Interview With Bill Joy

richard koman writes: "In an interview with Bill Joy on openp2p.com, Bill reveals that he's working with Sen. Orrin Hatch to devise public policy on the Net and copyright infringement, and states his belief that wholesale copying of content is "too much of a nerd view of the world."" He's got an interesting perspective on Napster, despite being a shareholder of it.

Comments

Re:Making special laws for the net is stupid

[Bluesee]

I have to respectfully disagree.

The nature of the internet is different than, say, books or tape recorders or any other information distribution system, and you fail to understand the distinctions at your peril.

The fact is, the internet makes copyrights either:

1) unenforceable, as so many have violated the law (e.g., Napster) that we can't lock them all up, or;

2) unendurable, as the only way to make sure copyrights aren't being violated is to invade our privacy and violate our civil rights.

This wasn't a problem before the internet, as the average information distributor couldn't do as much damage, and could be caught once he did become large enough to be a problem. For instance, the RIAA wouldn't prosecute you for taping an album off the radio in the past, they would get laughed out of court. Then they (not the RIAA this time, but the MPAA) got a little smarter and encoded VHS tapes and put the FBI WARNING! notice on the front of all movies. Okay, so far no invasion of privacy, but it did work a little better, although you can (legally?) tape a movie off of Showtime and give it to your friend.

But now copyright violaters can copy a four minute song down to an mp3 and distribute it to thousands of people in minutes, who can then forward it to a million in an hour.

That's a million criminals in an hour, or, if you want, 95 million criminals on Napster right now.

Which should we do? Arrest everyone on Napster (I imagine its a misdemeanor), stop them by monitoring their machine via Carnivore, or write new legislation that is cognizant of the new problems brought about by the new technology? I opt for the latter.

Reading between the lines w/ Joy and Allchin

[isaac]

While keeping in mind that Sun and Microsoft are arch-rivals, I sense that they share one common trait - both want to lock businesses and customers into their respective sets of competing technologies.

I am willing to bet several dozen donuts that these two companies in particular (in addition to whatever tricks the RIAA and MPAA might be up to, per usual) are lobbying the US Congress to establish a legal framework for an all-out assault on untrusted clients. The ability of an individual to write or use free software that eschews the Digital Rights Management (a more honest term is Copy Prevention) constraints being built into the next generation of commercial software is the "threat lawmakers need to be made aware of" whereof Allchin spoke. Today we have Bill Joy, an influential blowhard with no love for Microsoft, stating openly and publicly "I think that the copyright laws need to be enforced, and maybe they need to be changed. We need an enforceable digital-rights management scheme..."

Why would anyone choose to use software that adds no value, but instead restricts what an individual may do with the hardware which he or she has purchased? Answer: They would, if the alternative was a stiff fine or jail time. A full-court-press is underway on behalf of the media business (with the help of technology companies like MS, Sun, and RealNetworks) to require DRM technologies be built into all connected devices.

The grand irony here is that Microsoft and Sun both know the value of free distribution, in terms of architectural lock-in, regardless of whether the copies are authorized or not. Don't look to Microsoft to build "phone-home"-style copy protection into versions of Windows sold in the developing world- they know there's more value in people pirating their software and driving up their market share in these places than there is money to be squeezed out of the few groups willing and able to actually license all of their MSWare. Sun gives away their software for the same reason. These two sharks are just along for the ride, because they know that having the government mandate the use of DRM technology is a sure recipe for vendor lock-in. Microsoft wants to control the whole pie (from server to client), where Sun is just realistic enough to know that they're not in a position to control the client themselves (that's for their friends at AOL TimeWarner), and so just want to own the server platform.

Folks, even though the lobbying going on here is smoky-back-room shit, bills will eventually have to come before Congress. I urge all of you to keep up with what bills are before the Judiciary and Commerce committees in the Senate and House. I would be astonished if new legislation mandating DRM did not get floated during this Congress. Hold on to your CD-RWs and non-SDMI-compliant MP3 players, folks. And your wallets. We're in for a dirty fight.

-IsaaC

Foolish

[cpt kangarooski]

So if we have "Digital Rights Management" (what's a digital right anyway? Didn't see it in my copy of the Constitution) how's he going to take care of certain problems?

• Securing copyright to the author
  So if an author who has distributed a work via DRM loses the original, and posesses the copyright, what prevents him from unlocking a DRMed copy, as is his Constitutional right?
  
  If he can, why can't the rest of us pretend to be him and spoof the system?
  
  If it's power left with an external authority, what if it doesn't comply with the author's wishes, won't that infringe on the copyright? Or are little guys who can't pay entitled to copyright but not entitled to this govt. mandated system?
  
  
• Limited terms
  Do the DRMs vanish magically when the term expires? How do they know? It can't get set at creation, b/c Congress might retroactively REDUCE the term. Does he propose that 99% of Internet traffic become "copyright queries" between content and a server?
  
  
• Fair use
  How can it tell the difference between me quoting in a fair use manner, and in an infringing manner? Will each piece of content include a Pocket Judge as seen on TV?
  
  
• Fair use and Promoting progress
  If I compile enough materials togethether that I effectively have an unprotected copy of the original, what protects it? The OS? Will it be illegal, under the aegis of "promoting the arts and sciences" to write one's own readers and OSes? Seems to be now, but this will take very general purpose software, like say, vi, which can open text files w/o checking the DRM, and make them illegal unless a giant corporation owns them.
  
  
• Fair use and General changes
  How is the DRM aware of changes that it needs to accomodate due to legal issues? If the courts decide it's unconstitutional, and that any work protected under it shall be stripped of copyright (not entirely unheard of, IIRC) do they all automatically comply? How? What if Congress or the courts add more forms of fair use? Do these things magically accomodate these changes in the law? Or are they stupid, inflexible computer programs? Which is the par for ALL programs... it's the human element that's important.

Senator Hatch listens to money

[eclectro]

I live in Utah, and every time I hear "fair use" come out of Hatch's mouth I hurl the technicolor yawn (excuse me, puke)

He is responsible for the CTEA (written by Hatch), in which we all ironically know about today. More here.

http://www.eagleforum.org/column/1998/nov98/98-1 1- 25.html

He co-authored the DMCA that's gonna throw a lot of slashdotters in jail for wearing the DeCSS t-shirt. More here.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/14179.htm l

He's also responsible for this juicy piece

Do actions speak louder than words?? I think so. The difference between a whore on the street corner and Senator Hatch is at least the whore is honest about what she does.

I would invite other's in Utah to go have a beer with me where we can talk about Senator Hatch, but I'm the only one who drinks beer here and who didn't vote for Hatch.

He mentions why I think Napster is WRONG

[UnknownSoldier]

Quoting from the article:

It's that the rights of the artists aren't being respected that I think is the problem.

That's exactly the issue!

Now, most artists would just be happy that they have more listeners !

BUT ...

*SOME* artist's don't want their work (yes, work. Those songs just didn't appear out of mid-air one day) being copied without their permission. *cough Metalica-in-it-for-the-money cough*

If geeks are not going to respect other's people "property" aka copyrights, why should we expect other people to honor the ones we hold dear, like the GPL.

That's the "crime" of napster. People not respecting other people's work.

To muddle the issue, Napster also provides one nice advantage: It makes it very easy to listen and try out new music.

I know a lot of people have bought new albums, specifically because they were able to hear the whole album first. But copying someone's work, when they the didn't give you permission, still doesn't make it right. (No, it's NOT stealing, it's "unauthorized reproduction." BIG DIFFERENCE.)

Oh well, this is will probably get modded down as flamebait, since I'm just expressing my opinion. ;-)

Strange, that Bill Joy is on the board of napster, but doesn't agree with it's principles...

Re:He mentions why I think Napster is WRONG

[ewhac]

Now, most artists would just be happy that they have more listeners ! BUT... *SOME* artist's [sic] don't want their work ... being copied without their permission.

Given the current nature of computers and the Internet, there is only one reasonable answer to this line of thinking. Here's the short version:

Get over it.

A slightly longer version: The keynote of human progress throughout recorded history has been towards increased abundance at reduced cost. The plow was invented to make producing more food easier. The printing press was invented to make more books, less expensively. The telephone was invented to communicate more information in less time. ...Increased abundance at reduced cost.

In many ways, the computer is the ultimate embodiment of this struggle: Infinite abundance at zero cost. It is now possible for you to say, "I want this song," and a copy of it will appear on your computer.

We achieved this goal after thousands of years of struggle, hardship, war, and painstaking scientific inquiry. So tell me, after all that trouble on the part of your forebears, who hoped that, perhaps one day in the future they could only imagine, we might actually get to this point... Why would you want to throw it away?

Moreover, why would you want to throw it away almost solely at the behest of individuals who are already filthy stinking rich?

In one very important sense, you are correctly concerned about how we will provide incentives for artisans to continue to produce amazing creative works. But attempting to control the proliferation of artifacts is not in any way a reasonable solution. The political and social consequences of such an approach are absolutely disasterous when taken to their inevitable conclusion.

The goal is to reward and encourage artisans to create stuff for all to enjoy. To achieve this, copyrights were instituted to give the artisan exclusive control of commercial trading of their work (with the unstated assumption that the artisan would take their reward from that commercial activity). But that solution is a hack, as it addresses commerce, not creative activity. Yes, it gets money into the artist's pocket (or rather, it used to before Big Media), but it doesn't address the real problem at a fundamental level. And if you're not addressing the actual bug in the system, then you have a hack, not a solution.

Copyrights are a hack. The world has undergone an upgrade, and the hack will no longer work. It's time to go back to the drawing board and engineer a proper solution.

Schwab

Re:He mentions why I think Napster is WRONG

[Chris Johnson]

No they don't. _All_ the recording studio costs are recoupable and come out of the artist's pocket- an advance is a loan not a gift. In addition, a good 50% of the costs of marketing and distribution ALSO come out of the artist's side through a series of customary charges against royalties, which I actually spelled out item by item in another thread, resulting in a '16%' (ya right!) royalty actually being 16% of 90% of 65% of 85% of 80% of 75% of net sales. (I'm not making that up, wish I were). That's about 4.7% _real_ royalty which must completely recoup recording costs and tour costs before the artist sees a f**king penny.

I suggest that you post, "whoops, I was talking out my butt about record companies taking on the burden of studios/advertising/distribution" unless you prefer to argue that artists should never be paid anything in the first place. The whole burden lands on the artists, which is why platinum sellers are found declaring bankruptcy- they slip up and act like they're being paid 16% of net, without realising that they are paying the entire burden of studios and about half of distribution.

Re:He mentions why I think Napster is WRONG

[ewhac]

Wow. I don't know whether to smack you, or make a religion around you?

Decisions, decisions... :-)

Do you actually believe any of that idealistic bullshit?

At the risk of making your eyes bug out: Yes. They are the conclusions I've reached after thinking long and hard about what infinite abundance at zero cost implies.

[Copyrights] are fundemental to human nature. Even babies have concepts of "that mine, that yours" and the copyright is simply a modern manifestation of that.

But in a world where anyone can copy anything, anytime, anywhere, the whole concept of mine-versus-yours loses all meaning.

Consider a more concrete example. Let's say we each have a small red ball. One belongs to me; the other belongs to you. They are in all other ways completely indistinguishable. We put both balls inside a box, close it, shake it up for a while, and open it.

Which ball is yours? Clearly, one is not yours (it's mine), and you'd like to be certain -- out of nothing more than courtesy -- that you don't pick the wrong one. Since they're identical, how can you tell which is yours? More fundamentally, does it really matter?

I contend that it doesn't matter. Once you have infinite, perfect duplication, the idea of mine-versus-yours becomes silly. Pick either ball; it doesn't matter. Each of us will end up with a ball. Make a copy of one and give it to a third person. Then mix all three up in the box again. Which one is the "copy" and which ones are the "originals?" Since everyone's going to get a ball, it doesn't matter. Copying does not diminish what we have.

This is precisely the situation existing in the memories of our computers. Thus, the idea of "ownership" of a digital artifact that can be infinitely copied starts to look specious.

This is not to say the transition to the Real New Economy won't be tumultuous; it definitely will. But unless the issues are conceptualized correctly, society will endure a lot of unnecessary anguish as it charges down blind alleys.

Schwab

Re:He mentions why I think Napster is WRONG

[cpt kangarooski]

There is such a fscking common misconception about this.

Copyrights _are_ good when properly used.

But they are NOT by any means whatsoever fundemental to human nature. They are wholly artificial, and from the dawn of man to the 17th century didn't exist. At all. And it took another hundred years for copyrights to be anything really interesting or useful or good. (they were originally a form of censorship, which to some extent they still are)

Sure, even babies have a concept of ownership. (which I object to - that strikes me as something learned, not inherent from the womb) Shall we all act like babies?

I'll grant that it is up to artists to decide what they want to do with their work. It is not, however, up to artists to decide what WE will do with their work once we have it.

Copyright. COPY-RIGHT. Not, a million times NOT USE-RIGHT. And not, a billion times not an inherent, natural right. We have copyrights to serve a purpose. When they don't, they're not valid. When they don't fit into the narrow mold we allot them from the graciousness of our hears, they're not valid.

Besides which, you're not all that up to date on your economic models. Napster users are rabidly capitalistic. They want stuff for the lowest price possible. Free is very low indeed. If they were communists they would pay musicians according to their needs. Not according to how good they were. Or even if they did anything at all. But the musicians would be expected to play as much as they could, according to their abilities.

Note by the way, that not only do we live in a system which is largely, but not entirely capitalistic, it would not be desirable to do so. While good things can come FROM any economic model, human beings have a certain set of ground rules (e.g. freedom of speech) which are not always compatable with those of the economy (e.g. pay to speak) and it is essential that we favor humanity over relatively trivial dollars and cents.

Am I defending Napster users? Not particularly. But I refuse to walk into the trap that businesses have set for us either; their goals are not coincident with the goals of me in specific or that are desirable for humanity at large.

Copyright is good. Generally. The copyright we've got now, and the rush to exploit it, lengthen it, retroactively apply it, and otherwise destroy its nemesis, the freedom of speech? It's not good. Not even a little.

As an artist + community radio supporter

[Chris Johnson]

As an artist and someone who works with community radio (just _today_ I went out to help the local community station adjust their peak-to-peak output levels), I wish Bill Joy would shut up about things he does not know about!

He does software, and doesn't see free software as a problem. What with his argument you'd expect him to want to stop free software on the grounds that it hurts the ecosystem! But software, the guy's familiar with, so he doesn't step in it on that issue.

He tells Tim O'Reilly that books are a problem, whereupon Tim (who's done great things with making O'Reilly books _competitive_ with free information by making them easy to handle, attractive, lie open to the proper page etc) rightly responds, "No, I don't think that's a problem and _I_ am the publisher".

And he tells the _world_ that free music is a problem, and who is there to say, "No, I am a musician and I don't think that is a problem"? Who, that has a CLUE about how the industry freaking works and where artists can reasonably expect to earn money! Does he _want_ to permanently establish a situation where consumer money is paid directly to record industry suits? Is he that naive and uninformed that he feels they are basically good people and their statements should be taken at face value? BAD mistake. Someone ask him if he trusts the Mafia too- the links are well, well established.

Then to top it off he uses radio as the example of happy fine control and regulation! Reality check- the FCC is _in_ _the_ _pocket_ of the media industry by now. You don't have choice, you don't have a market, you have Big Media locking out everyone else, and the only response to this has been the _thriving_ community radio movement, delivering programming that actually relates to the needs and interests of the community. You may be more familiar with it as 'pirate radio'... God knows what Bill thinks of that. Maybe he wants all the pirate radio people thrown in jail too, or at least to smash up their transmitters and 'clean up the airwaves' for the big corporate boys.

God, does this guy make me angry at times. The government people at least have this merit- they know what criminals act like, because half of them are corrupt or on the take themselves. Bill Joy behaves like he _believes_ what he's saying, and this is arguably worse. Scoundrels can be bribed or bought, but Bill Joy's liable to try and ruin my own personal career prospects just for my own good, liable to turn complete control of media over to the same _scumbags_ who run it today, even though the 'ecosystem' is TRYING TO REJECT THAT POISON. The 'ecosystem' is trying to _reject_ the Big Three record labels, the tightly controlled Top 40 Radio market, it is trying to develop choice and mobility and its own ways to work out what's good.

I think what upsets me most about Bill Joy right now is that he sees nothing wrong with viewing the _companies_ as the ecosystem, and totally ignoring the content creators and the content consumers. Maybe working for a server maker has left him unable to focus on anything but middleware! But his point of view is simply inexcusable. I could see _including_ the companies and taking some interest in looking after them (in addition to- surprise- new companies that might actually- surprise- compete with the old ones!), but to completely leave out the creators and the consumers is totally intolerable...

At least Orrin Hatch is fumbling towards a clue...

Making special laws for the net is stupid

[Mdog]

Trying to make special laws for the internet is a mistake. Laws should reflect principles that have nothing to do with the medium in which they are expressed. If it's illegal to be in possesion of copyrighted material without permission, then it's illegal; why do you need a special law that addresses the "internet version"? All these laws do is serve to defame "hackers" and other elements of the internet that the people in Washington hopelessly misunderstand.

A nerd view?

[Ross C. Brackett]

That's too much of a nerd view of the world. What I said in Time is, "Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's OK."

This is coming from Bill Joy. This guy. The one man on the planet that could make Screech from Saved by the Bell look like f'ing Freddie Prinze Jr.