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

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

[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.