Slashdot Mirror
The Internet Power Grab
Maple Syrup writes: "Fast Company has an interesting article written by John Ellis about the power shift on the Internet, as large corporate interests use political means to take over what had been a populist medium. The most interesting material comes at the end: 'There are no grass-roots efforts on the Web. The Internet army, which is enormous, hasn't been engaged or conscripted.'"
Who would provide hosting services to the majority of the people out there? Who would provide them with software that they can actually use? Sorry boys, but most free software is a POS for the average user. Mozilla and OpenOffice are the exceptions, not the rule. Who would provide the bandwidth? The hardware you use? Who would let you buy stuff online that you couldn't get locally?
The real question is, how far should corporations be protected? The answer is no more than they are offline. A DDoS should be treated with no more severity than throwing a brick through a window during peak hours. The existing copyright statutes were plenty for prosecuting infringers. It isn't illegal to teach someone how to make an explosive, it is to tell them how to use it if your goal is nefarious. Thus there is no logical, let alone ethical, reason to outlaw academic research on copy restriction systems. That research actually benefits copyright holders because it makes them more informed customers.
I will say right now and get it over with WE ARE NOT AT WAR WITH ALL OF CORPORATE AMERICA!!!! The enemy is each and every copyright cartel in the country and those that wield their patents against us. You want to worry about an economic issue (Americans) worry about Bush's hypocrisy. Subsidize American corporations to the tune of $100B a year then protect them from foreign subsidized corporations. We do it, they do it. Corporate protection is about securing votes, not good capitalism. Remember kids, your friends at the LP oppose the DMCA and while the EFF is nice and all, it isn't trying to get people elected to remove that kind of bullshit from the USC. If this kind of issue really bothers you all, vote for the LP. It isn't pissing in the wind if they don't get elected in the next few cycles. The longer they keep getting on the ballot, the more people will see their name. If you vote for a lesser evil, you are still voting for evil. Remember that in the next election cycle (which is IIRC 2 months from now for many of us).
It's a classic pattern of economics that the big businesses will move in and take over the Internet over the next few years. Economic boom-bust cycles for new technologies follow the pattern of: Innovation, Growth Boom, Shakeout, Maturity Boom.
The Innovation phase happened when the Internet first gained the attention of commercial interests (I'm not saying that this is technological innovation). The Growth Boom happened during the late 1990's. Lots of small companies try lots of different things. The Internet growth boom was particularly excessive and lots investments were made in nonsense ideas, and the feeding frenzy started feeding on itself.
These poor investments and hair-brained schemes lead to the Shakeout phase (which we are presently in), and the crap is washed away. But, not all is crap, and the good ideas and technologies survive the shakeout.
After the Shakeout comes the Maturity Boom, where the good ideas that survives from the Growth Boom come to fruition and are adopted by the survivors, which tend to be large businesses. This is a consolidation phase, and you can expect the large-caps to be throwing their weight around, and we will enter this phase sometime soon. Since large businesses aren't particularly innovative, they resort to heavy-handed tactics to consolidate power.
These economic patterns repeat at micro and macro levels.
The "movement" is a few actual activists (read, "people who get up off their ass and actually do something") surrounded by a large horde of greedy children who find it's a great chance to shoot of their mouth and get "free as in beer" everything. It's a movement that supports P2P (since it allows them to use others creations as they choose) while damning anyone who would take "their" software, modify it, and distribute the binaries without releasing the code.
Sure, the internet is moving from free to fee. That's because, despite popular belief, these services actually cost money. Bandwidth isn't free. Hardware isn't free. And the internet is rapidly proving that advertising isn't really all it was claimed to be. (since now the companies can better track ad results themselves).
Is slashdot free? For some, but those people get a big ass ad in the middle of the story and a banner ad the size of Mount Rushmore. Is Fast Company free? Sure. If you want the big banner ad there too. That's how they manage to afford to keep having a website up and running.
Do you really think John Ellis, when he wrote the article, did it gratis? Be real. He got paid and someone has to pay him. That someone passes the bill onto everyone else or gets money from advertising, public funding, or grants.
Here's the hint of the day. The people capable of getting things for free are the people also capable of paying for it, since they're the people whose ass isn't glued to a computer screen waiting for the latest p2p copyright violations to get to their system. They don't care that it's no longer free. What they care about it is that's reasonably priced. They can start their own pay service (read: "porn site") and quickly be able to afford all the nice pay things on the internet with a minimum of fuss. It's not hard work or rocket science. It's basic economics. Even Bucky Fuller realized that some things need to be paid for, just as some things are better to give away. You just have to know which and get off your butt and do it.
Them that do, have.
No Zen is good zen
That's exactly the drawback to entities like the EFF, though; the ways in which one can get involved are usually limited to writing out a check, which is certainly useful but hardly motivational. And in no way will it rally the troops in the way Mr. Ellis seems to desire here.
(Mandatory disclaimer: I have tremendous respect for, and am greatly indebted to, the EFF. They perform a great service for this entire community on a daily basis and I'm not questioning their goals or motives. Just worndering aloud whether or not they fit the definition of a "grass-roots" movement into which the "internet army" could be actively conscripted.)
So while it's great to have rallying cries like this FastCompany article, perhaps what we really need are a few ramparts on which we can all stand, wave flags, and yell somewhat threatening slogans in French. Help me out here, folks. That is to say, in addition to all this writing -- either a checks to foundations or letters to government reps, what we really need are some good old-fashioned symbolic activities that, while not incredibly effective on their own, serve to get a large segement of a population involved in and excited about a movement on a personal level.
A perfect example, in my mind, would be the wartime "victory gardens" found in U.S. backyards during the first half of the 20th century.
So... any suggestions?
P.S. - Pardon any typos. Sliced my right hand on a piece of case metal while slotting a card this morning, so I'm down to pecking at keys with the left. Please mod this at (-1, Klutz) accordingly.
There are plenty of organizations, the problem is clout. Of the three you mentioned, only the ACLU has any real clout in DC and thus far have been unwilling to take up our cause. What really needs to happen is a a true lobby group needs to be formed. One that is staffed by people who know how the system works and isn't afraid to walk into a politicians office with a $100,000 dollar campaign donation and list of demands. Yes its unethical, yes it sickens me to think about it, but it is the way things get done in DC, like it or not.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
Mention Disney to most people and the first thing that will pop in their heads is lovable cartoons. They associate the word "Disney" with wholesome family entertainment. Most people will consider being associated with Disney as being a good thing.
When you call Fritz the "Senator from Disney" some geeks might get the message, but a hell of more people will get this message "The Senator is for family entertainment" and is something that will help him far more than hurt him.
Put the right spin on it. Point out that Fritz is spending a hell of a lot of time representing the intrests of an out of state company that made big donations to him instead of representing the intrests of the people who elected him.
There are only 6 Senators who can claim they are representing the intrests of the people in their state when they back Media Companies, the ones from California, New York, and Tennessee. If you don't live in one of these 3 states you have a damn good reason to make representating out of state intrests into a campaign issuse.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
In an area that I follow, access to financial data, Edgar Online bought up most of the other services that reprocessed and indexed SEC filings, such as FreeEdgar. Then they introduced pay services and mandatory registration, moving away from a service funded by DoubleClick ad revenue. They're still losing money, and their stock is down from a high of around $20 to $1.71 today. The free services that compete with them, including mine, are doing fine.
The article mentions a service that charges for online access to baseball game audio feeds. If that thing makes money, I'd be surprised. If it has more than a few thousand paying customers, I'd be surprised. Major League Baseball as an organization has been in financial trouble recently. This sounds like a "maybe we can make some extra cash on the Internet" thing.
Charging for marginal content on the Internet seems to just be a phase companies go through right before they go bankrupt.