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Darknet: Hollywood's War
War ain't pretty, and this book delivers the goods as a primer on how digital technologies and "personal media" (podcasts, videoblogs, digital stories, Internet television, video games) are "throwing the old rules into disarray" and "shifting the balance of power begween big media and regular people." I would have liked to have seen more about Linux and open-source software, but the author is clearly aiming for a mainstream audience.
Darknet sounds at times like it could have been written by a team of Slashdotters, ripping to shreds the entertainment cartel's claims that the locks they're putting into our digital devices are for our own good, their claims that this is a fight about theft and piracy, and other distortions that the author exposes to devastating effect. (Larry Lessig, Ian Clarke, the president of Sony's Columbia TriStar studios, DVD inventor Warren Lieberfarb and a number of digital lawbreakers are just a few of the interesting characters parading through the book.)
While big thinkers like Lessig, Doc Searls and Howard Rheingold (who wrote the foreword) have constructed the intellectual scaffolding that alerted us to Hollywood's goals of fencing in the Internet and keeping the public domain from expanding, it is left to reporters like Lasica to uncover the depressing specifics of the copyright cartel's actions.
Fascinating stories abound, like the cross-industry meetings between Hollywood lawyers, gutless wonders from the consumer electronics industry, and reps from the tech sector discussing how to divide the world into region codes like the powers at Potsdam. (one studio went so far as to propose that GPS chips be placed in all computers with a DVD player so that Hollywood could enforce region coding from the sky. It's reported here for the first time.)
Or the story of what Hollywood was after in its litigation against Sonicblue's ReplayTV. According to former CTO Andy Wolfe, the studioswere intent on decreeing how long viewers could keep a program after it was recorded on a digital video recorder. They wanted to limit how many episodes of the same show viewers could record. They wanted to ban 30-sec skip buttons and to prevent fast forward from reaching a certain speed. They wanted to cap how much programming anyone could record -- a level that Wolfe's personal laptop already exceeds.
The tech industry comes in for some bruising too, as the author demonstrates how Microsoft, HP, and a raft of other tech companies are more than willing to sell out their customers (as long as all the other big boys in the club do it too) in return for allaying the fears of paranoid Hollywood studio chieftains whose nightmares consist of piracy, piracy, piracy. Lasica says it's too early to tell whether the "trusted computing" initiative is merely a Trojan horse foisted on PC manufacturers and chip makers by the silver tongue of Jack Valenti.
Anyone with an interest in how our digital freedoms are being whittled away, how the music, movie and television landscapes are about to change forever, or how a new, empowered generation of users (mostly young people) see media differently than the older crowd, would benefit from marking up their copy of Darknet (bring two yellow markers). As the author Media will change more in the next five years than it has in the past 50 years."
Lasica has been writing about citizens' media for years, and he recently founded the grassroots media site Ourmedia.org with the help of the Internet Archive. (Remember when Slashdot brought down the site on its first day?) Last weekend I heard him interviewed on NPR's On the Media, talking about why the RIAA and MPAA don't have a clue in hell about remix culture.
But don't believe me. Decide for yourselves. Check out Darknet.com, where the author has been blogging for a couple of years. (His blog readers provided the book's subtitle and they helped edit the book.) Lots of goodies on the site: a free mini-book, including new material and chapters from the book. (Especially noteworthy are The teenage filmmakers for a look at copyright law's absurdities and The Prince of Darknet for a fascinating glimpse inside the movie underground.) Also, you'll find a backgrounder on what the hell darknetshave to do with all this (I don't know, Darknet seems like a book publisher's idea of a sexy title) ... and something I've never seen from a mainstream journalist before: tons of links to sites like doom9.net, SmartRipper, Region-Free Guide, Total Recorder, Daemon Tools, isoheaven and more.
Some of this turf is no doubt familiar to Slashdotters. And, as I said, the book could have benefited from a deeper look at the history of open source software. But it's good to see these ideas getting some serious play -- finally -- in the mainstream media, and Hollywood getting some much-needed pushback.
You can purchase Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Dear T/\/\/\/\,
It seems you have some skewed views about your posting methods.
I hope I can clarify a few things for you:
1) You appear to equate an early post filled with regurgitated article with something that deserves a +5 Insightful Mod - This is a poor assumption.
2) Your early post successes are due to your *Subscriber status. This does not make them stunning revelations.
3)
Overuse of whitespace is goddamned annoying
4)It seems your over-inflated sense of self worth has resulted in a backlash. Nobody likes a know-it-all toolbox.
5) Familiarize yourself with YHBT. Rebutting a Troll in your own whiny defence adds one more nail to the door that keeps you locked in your parents basement.
6) You are a Karma Whore. Those unfamiliar with your posting tactics are the ones modding you up. This unknowingly makes them Karma Johns. Thats kinda like entrapment. That's not nice. Some of those folks have spouses and families and are just trying to let off some harmless Karma steam.
I find my thoughts drifting to the image of you sitting red-faced with rage reading this. I'm imagining you shakily typing a calm and composed reply through a haze of hate filled tears.
Let me know how that whole belltower/rifle thing works out for you.
1992 called...they want their holier-than-thou troll back.
Trolling the trolls who troll the trolls since '92
Fascinating stories abound, like the cross-industry meetings between Hollywood lawyers, gutless wonders from the consumer electronics industry, and reps from the tech sector discussing how to divide the world into region codes like the powers at Potsdam. (one studio went so far as to propose that GPS chips be placed in all computers with a DVD player so that Hollywood could enforce region coding from the sky. It's reported here for the first time.)
Fascinating for sure but more like science fiction or out and out bullshit. GPS units don't work so well inside buildings. Hell, they don't work so well in tree covered areas (depending on the unit and antenna).
So, where is the torrent for the book download?
Seriously though - why isn't this book released under creative commons?
I'm teminally incoherent
Except that: 1. It's Hollywood's war against us, the consumers, so it matters to me; 2. Can you really justify to the purple-fingered Iraqis that we never should have removed Saddam?
At any rate, while the reviewer may or may not be accurately representing the book, his description of the original paper as "shoveled dirt onto the coffin of DRM as a business model" is nonsensical.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Perhaps saying that "Darknet sounds at times like it could have been written by a team of Slashdotters" could be considered a mean thing to say, but it reminds me of that senator who compared the US's treatment of prisoners to Nazi concentration camps, who was attacked for his comparison to Nazis and the actual point of his speech was forgotten.
The book sounds like a facinating read but its nothing new to me. MPAA and RIAA trying to curtail technology at their behest to restrict our rights as consumers (do we have any rights left?) and technology companies bowling over. One thing I can feel more confidant of is that technology companies are starting to be a little more thoughtful of the ride that the MPAA and RIAA are taking them on and they don't like the destination. I think the Grokster case has started to make them think.
It is a pity that none of these parties has the public's interests in mind but rather how to best exploit them.
It's really pretty simple from Hollywood's point of view: control the distribution mechanism, something they are used to, and control access, something else they are used to. Just because it is the internet does not mean that they will not try to apply the business model that has worked well for them for nearly a century. In fact, given their history, it would be surprising if they did not.
Keep in mind that Hollywood has largely tried to stifle technlogical innovation outside of their control: they complained about television, because it would keep people from the theatres. Then, they mastered that medium and made even more money because of it. Then, later, they complained about VCRs, because it would allow people to record films and not pay them for the privilege. Then, as with television, they mastered that medium and made even more money because of it. They resisted DVDs initially because it would be easy to make "perfect" copies from a DVD, and they put on an exceptionally weak encryption scheme to thwart that from happening. Of course, the 'DRM' was thwarted, people now copy DVDs, and guess what: Hollywood makes more money because of DVDs.
Now comes the internet. As usual, Hollywood is resisting this new technology and are saying what they usually say: it will cost them money. However, if history serves as a guide, they will eventually master this medium too and make money because of it.
There is piracy, there is little doubt about that. While it does prevent some sales of DVDs or movie tickets, in some cases it has gone the other way and has drawn interest into a film or a TV show. There is much speculation that the producers of Battlestar Galactica conducted a quiet stealtht marketing ploy by allowing their show to be distributed via BitTorrent and other P2P vectors -- and it worked. BG gained an audience, and surely some of it came from those who had downloaded earlier episodes. Now, the same is being said of the new Doctor Who. Surely, few Americans would see it if it were not for the illegal distributions. There is a lot of interest in this new show and it is surely because of P2P, because the show is not available in any form (legally) in the USA.
At the end of the day, all of Hollywood's fighting will turn to gradual acceptance. Whether or not it is on their terms is their and the market's choice. The internet is here to stay, and so is piracy. Instead of focussing on preventing piracy, perhaps Hollywood should add enough to the value propostition that piracy is an afterthought. Many would gladly pay to get electronic distributions of shows via the internet, and it is up to Hollywood to get out of their office chairs and to figure out how to profit from it. History says that they will, but it does not foretell WHEN they will.
The innocent (non-combatant) Iraqis killed by American troops might have preferred to be, you know, alive. Of course, most of them were killed before the purple ink came out, so I guess you wouldn't have us justify anything to them.
Can you really justify to the purple-fingered Iraqis that we never should have removed Saddam?
Can you justify to me why we're *not* currently enmasse in Sudan stopping what is clearly a genocide in progress?
Afghanistan had at least legitmate reasons for being attacked, but Iraq? no there are no legitmate reasons for the war we are currently in there. Are those purple fingered Iraqi's better off? time will tell but most likely yes. That does not JUSTIFY the invasion of a sovereign(sp?) nation that wasn't attacking anyone else at the time.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Which would put us right back where we started, which, all things considered, has worked pretty well. Then perhaps some semblance of sense could be brought back to the length and breadth of copyright terms, and wonder of wonders you'd have a situation where everybody benefits and nobody really loses.
Naah, never happen.
I can buy plenty of "books" by one William Shakesphere, and nothing he wrote was ever protected by copyright in the US. My King James Bible is public domain too. Sure anyone can copy those books, but the effort of doing so makes it not worth while.
As for television, why do they care that I can copy it? They get their money from advertisements. It wouldn't be hard to show a film from 1919 on TV. (Well if they can find a copy - back in the days they burned the old films after the theater was done with them!) Perhaps less people would watch, but so long as they can sell enough commercials to pay for the transmittor who cares?
Public domain would benefit many groups that are ignoring it. They just lack the vision to see how to use it.
very Machiavellian of you...
The problem is that you can't look at Iraq in a nutshell, it affects just about every other issue we face.
As you said we have other problems to deal with and didn't need this one right now. But because of this overextension of ourselves, we aren't able to contain North Korea, we aren't able to contain Iran, we aren't able to do much of what we'd like globally because now everybody is against us.
Long term this is a bad thing, not removing Saddam, but doing it WITHOUT the world's support, WITHOUT provocation, and WITHOUT thinking enough about the consequences/aftermath, and will only hurt us more.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
As a supporter of fair use, I always try to download a free copy of a song or movie instead of paying for it.
What an f'ed up definition of "fair use". Fair use is media backup or transfer once you have paid for the original media presentation of a work.
The war on corporate greed (RIAA etc) will not end until artists come to realize that it is wrong to gouge money out of people just for appreciating a creative work.
Artists have always either been commissioned for works, or charged for uncommisioned works displayed for sale in galleries. This has been true since long before either copyright or fair use existed conceptually.
True art comes from creative desire, not the profit motive. Michelangelo did not make his masterpieces with the intent of charging admissions, and neither did Mozart.
Pure. Unadulterated. Crap. Both Michaelangelo and Mozart were both commissioned to create most of their works; even the most famous examples were for profit. Mozart particularly earned box office revenue for symphony presentations.
And, again, that is typical of artists throughout history, prior to "intelectual property" law. The first plays and musicals were done by roving acting troupes who would "pass the hat" afterwords.
Please keep your mucked up version of history private from now on.
Possible definitions of an illegal war:
a q) and which may even be in violation of the UN charter
a) a war based on untrue premises (long standing claims of the existence of WMD's, which turned out to be untrue)
b) a war not based on the defense of our nation from an imminent threat
c) a war that is not approved by the UN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Ir
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I'd really like to see a book on the similarity between big corporations, especially in the U.S., and Soviet ministries. There was a technology pundit on Charlie Rose this week who applied just this label to:
- Cable and satellite providers
- Cell phone companies in the U.S.
- The baby bells
It could easily be extended to movie studios, media giants, Clearchannel, GM and Ford, Boeing and Lockheed, etc.
The excellent documentary on Burt Rutan and SpaceshipOne, "Black Sky: The Race for Space", is playing on Discovery Science this week, a mnust see if you haven't. Towards the end of the second part the aero engineer made the point increasingly everyone is made to feel they can't do anything amazing unless they are part of a big corporation or government. They wanted to show 20 guys, with a little of Paul Allen's money, could do something only 3 giant governments have done previously, put a man in to space(and they broke the altitude record for an air launched vehicle dating to the X-15 in 1963). There are numerous barbs at NASA, Boeing and Lockheed and the role they've played in completely wrecking the U.S. as a space faring nation since the end of Apollo.
Anyway the gist of the proposed book would be that all of America's giant corporations keep touting free enterprise and free markets while they in fact want no such thing. They want free markets but only for them and they WANT any potential competitors snuffed out. They dont want any government regulation of them but they are delighted with regulation, or holes in the same, that allows them to destroy their competitors and to protect their dominant position. They increasingly have more politicians and lobbiests than inventors and engineers. They want to snuff out competition with patent law, regulation, government subsidies(loans, tax breaks, contracts), and predatory monopolistic practices, all the while ranting that there is to much government regulation and they are fans of free markets, though increasingly they write all those regulations. Increasingly there one and only innovative business plan is to move their work force to the cheapest possible labor market to cut costs, so they can continue to be rpofitable for a time though the increasingly don't invest in developing new and innovative products.
The conclusion of the story. In many mature industries the U.S. has ceased to be a free market economy. Free enterprise wasn't a victim of government regulation or Socialism. It was the victim of a few giant companies that came to dominate each market, and now use armies of lawyers and lobbies to destroy competition. American corporations in particular are starting to atrophy and can't compete on a global stage against companies who are really innovating and doing real R&D. John McCain recently pointed out how sad it is that innovative technology like hybrid vehicles is all happening in Japan and not Detroit(who are instead just licensing Japanese technology). Detroit in particular has a long history of innovating only when they are compelled to. American companies no longer compete through innovation, they only vie to protect their position with lawyers and lobbyists.
You can still have stellar new companies like Google but its typicaly only in very new markets with no entrenched players. The only counterpoint I can think of at the moment is in the airlines. The totally corrupt big three have been virtually destroyed by new competitors like Southwest who observed U.S. airlines were brutually inefficient and not providing the service people wanted, and created a new lean economic model and managed to succeed in spite of the entrenched position of the big three, and frequent government subsidies which keep them afloat.
@de_machina
Why should we pay any attention to theives when there are still murderers walking around free!!
Presumably both issues deserve some attention.