their systems. In tandem with Trusted Systems the code could be reworked so all material not requiring a secure exchange is made available regardless of the users desire to do so. Work, private information, and products of personal creativity would be impossible to secure digitally and mandate the user rethinking of their own downloading behaviour. In time Social Norms would develop to restrict unregulated use of property and punish violators. In a system where users would value and guard their own work the work of others gains value, and inappropriate use would subside. Such an individualistic system stresses the liberty of an individual user, but depends on the understanding of those universal liberal values. By leaving the regulation of the Internet in the hands of the users difficulties presented by international incongruities in law enforcement and access become irrelevant…

to be continued again tomorrow