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Death Of The Global Information Infrastructure
Peter R. Kornblum writes "Under the title "Knowledge is Money", the German computer magazine "c't" has published an extensive discourse on how software patents, Digital Rights Management and the extended duration of the US Copyright law affects society at large.
The article argues that multinational corporations are shrinking the public domain at the expense of innovation. The Entertainment Industry is agressively trying to force other countries to implement copyright legislation similar to the DMCA and adjust their patent laws to current US conditions. And they are succeeding: The European Union has passed a resolution for all its member states to implement DMCA-like copyright laws by the end of this year. Regular Slashdot readers may not find too much new info in the article, but it does a good job of putting things into perspective -- and it paints a rather frightening picture of the current situation. Its conclusion: The public domain is shrinking at an alarming rate; fair use rights are agressively undermined by corporate industry. "Not much has survived of the Global Information Infrastructure, that euphoric liberation rhetoric about the Internet being there for everyone." And it's all part of a grander scheme. A translated, English language version of the article is available online at http://www.heise.de/ct/english/02/24/108/. The original German text can be found at http://www.heise.de/ct/02/24/108/."
The Public Domain is not shrinking. It just isn't expanding very quickly. Big difference. If we're going to have an impact, we need to avoid these kinds of untrue exaggerations. Our credibility is already heavily impacted by the whole Napster debacle and the filesharing crowd (and I'm not talking about copying a song here and there, I mean the people who own nothing but unauthorized dupes and tons of warez).
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in a way all this copy protection and 'user management' makes it much easier for us to deal with 'information overload'
by applying the simple rule of 'i will only give my attention and personal engagement to writing, music, art etc that is put out into the world freely and without trying to hook something back from me' one can vastly cut down on the amount of 'content' out there clamouring for your attention
one might even find that works created for reasons other than economic reward are often vastly superior and more stimulating than the vast sea of mediocre 'cookie-cutter-content' that constanly seeks to engulf us and dampen our own creative individuality
so simply apply the rule of 'not freely given, then not worthy of my attention' and like god in the hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy the mpaa and riaa will simply cease to exist as no-one any longer believes in them
The death of the information infrastructure is a side effect. The real damage is the shrinking of the public domain. The shoulders on which we are standing are shrinking, and some of us are going to fall off. When people are reduced to consumers in a mix of legal strings and tool lock-out, only big business can continue providing information resources. What do you need internet for then? A much more efficient distribution network feeds central streams to encrypted harddisks in consumers' "PCs" to achieve near on-demand. Upstreams don't need to support any more than simple control streams and statistical data. Attach discussions about cable company broadband monopoly here, please. Arguments about that will be moot after DRM has entered every PC.
The new forms that information will take may be quite unrecognizable to us "old folk."
The public domain isn't shrinking, in theory... in practice what is there is more obsolete by the day, and new works are being locked down tighter than a drum. In a few years, you might need a license to write a web page. (After all, you might be a terrorist writing secret messages, or anti-american propaganda).
The future is bleak, but I suspect the revolution will fix most of this.
--Mike--
Cheney first
It would appear that the balance of laws are shifting. The original intent of a body of laws was to provide protection for members of society. Are companies really a member of society? In modern laws they would appear to be, and are offered most of the same legal protections as people.
;) was not necessary. More importantly, that it
would begin to stiffle individuals or small companies and shift the balance of power towards the larger corporations. Even more interesting is that the commission decided to ignore their view, and then to decide that they were wrong, actual
ly most of them did agree but had been biased.
Most laws are designed to create a protocol for the exchange of comodities, until people invented trading there was no need for people to follow the same system. Now it provided security and allowed commerce. Hence, early laws that are considered to be a basic part of most western legal systems. Protection against murder, theft and other activities that would stop society functioning. So laws offered extended protection, not just to people, but also to their property, or chattel.
At one time companies would be considered to be chattel, owned by an individual and subject to the protection that he had within the law. In the modern era though, companies have become much bigger entities; owned by many different people. And so somewhere along the line they have become individuals under the law and offered certain protection. Now, the property of companies are ideas. So laws are evolving again to protect the chattel of individuals.
Its interesting to see that most of the people who were consulted thought that more protection for intellectual property (theres a whole bit kettle of fish, whether that actually exists or not
So, are we entering a world where corporations begin to have democratic rights? Apparently the EU is a democratic system, however it would appear that corporate opinions have more 'weight' than individuals. This kind of transition smells of a return to a more fuedal, or perhaps monarchic system with patronage of power and influence. Only those who can secure the backing of larger players can enter the playing field. What does this do to individual rights? Are we no longer allowed to compete on a level playing field?
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Just not as fast as the 'pay to play' space. There is still a huge growth in the 'free information' space, or a least the 'free information with garbage adverts attached' space.
But the laws covering IP are still a problem when they affect what people can create themselves and give freely. Patents are worse than copyright in this regard, because if I've never heard of Word or Office or whatever, I can recreate it (or similar functionality) myself and give it away for free. With patents, I can't even give away code that I wrote having never heard of their approach to the problem.
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Most of the pap that passes for content and/or innovation these days I wouldn't want to use. It's just a shame that these new laws can be used to club real innovators and artists over the head with baseless law suits.
Hopefully they're using the time to seriously consider the concerns raised and will actually come up with a vaguely reasonable implementation. Well, we can hope.
It's amazing how the same problems pop up again and again in history. This is the latest incarnation of an old story, one that destroyed civilizations it destroyed the Romans (enserfment of the citizens in the western provinces), the Byzantines (same thing, 1000 yrs later) the Spanish Empire,the French Monarchy, the Soviet Union, well you get the idea. Every time an elite aristocracy took hold and subsumed the rights of the "common people" for thier own benefit, thereby weakening the society at large until a collapse occured.
I wonder who will succed the West, hmmm!
My basic reason is for the sake of balance. Should -everything- be public domain? No, I doubt that is even possible, let along right. But a sizable and thriving public domain serves to balance both personal and corporate greed. If there is no free alternative, then one has to cough up whatever the current owner demands or do without entirely. When free alternatives are present, the current owner will discover that, if he charges a fee that is too outrageous, people will choose the free alternative, even if it is of somewhat lesser quality. The issue, the core problem we face now, is that the owners are seeking to stop the growth of the public domain, thereby allowing themselves to charge any outrageous price they can think of. Connected to this is the issue of those who simply cannot afford the commercial prices due to other bills, lack of education, economic downturns in their region, etc. For them, it becomes a matter of free or nothing, and if the public domain ceases to grow nothing is all that is left.
[Before someone chimes in with the obligatory 'We are talking about entertainment, not food or medicine' consider two points. 1. Do you honestly expect that, should monied interests succeed in locking up all optional, luxary items, they will stop there and not proceed on to food and other necessities? 2. As the saying goes, man does not live by bread alone. Living a life that consists of work, eat, and sleep with no entertainment or leisure activities is a quick way to a padded room.]
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