What's next for ICANN
on
ICANN Update
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The big question here should read "what's next?"
In my opinion the future of ICANN is very vague. ICANN come from a shady place, but the retirement of Stuart Lynn does not automatically improve ICANN. Maybe someone will pick up the thoughts presented by the At Large Study Committe, chaired by Carl Bildt? The work presented in a final report was more or less dismissed by ICANN under its current regime, but it does contain some good food for thought (even though I personally do not agree with the committees conclusions). Also the NAIS report should not be forgotten.
I guess the main question for ICANN is what it should be designated for. In my opinion ICANN should be a tiny coordinating body and nothing else - not a government for the Internet. If ICANN wants greater power it must prove itself worthy of such extension of its mandate, primarely through improvements regarding:
geographical diversity (no single nation should be able to gain more
than 33 percent of the votes on the board)
organizational diversity (no stakeholder should be able to, in any
way, gain a majority of the votes on the board)
accontability (some sanctions should be triggered against any board
which do not work in the coherence of their assignment, the sanctions
could be political as well as judicial)
transparancy (minutes and decisions of the board of directors should
be available to the public)
organizational freedom (when appointed to the board of directors, no
one board member should be an officer of the organization which
appointed him or her - an optional solution is that any organizational
connections are brought out in the open).
Liability for publishers is a very hard issue to deal with. The publisher of the leading Swedish daily Aftonbladet was held accountable for hate speech published in one of its forums. I wrote a short comment on the case published by The Register on the caveats in running an online forum: 'If the media companies and their publishers are held accountable for everything published in their web forums we will soon face an Internet where the possibility of a widened debate has been seriously damaged by law. Let us grasp the uniqueness of the Internet before it is gone. The Internet is not a paper.'
See also the Register. In my opinion, Microsoft Passport needs to be open source or something similar.
Here is something I wrote some time ago for Newsforge: 'Microsoft Passport is brilliant in its design. It will solve the problem that is allegedly killing dot com companies all over the world. Without making life online hell for the user you will easily manage
micropayments and logins for content providers and e-tailers all over the world. You might like that and you might not, but a lot of companies have been waiting for this solution and I believe it could be
successful, if companies and customers trust in Microsoft Passport. But why should we trust Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer? What have they done to gain our trust? They have done nothing of the kind, and
that is why Microsoft Passport needs to be open. We need to know what the code is doing, how the data is storaged and we need competition and interoperability on the Microsoft identification market.'
A quiz is great for educational purposes, but I think this test only will be mastered (and even taken) by the pro's. Someone (don't look at me!) should construct a test with easier and more general questions on free software and related licensing issues. I guess such an easier test could encourage more people to use and develop free software. The test linked above will most probably discourage newbies from free software rather than encourage them. Great quiz for pro's, though.
Newsforge published a short piece where I tried to elaborate on the subject of open code in public procurement.
In my opinion, governments should not push proprietary solutions or open code solutions. That much said, governments and public bodies still could improve the competition and make open code much more of an option in public procurement.
The government should always choose the best computer program and IT solution at any given period of time. However, by the design of public procurement policies open code is often ruled out even before the governmental shop opens. This should be changed to make sure open code solutions may compete in public procurement on the same terms as proprietary solutions.
I don't know if hell has frozen over yet, but I am actually going to defend the CEO of ICANN now.
If ICANN is supposed to have a broader scope of business I think it is approriate to involve the users more. While the ICANN elections are a true joke (just look at the results in Africa) a representation of users and non-users through theirs governments respectively is a good idea in my opinion. This will be like a UN for the Internet, a great tool for handling a new, global medium.
From a democratic point of view, the Lynn proposal is a much better proposal than the one suggested by the At Large Study Committee where domain name holders should be the ones electing ICANN board members. The latter proposal would not solve the current severe problems with ICANN when it comes to accountability, representativity and transparancy. Lynns proposal seems to deal with a few of the mentioned problems.
If ICANN is not supposed to broaden its scope of action, the proposal made by Stuart Lynn might be a way of slightly overdoing the administration of new top level domain names. If that is the case, I agree with Randy Bush, but I fail to see that ICANN in the long run is supposed to just handle top level domain names.
This old Slashdot article on the debate between myself and At Large Study Committee chairman Carl Bildt may be of interest in the light of the recent events.
From a business perspective the copyright proprietors need to protect their revenue sources. Thus, scaring companies to pay for their product through BSA is one method of achieving this.
Under current copyright and contract law, BSA is free to represent its members and do what's described in this article.
However, I find its methods too severe and too aggressive. BSA should consider helping the companies to comply with licenses rather than scaring them and send in the police. If BSA developed a good license administration tool and released it under the GNU GPL or any open source license with the source code, I think many companies would improve in their license compliance.
Some companies will steal anything they can, but most companies are serious and should not be treated as criminals. Doing a good license audit today is very costly and hard to administer for a small or medium sized company. BSA should treat the potential costumers of its members with respect and appreciate this problem. Developing an administrative solution and perhaps a license crawling spider - with very open code - is a much better way of helping the companies than by using cease-and-desist-letters.
"The Free Software Movement should be ready and poised to enter that debate when it begins."
Wake up and smell the coffee - this is it!
I am very surprised to learn of your defensive attitude. You started the debate by releasing free software and the GNU GPL and now you dislike the current debate and wait for the "real" debate to begin? Meanwhile, new copyright legislation is adopted in the EU through the Infosoc directive and the anti-circumvention ideas of the DMCA enter Europe.
I am sorry, but this doesn't make much sense to me. Richard M Stallman has accomplished a lot by releasing the free software school of philosophy and the GNU GPL. It is the number one major, global, full-scale experiment concerning copyright and Stallman is basically a genius.
Therefore, it is very sad that the Free Software Foundation choose not to consider and discuss the alternatives to the current legislation. I think you could add a lot of experience and thoughts to such a discourse. I am not convinced that the GNU GPL is perfect in its current draft, but it's a good start for a discussion on todays legislation. So is the BSD license, the open source definition and also any proprietary license. They all develop and push the discussion of copyright further, whether you like it or not. So does the development of software patents and the opposition against them.
The politicians are listening, but in order for them to even consider a change in major international treaties and conventions like TRIPS, the Berne Convention and WIPO's Copyright Treaty, one needs to give them arguments for a change. Copyright of today is a global issue. Still - laws can be changed. I consider the US Constitution and the work of the framers an act of geniuses. Do you know why? They were simple farmers and they knew they weren't perfect. Hence, even the US Constitution can be changed. That's the beauty of it.
I'm sorry to learn that the article didn't make any sense to you. I can appreciate that my use of code as code in software and code as law is very unfortunate.
I will try to clarify my point in some short parapgraphs.
The issue that I am trying to address and discuss is: if we should and were able to change current copyright law and the way we look at software protection into something else - what would it be?
I can't see a perfect alternative among the present ideas of copyright protection. However, I think some people tend to rule out for example - replacing the copyright statues with GNU GPL - just because they don't like the GNU GPL. My point is that we could instead think of a world where there was something else instead of copyright for computer programs.
Thinking like an economist, I am sure that we need proper incentives for programmers. Therefore I am not convinced that the Free Software Foundation license could replace copyright law all the way. However, thinking like a citizen, I think we need more transparency in the software, thus following Lessig's ideas expressed in Code and other laws of Cyberspace. Somewhere between the GNU GPL and the current copyright protection I think we can find a new balanced solution to protection of computer programs with good incentives for programmers but a greater deal of transparency than what we have today.
Therefore I introduced the Swedish word "lagom" into the debate. I know that my article lacks a definition of "lagom" copyright, but please just consider this the start. I think we have very different views of what "lagom" copyright for computer programs is.
TRIPS, the Berne Convention and the WIPO Copyright Treaty plus the amount of works currently protected by life + seventy copyright statues make me very pessimistic about the possibility to change copyright law. However, we need to start finding good alternatives to todays software protection. Over time, the protection for new computer programs might change. If we do nothing, our children and their children will have to deal with these issues when we are long gone. Well, actually they will deal with these issues no matter what - currently copyrighted will be protected for another 150 years...
Maybe I didn't succeed in describing Lessig's idea in my article. Lessig wants to create an automated escrow service through the Internet. When you file for copyright protection, you also file your source code. You don't need to file your source code, but according to Lessig the filing is a well-balanced transaction cost. In return for your efforts you get a monopoly, that is copyright.
First you should know that there is a project called Open Economies, run by James Moore. Anyone can join the project.
I will just try to spark some discussion, here is a few points to consider followed by my own thoughts on this matter. Open Economies participants will recognise the content of this submission.
I think theses issues are worth to address to try to find some common ground (or
than again, maybe we will not) to take action from.
1. Is there a gap? What is it then?
2. Where is the gap? Are we talking about the gap worldwide in developing
countries or even on a national level in welfare countries with internal
differences and gaps (i e USA or Sweden)?
3. Should we bridge the gap? (Should you answer no to this question, the
rest of the questions may not be useful.)
4. Do we have a responsibility as humans to brdige the gap? Why / why not?
5. Are there any negative consequences of bridging the gap? Do we (i e the
rich filthy bastards) profit from the differences?
6. Are there any positive consequences of bridging the gap Do we (again the
rich filthy bastards) profit from minimising the differences?
7. How do we bridge the gap in short time with lack of funds?
8. How do we bridge the gap in long time with lack of funds?
9. How do we bridge the gap in long time with lots of funds?
10. Name one measure you can initiate today to bridge the gap. Will you do it?
- - -
I will try to address some issues to get the
discussion going. I hope you do not mind me doing this.
>1. Is there a gap? What is it then?
Yes. There is a gap in countries and between countries and between
continents in respect of:
1. computers
2. access
3. general IT knowledge and
4. use.
If one of the factors 1-4 is missing in any given community, the digital
gap will eventually evolve. In a community with high rates of 1-4, the
digital development will flourish.
>2. Where is the gap? Are we talking about the gap worldwide in developing
>countries or even on a national level in welfare countries with internal
>differences and gaps (i e USA or Sweden)?
I think the gap is relative and could be applied and considered both on a
domestic and international level.
>3. Should we bridge the gap? (Should you answer no to this question, the
>rest of the questions may not be useful.)
I think we should consider the world throught the John Rawls veil of
ignorance. Rawls is well-known to all scholars of jurisprudence and most
likely all of you, but just to make sure we are on the same page: the basic
idea is that the choice of the pinciples of social organisation is to be
made by persons who have no idea of the actual position they will occupy in
society or of their interests and inclinations. Rawls is wideley critised,
maybe best by Nozick, but I still consider his ideas as a good tool and
framework for any regulatory or policy discussions.
Seen through the eyes of Rawls we should bridge the gap at least if we do
enjoy the benefits of a digital society.
>4. Do we have a responsibility as humans to brdige the gap? Why / why not?
Yes, according to the answer to 3.
>7. How do we bridge the gap in short time with lack of funds?
I think we should be very generous with our knowledge. It will not cost us
much to set up web sites spreading our knowledge and works to other
communities. The open source and free software movement could be the most
important step towards digitalisation of Africa. Sweden is one country
spending a lot of funds on financial aid directed towards developing
countries (often referred to the Group 77 countries). Maybe we and other
nations should refocus and educate and ditribute or knowledge instead of
cash.
At the United Nations Millenium Summit the prime minister of India, Shri
Vitar Bhapal Vhajpayee stated:
"A 'New Economy' drives the world today. Yet, nearly a quarter of the
people this Assembly represents have neither prospered nor gained from
these developments. Often,they find themselves further marginalised and
more vulnerable as development economics gives way to unbridled market
economics and social objectives are erased by profit motives."
>8. How do we bridge the gap in long time with lack of funds?
Actually, the same answer as 7. We also probably could donate a lot of
outranged equipment to the Group 77 countries or to less fortunate people
in our own contries.
>9. How do we bridge the gap in long time with lots of funds?
I think we should address these issues through the United Nations or a
similar organisation and fund a special program aiming to wire the world.
>10. Name one measure you can initiate today to bridge the gap. Will you do it?
I have translated the GNU GPL v 2 into Swedish, which - to my surprise -
was very much appreciated by Swedes lacking knowledge of the English
language. If you are not a programmer, easy things like this could actually
improve the world, although it may seem simple and naive on the verge to
pathetic. I have also published some of my works online, which has turned
out to be helpful to a few people. It is not a huge effort, but if we all
do something it could have some impact. You do not have to go into Pay it
forward-sleazy movies extremes.-)
My new task will be to write easy to grasp guidelines to use computers with
free software or open source software. It will cost me a few hours, but
hopefully someone will be helped.
If you read this far, I am very impressed. Thank you for your attention.
The key issue - who's the owner of the database - is not yet settled. A class action suite, filed by all the users who contributed to the CDDB database should be the only way to resolve that issue once and for all. However, I have a very hard time seeing that happen.
The thing you might learn from the CDDB history and the creation of the free version of CDDB - freedb - is that licenses do matter - even if the project is a volountary and open one to begin with.
Great insights as ever. I will do my best to question authority as always.-)
Lessig:
But that will require something more than a life of quibbling on Slashdot. And so far, you've not shown you're up to very much more.
So we're basically idiots. So what does that make you participating in this forum?
Seriously, I don't think you can regard Slashdot readers as a collective in the way you want to. Some slashdot:ers will always be trolls and nothing will change that. Others will learn and in return teach their friends. I don't think that it's a problem and the discussion about slashdot:ers not beeing active enough is not very useful.
I am very pessimistic about changing the copyright terms through legislation. However, we have a very nice full-scale experiment on copyright going on here. It's run by Richard M Stallman, Eben Moglen, Eric S Raymond, Bruce Perens, Tim O'Reilly, Steve Ballmer and their peers. Through contract, intellectual property will change. I am convinced that Richard M Stallman and his peers (including Microsoft) will substantially change our view of copyright and the way we create, develop and do business with works.
In the future, even Microsoft's code will be open. It will happen because the customers demand it--learning the lesson taught by Stallman and yourself--and it will be regulated through contract, not through legislation.
Here is some additional information that you will find intriguing. This is far from over. A copy of the press release below and key court documents filed in the case may also be found on the U.S. Attorney's Office's website at
www.usdoj.gov/usao/can.
Regards
Mikael
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 13, 2001
The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of
California announced that Dmitry Sklyarov entered into an agreement this
morning with the United States and admitted his conduct in a hearing before
U.S. District Judge Whyte in San Jose Federal Court.
Under the agreement, Mr. Sklyarov agreed to cooperate with the
United States in its ongoing prosecution of Mr. Sklyarov's former employer,
Elcomsoft Co., Ltd. Mr. Skylarov will be required to appear at trial and
testify truthfully, and he will be deposed in the matter. For its part, the
United States agreed to defer prosecution of Mr. Sklyarov until the
conclusion of the case against Elcomsoft or for one year, whichever is
longer. Mr. Sklyarov will be permitted to return to Russia in the meantime,
but will be subject to the Court's supervision, including regularly
reporting by telephone to the Pretrial Services Department. Mr. Sklyarov
will be prohibited from violating any laws during the year, including
copyright laws. The United States agreed that, if Mr. Sklyarov successfully
completes the obligations in the agreement, it will dismiss the charges
pending against him at the end of the year or when the case against
Elcomsoft is complete.
Mr. Sklyarov, 27, of Moscow, Russia, was indicted by a federal Grand
Jury on August 28, 2001. He was charged with one count of conspiracy in
violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371, and two counts of
trafficking for gain in technology primarily designed to circumvent
technology that protects a right of a copyright owner in violation of Title
17, United States Code, Section 1201(b)(1)(A), and two counts of trafficking
for gain in technology marketed for use in circumventing technology that
protects a right of a copyright owner in violation of Title 17, United
States Code, Section 1201(b)(1)(A).
In entering into the agreement with the government, Mr. Sklyarov was
required to acknowledge his conduct in the offense. In the agreement, Mr.
Sklyarov made the following admissions, which he also confirmed in federal
court today:
"Beginning on a date prior to June 20, 2001, and continuing through July 15,
2001, I was employed by the Russian software company, Elcomsoft Co. Ltd.
(also known as Elcom Ltd.) (hereinafter "Elcomsoft") as a computer
programmer and cryptanalyst.
"Prior to June 20, 2001, I was aware Adobe Systems, Inc. ("Adobe") was a
software company in the United States. I was also aware Adobe was the
creator of the Adobe Portable Document Format ("PDF"), a computer file
format for the publication and distribution of electronic documents. Prior
to June 20, 2001, I knew Adobe distributed a program titled the Adobe
Acrobat eBook Reader that provided technology for the reading of documents
in an electronic format on personal computers. Prior to June 20, 2001, I
was aware that documents distributed in the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader
format are PDF files and that specifications of PDF allow for limiting of
certain operations, such as opening, editing, printing, or annotating.
"Prior to June 20, 2001, as a part of my dissertation work and as part of my
employment with Elcomsoft, I wrote a part of computer program titled the
Advanced eBook Processor ("AEBPR"). I developed AEBPR as a practical
application of my research for my dissertation and in order to demonstrate
weaknesses in protection methods of PDF files. The only use of the AEBPR
is to create an unprotected copy of an electronic document. Once a PDF file
is decrypted with the AEBPR, a copy is no longer protected by encryption.
This is all the AEBPR program does.
"Prior to June 20, 2001, I believed that ElcomSoft planned to post the AEBPR
program on the Internet on the company's website www.elcomsoft.com. I
believed that the company would charge a fee for a license for the full
version of the AEBPR that would allow access to all capabilities of the
program.
"After Adobe released a new version of the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader that
prevented the initial version of the AEBPR program from removing the
limitations or restrictions on an e-book, I wrote software revisions for a
new version of the AEBPR program. The new version again decrypted the
e-document to which it was applied. The version of this new AEBPR program
offered on the Elcomsoft website only decrypted a portion of an e-document
to which it was applied, unless the user had already purchased a fully
functional version of the earlier version and had both versions installed on
the same machine. The new version was developed after June 29, 2001. At
that time, Elcomsoft had already stopped selling the program. The version of
this new program offered on the Elcomsoft website did not provide a user
with an opportunity to purchase it or convert it to a fully functional one,
and was developed as a matter of competition.
"On July 15, 2001, as part of my employment with Elcomsoft, I attended the
DEF CON Nine conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. At the conference I made a
presentation originally intended for the BlackHat conference that
immediately preceded the DefCon Nine in July 2001 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The
same group of people organizes both BlackHat and DefCon Nine. Since there
was no available slot for a presentation at BlackHat at the time when the
paper was sent for the committee consideration, the organizers of both
conferences suggested that the paper be presented at the DefCon rather than
at BlackHat. The paper that I read at DefCon is attached as Exhibit A. A
principal part of my presentation is comprised of my research for the
dissertation. In my presentation when I said "we", I meant Elcomsoft."
Mr. Sklyarov's employer, Elcomsoft, remains charged in the case, and
the Court in that matter has set hearings for various motions on March 4,
2002, and April 1, 2002.
The prosecution of Elcomsoft is the result of an investigation by
the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Scott Frewing and Joseph Sullivan of
the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property ("CHIP") Unit are the
Assistant U.S. Attorneys who are prosecuting the case with the assistance of
legal technician Lauri Gomez.
Mr. Lessig,
I guess you are tired of me by now, but anyway - here is a simple and practical question to consider.
You are wideley considered and acclaimed to be one of the most famous and prominent--and rightly so--legal scholars promoting free software. You are probably only surpassed by Richard M Stallmans pro bono legal counsel professor Eben Moglen of Columbia University.
So - why do you use Microsoft Outlook on your Macintosh?
In theory, practice and theory is the same. In practice, practice and theory is never the same. is this the case or something else?
Regards
Mikael Pawlo
Pine and Eudora user - heresy is my middle name.-)
I sent this a couple of minutes ago in a reply to Siva Vaidhyanathan in a discussion on Jim Griffin's famous Pho-list. I think it is relevant to the Lessig discussion why I submit it here as well. My apologies to all Phosters for the duplicate.
If you ask the framers, the copyright is for innovation in society as such or as they choose to put it: "To promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts." They way to achieve this was "by securing for limited times to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
Would society as such benefit from a shorter copyright term than life + 70 years?
As Jenny Dixon put it:
"Does any writer write less, or worse, because of the length of the copyright term?" [1]
This is the fundamental question that I think is not answered in your book, nor in Lessig's The Future of Ideas.
My take on this is that some writers don't care about copyright. They will publish or at least produce works no matter what. They are the Van Goghs of writing. Others care and they will publish "better" or more works with stronger protection (read: stronger economic incentives). Strong protection leads to increased economic incentives because the life + 70 years protection is in theory more or less discounted into the upfront payment and royalties by the publishers. Very few writers will refrain from writing because of the Alice Randall situation, i e too strong protection. The sum of this is that strong protection is good.
However, too strong protection will lead to fewer works beeing published. Nota bene - published, not written. I think that more or less the same amount and quality of works will be produced, i e written, regardless of the strength of the protection. Thus, the strength of the protection will in effect only affect the commercial aspects of innovation. In that respect I think the balance, as requested by Lessig, is very important. But it shouldn't be confused with innovation.
Regards
Mikael Pawlo
[1] Dixon, Jenny, The Copyright Extension Act, Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal, summer 1996.
The debate between Jack Valenti, President of the Motion Picture Association of America, and Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law Professor and author of The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World is now online.
The Debate was named Creativity, Commerce, & Culture: Lessig vs. Valenti and occured on November 29, 2001 at USC Annenberg School.
"On Monday, a committee of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), said it wants to adopt a proposal allowing directors to be elected by members of the public who own Internet domains."
"It's a mistake to push these issues entirely down to Ghana," Bildt said, referring to ICANN's next scheduled meeting, which is set to take place in
Ghana, Africa next March."
This used to be the number one list in respect of domain name related questions. However, the list was flooded by trolls and faked identities of suspicious nature.
It would have been nice to have the archives online, but I guess Verisign could be pursuaded to republish them. If not, I'm pretty sure that some of the hard core (no pun intended) participants have collected all the postings.
This is not the end of the domain name policy discussions.
This is a very good point and it has been considered in Sweden as well. In the Swedish constitution ("regeringsformen") it's clear that all governmental action should be conducted in a way that promote the freedom of opinion.
Bjorn Fries has in recent interviews expressed his sadness over the shutdown of Flashback (ehurm..!).
To me it's pretty clear that a government official can't act in this fashion. He's supposed to use the democratic means available. However, what's shocking is that all the ISPs and cable owners has listened to him and agreed to shut Flashback and Jan Axelsson of the net.
It should probably be added that Flashback is widely considered a menace on the Swedish Internet since a lot of uncomforting views have been expressed in Flashbacks net publications. This is also why the shutdown has not raised more fury in Sweden. The persons versed in the debate field didn't like Flashback in the first place so they don't mind the shutdown.
To me - Flashback is besides the point. The principle must be that the behaviour as such must not be accepted.
CoS won the case. The sentence was a permanent restrictive order, destruction of the seized diskettes and print, Panoussis ordered to pay CoS damages of 10.000 SEK, legal costs 1.274.500 SEK. The sealed documents was put in continued secrecy (they were public at first - which caused a lot of fuzz and a US government intervention in Sweden).
The problem is that no legal action was taken whatsoever. If the site was shut down by court you could file for an appeal or accept the judgment. Now, however, the major companies have solely shut the web site down without any legal action. Since Internet access is no constitutional right and can be limited on commercial grounds (which is what happened to Jan Axelssons Flashback) there is no protection against behaviour like this.
I don't know if Bjorn Fries is right. He might have been threatened or not. However, I find it very disturbing that a government official can act in this way, since it circumvents the legal protection of free speech.
What will it be next?
Will Bjorn Fries write the
ISPs and tell them to shut me out for posting these comments on Slashdot?
Or will some religous group with a lot of money shut out their critics from the net?
On the other hand you should have the freedom to business with whoever you like. But maybe you can solve the problem by forcing cable companies and major internet providers to do business with all customers conducting legal operations. If so - the smaller ISPs and resellers of net access would be able to have clients like Flashback, i e using the Internet back bone.
I realise this is a very complicated issue, but it's also a very important one.
Slashdot Mirror
In my opinion the future of ICANN is very vague. ICANN come from a shady place, but the retirement of Stuart Lynn does not automatically improve ICANN. Maybe someone will pick up the thoughts presented by the At Large Study Committe, chaired by Carl Bildt? The work presented in a final report was more or less dismissed by ICANN under its current regime, but it does contain some good food for thought (even though I personally do not agree with the committees conclusions). Also the NAIS report should not be forgotten.
I guess the main question for ICANN is what it should be designated for. In my opinion ICANN should be a tiny coordinating body and nothing else - not a government for the Internet. If ICANN wants greater power it must prove itself worthy of such extension of its mandate, primarely through improvements regarding:
Regards
Mikael
Liability for publishers is a very hard issue to deal with. The publisher of the leading Swedish daily Aftonbladet was held accountable for hate speech published in one of its forums. I wrote a short comment on the case published by The Register on the caveats in running an online forum: 'If the media companies and their publishers are held accountable for everything published in their web forums we will soon face an Internet where the possibility of a widened debate has been seriously damaged by law. Let us grasp the uniqueness of the Internet before it is gone. The Internet is not a paper.'
Regards
Mikael
See also the Register. In my opinion, Microsoft Passport needs to be open source or something similar.
Here is something I wrote some time ago for Newsforge: 'Microsoft Passport is brilliant in its design. It will solve the problem that is allegedly killing dot com companies all over the world. Without making life online hell for the user you will easily manage micropayments and logins for content providers and e-tailers all over the world. You might like that and you might not, but a lot of companies have been waiting for this solution and I believe it could be successful, if companies and customers trust in Microsoft Passport. But why should we trust Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer? What have they done to gain our trust? They have done nothing of the kind, and that is why Microsoft Passport needs to be open. We need to know what the code is doing, how the data is storaged and we need competition and interoperability on the Microsoft identification market.'
Regards,
Mikael
A quiz is great for educational purposes, but I think this test only will be mastered (and even taken) by the pro's. Someone (don't look at me!) should construct a test with easier and more general questions on free software and related licensing issues. I guess such an easier test could encourage more people to use and develop free software. The test linked above will most probably discourage newbies from free software rather than encourage them. Great quiz for pro's, though.
Regards
Mikael
Read the RFC at the original source. The link in the article is already broken.
In my opinion, governments should not push proprietary solutions or open code solutions. That much said, governments and public bodies still could improve the competition and make open code much more of an option in public procurement.
The government should always choose the best computer program and IT solution at any given period of time. However, by the design of public procurement policies open code is often ruled out even before the governmental shop opens. This should be changed to make sure open code solutions may compete in public procurement on the same terms as proprietary solutions.
Regards
Mikael
If ICANN is supposed to have a broader scope of business I think it is approriate to involve the users more. While the ICANN elections are a true joke (just look at the results in Africa) a representation of users and non-users through theirs governments respectively is a good idea in my opinion. This will be like a UN for the Internet, a great tool for handling a new, global medium.
From a democratic point of view, the Lynn proposal is a much better proposal than the one suggested by the At Large Study Committee where domain name holders should be the ones electing ICANN board members. The latter proposal would not solve the current severe problems with ICANN when it comes to accountability, representativity and transparancy. Lynns proposal seems to deal with a few of the mentioned problems.
If ICANN is not supposed to broaden its scope of action, the proposal made by Stuart Lynn might be a way of slightly overdoing the administration of new
top level domain names. If that is the case, I agree with Randy Bush, but I fail to see that ICANN in the long run is supposed to just handle top level domain names.
Just my EURO 0,02.
Regards
Mikael
Regards
Mikael
Under current copyright and contract law, BSA is free to represent its members and do what's described in this article.
However, I find its methods too severe and too aggressive. BSA should consider helping the companies to comply with licenses rather than scaring them and send in the police. If BSA developed a good license administration tool and released it under the GNU GPL or any open source license with the source code, I think many companies would improve in their license compliance.
Some companies will steal anything they can, but most companies are serious and should not be treated as criminals. Doing a good license audit today is very costly and hard to administer for a small or medium sized company. BSA should treat the potential costumers of its members with respect and appreciate this problem. Developing an administrative solution and perhaps a license crawling spider - with very open code - is a much better way of helping the companies than by using cease-and-desist-letters.
Hence, BSA should consider a different and more customer friendly policy. We, the public, should consider an evalutation of the copyright system for computer programs at large.
Regards
Mikael
"The Free Software Movement should be ready and poised to enter that debate when it begins."
Wake up and smell the coffee - this is it!
I am very surprised to learn of your defensive attitude. You started the debate by releasing free software and the GNU GPL and now you dislike the current debate and wait for the "real" debate to begin? Meanwhile, new copyright legislation is adopted in the EU through the Infosoc directive and the anti-circumvention ideas of the DMCA enter Europe.
I am sorry, but this doesn't make much sense to me. Richard M Stallman has accomplished a lot by releasing the free software school of philosophy and the GNU GPL. It is the number one major, global, full-scale experiment concerning copyright and Stallman is basically a genius.
Therefore, it is very sad that the Free Software Foundation choose not to consider and discuss the alternatives to the current legislation. I think you could add a lot of experience and thoughts to such a discourse. I am not convinced that the GNU GPL is perfect in its current draft, but it's a good start for a discussion on todays legislation. So is the BSD license, the open source definition and also any proprietary license. They all develop and push the discussion of copyright further, whether you like it or not. So does the development of software patents and the opposition against them.
The politicians are listening, but in order for them to even consider a change in major international treaties and conventions like TRIPS, the Berne Convention and WIPO's Copyright Treaty, one needs to give them arguments for a change. Copyright of today is a global issue. Still - laws can be changed. I consider the US Constitution and the work of the framers an act of geniuses. Do you know why? They were simple farmers and they knew they weren't perfect. Hence, even the US Constitution can be changed. That's the beauty of it.
Regards
Mikael
I will try to clarify my point in some short parapgraphs.
The issue that I am trying to address and discuss is: if we should and were able to change current copyright law and the way we look at software protection into something else - what would it be?
I can't see a perfect alternative among the present ideas of copyright protection. However, I think some people tend to rule out for example - replacing the copyright statues with GNU GPL - just because they don't like the GNU GPL. My point is that we could instead think of a world where there was something else instead of copyright for computer programs.
Thinking like an economist, I am sure that we need proper incentives for programmers. Therefore I am not convinced that the Free Software Foundation license could replace copyright law all the way. However, thinking like a citizen, I think we need more transparency in the software, thus following Lessig's ideas expressed in Code and other laws of Cyberspace. Somewhere between the GNU GPL and the current copyright protection I think we can find a new balanced solution to protection of computer programs with good incentives for programmers but a greater deal of transparency than what we have today.
Therefore I introduced the Swedish word "lagom" into the debate. I know that my article lacks a definition of "lagom" copyright, but please just consider this the start. I think we have very different views of what "lagom" copyright for computer programs is.
TRIPS, the Berne Convention and the WIPO Copyright Treaty plus the amount of works currently protected by life + seventy copyright statues make me very pessimistic about the possibility to change copyright law. However, we need to start finding good alternatives to todays software protection. Over time, the protection for new computer programs might change. If we do nothing, our children and their children will have to deal with these issues when we are long gone. Well, actually they will deal with these issues no matter what - currently copyrighted will be protected for another 150 years...
Best regards
Mikael
Mikael
I will just try to spark some discussion, here is a few points to consider followed by my own thoughts on this matter. Open Economies participants will recognise the content of this submission.
I think theses issues are worth to address to try to find some common ground (or than again, maybe we will not) to take action from.
1. Is there a gap? What is it then?
2. Where is the gap? Are we talking about the gap worldwide in developing countries or even on a national level in welfare countries with internal differences and gaps (i e USA or Sweden)?
3. Should we bridge the gap? (Should you answer no to this question, the rest of the questions may not be useful.)
4. Do we have a responsibility as humans to brdige the gap? Why / why not?
5. Are there any negative consequences of bridging the gap? Do we (i e the rich filthy bastards) profit from the differences?
6. Are there any positive consequences of bridging the gap Do we (again the rich filthy bastards) profit from minimising the differences?
7. How do we bridge the gap in short time with lack of funds?
8. How do we bridge the gap in long time with lack of funds?
9. How do we bridge the gap in long time with lots of funds?
10. Name one measure you can initiate today to bridge the gap. Will you do it?
- - -
I will try to address some issues to get the discussion going. I hope you do not mind me doing this.
>1. Is there a gap? What is it then?
Yes. There is a gap in countries and between countries and between continents in respect of:
1. computers
2. access
3. general IT knowledge and
4. use.
If one of the factors 1-4 is missing in any given community, the digital gap will eventually evolve. In a community with high rates of 1-4, the digital development will flourish.
>2. Where is the gap? Are we talking about the gap worldwide in developing >countries or even on a national level in welfare countries with internal >differences and gaps (i e USA or Sweden)?
I think the gap is relative and could be applied and considered both on a domestic and international level.
>3. Should we bridge the gap? (Should you answer no to this question, the >rest of the questions may not be useful.)
I think we should consider the world throught the John Rawls veil of ignorance. Rawls is well-known to all scholars of jurisprudence and most likely all of you, but just to make sure we are on the same page: the basic idea is that the choice of the pinciples of social organisation is to be made by persons who have no idea of the actual position they will occupy in society or of their interests and inclinations. Rawls is wideley critised, maybe best by Nozick, but I still consider his ideas as a good tool and framework for any regulatory or policy discussions.
Seen through the eyes of Rawls we should bridge the gap at least if we do enjoy the benefits of a digital society.
>4. Do we have a responsibility as humans to brdige the gap? Why / why not?
Yes, according to the answer to 3.
>7. How do we bridge the gap in short time with lack of funds?
I think we should be very generous with our knowledge. It will not cost us much to set up web sites spreading our knowledge and works to other communities. The open source and free software movement could be the most important step towards digitalisation of Africa. Sweden is one country spending a lot of funds on financial aid directed towards developing countries (often referred to the Group 77 countries). Maybe we and other nations should refocus and educate and ditribute or knowledge instead of cash.
At the United Nations Millenium Summit the prime minister of India, Shri Vitar Bhapal Vhajpayee stated:
"A 'New Economy' drives the world today. Yet, nearly a quarter of the people this Assembly represents have neither prospered nor gained from these developments. Often,they find themselves further marginalised and more vulnerable as development economics gives way to unbridled market economics and social objectives are erased by profit motives."
>8. How do we bridge the gap in long time with lack of funds?
Actually, the same answer as 7. We also probably could donate a lot of outranged equipment to the Group 77 countries or to less fortunate people in our own contries.
>9. How do we bridge the gap in long time with lots of funds?
I think we should address these issues through the United Nations or a similar organisation and fund a special program aiming to wire the world.
>10. Name one measure you can initiate today to bridge the gap. Will you do it?
I have translated the GNU GPL v 2 into Swedish, which - to my surprise - was very much appreciated by Swedes lacking knowledge of the English language. If you are not a programmer, easy things like this could actually improve the world, although it may seem simple and naive on the verge to pathetic. I have also published some of my works online, which has turned out to be helpful to a few people. It is not a huge effort, but if we all do something it could have some impact. You do not have to go into Pay it forward-sleazy movies extremes .-)
My new task will be to write easy to grasp guidelines to use computers with free software or open source software. It will cost me a few hours, but hopefully someone will be helped.
If you read this far, I am very impressed. Thank you for your attention.
Best Regards
Mikael
The thing you might learn from the CDDB history and the creation of the free version of CDDB - freedb - is that licenses do matter - even if the project is a volountary and open one to begin with.
Mikael
Great insights as ever. I will do my best to question authority as always .-)
Lessig:
But that will require something more than a life of quibbling on Slashdot. And so far, you've not shown you're up to very much more.
So we're basically idiots. So what does that make you participating in this forum?
Seriously, I don't think you can regard Slashdot readers as a collective in the way you want to. Some slashdot:ers will always be trolls and nothing will change that. Others will learn and in return teach their friends. I don't think that it's a problem and the discussion about slashdot:ers not beeing active enough is not very useful.
I am very pessimistic about changing the copyright terms through legislation. However, we have a very nice full-scale experiment on copyright going on here. It's run by Richard M Stallman, Eben Moglen, Eric S Raymond, Bruce Perens, Tim O'Reilly, Steve Ballmer and their peers. Through contract, intellectual property will change. I am convinced that Richard M Stallman and his peers (including Microsoft) will substantially change our view of copyright and the way we create, develop and do business with works.
In the future, even Microsoft's code will be open. It will happen because the customers demand it--learning the lesson taught by Stallman and yourself--and it will be regulated through contract, not through legislation.
Code is law, indeed. So is contract.
Regards
Mikael
Regards
Mikael
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 13, 2001
The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced that Dmitry Sklyarov entered into an agreement this morning with the United States and admitted his conduct in a hearing before U.S. District Judge Whyte in San Jose Federal Court.
Under the agreement, Mr. Sklyarov agreed to cooperate with the United States in its ongoing prosecution of Mr. Sklyarov's former employer, Elcomsoft Co., Ltd. Mr. Skylarov will be required to appear at trial and testify truthfully, and he will be deposed in the matter. For its part, the United States agreed to defer prosecution of Mr. Sklyarov until the conclusion of the case against Elcomsoft or for one year, whichever is longer. Mr. Sklyarov will be permitted to return to Russia in the meantime, but will be subject to the Court's supervision, including regularly reporting by telephone to the Pretrial Services Department. Mr. Sklyarov will be prohibited from violating any laws during the year, including copyright laws. The United States agreed that, if Mr. Sklyarov successfully completes the obligations in the agreement, it will dismiss the charges pending against him at the end of the year or when the case against Elcomsoft is complete.
Mr. Sklyarov, 27, of Moscow, Russia, was indicted by a federal Grand Jury on August 28, 2001. He was charged with one count of conspiracy in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371, and two counts of trafficking for gain in technology primarily designed to circumvent technology that protects a right of a copyright owner in violation of Title 17, United States Code, Section 1201(b)(1)(A), and two counts of trafficking for gain in technology marketed for use in circumventing technology that protects a right of a copyright owner in violation of Title 17, United States Code, Section 1201(b)(1)(A).
In entering into the agreement with the government, Mr. Sklyarov was required to acknowledge his conduct in the offense. In the agreement, Mr. Sklyarov made the following admissions, which he also confirmed in federal court today:
"Beginning on a date prior to June 20, 2001, and continuing through July 15, 2001, I was employed by the Russian software company, Elcomsoft Co. Ltd. (also known as Elcom Ltd.) (hereinafter "Elcomsoft") as a computer programmer and cryptanalyst.
"Prior to June 20, 2001, I was aware Adobe Systems, Inc. ("Adobe") was a software company in the United States. I was also aware Adobe was the creator of the Adobe Portable Document Format ("PDF"), a computer file format for the publication and distribution of electronic documents. Prior to June 20, 2001, I knew Adobe distributed a program titled the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader that provided technology for the reading of documents in an electronic format on personal computers. Prior to June 20, 2001, I was aware that documents distributed in the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader format are PDF files and that specifications of PDF allow for limiting of certain operations, such as opening, editing, printing, or annotating.
"Prior to June 20, 2001, as a part of my dissertation work and as part of my employment with Elcomsoft, I wrote a part of computer program titled the Advanced eBook Processor ("AEBPR"). I developed AEBPR as a practical application of my research for my dissertation and in order to demonstrate weaknesses in protection methods of PDF files. The only use of the AEBPR is to create an unprotected copy of an electronic document. Once a PDF file is decrypted with the AEBPR, a copy is no longer protected by encryption. This is all the AEBPR program does.
"Prior to June 20, 2001, I believed that ElcomSoft planned to post the AEBPR program on the Internet on the company's website www.elcomsoft.com. I believed that the company would charge a fee for a license for the full version of the AEBPR that would allow access to all capabilities of the program.
"After Adobe released a new version of the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader that prevented the initial version of the AEBPR program from removing the limitations or restrictions on an e-book, I wrote software revisions for a new version of the AEBPR program. The new version again decrypted the e-document to which it was applied. The version of this new AEBPR program offered on the Elcomsoft website only decrypted a portion of an e-document to which it was applied, unless the user had already purchased a fully functional version of the earlier version and had both versions installed on the same machine. The new version was developed after June 29, 2001. At that time, Elcomsoft had already stopped selling the program. The version of this new program offered on the Elcomsoft website did not provide a user with an opportunity to purchase it or convert it to a fully functional one, and was developed as a matter of competition.
"On July 15, 2001, as part of my employment with Elcomsoft, I attended the DEF CON Nine conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. At the conference I made a presentation originally intended for the BlackHat conference that immediately preceded the DefCon Nine in July 2001 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The same group of people organizes both BlackHat and DefCon Nine. Since there was no available slot for a presentation at BlackHat at the time when the paper was sent for the committee consideration, the organizers of both conferences suggested that the paper be presented at the DefCon rather than at BlackHat. The paper that I read at DefCon is attached as Exhibit A. A principal part of my presentation is comprised of my research for the dissertation. In my presentation when I said "we", I meant Elcomsoft."
Mr. Sklyarov's employer, Elcomsoft, remains charged in the case, and the Court in that matter has set hearings for various motions on March 4, 2002, and April 1, 2002.
The prosecution of Elcomsoft is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Scott Frewing and Joseph Sullivan of the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property ("CHIP") Unit are the Assistant U.S. Attorneys who are prosecuting the case with the assistance of legal technician Lauri Gomez.
I guess you are tired of me by now, but anyway - here is a simple and practical question to consider.
You are wideley considered and acclaimed to be one of the most famous and prominent--and rightly so--legal scholars promoting free software. You are probably only surpassed by Richard M Stallmans pro bono legal counsel professor Eben Moglen of Columbia University.
So - why do you use Microsoft Outlook on your Macintosh?
In theory, practice and theory is the same. In practice, practice and theory is never the same. is this the case or something else?
Regards
Mikael Pawlo .-)
Pine and Eudora user - heresy is my middle name
If you ask the framers, the copyright is for innovation in society as such or as they choose to put it: "To promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts." They way to achieve this was "by securing for limited times to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
Would society as such benefit from a shorter copyright term than life + 70 years?
As Jenny Dixon put it:
"Does any writer write less, or worse, because of the length of the copyright term?" [1]
This is the fundamental question that I think is not answered in your book, nor in Lessig's The Future of Ideas.
My take on this is that some writers don't care about copyright. They will publish or at least produce works no matter what. They are the Van Goghs of writing. Others care and they will publish "better" or more works with stronger protection (read: stronger economic incentives). Strong protection leads to increased economic incentives because the life + 70 years protection is in theory more or less discounted into the upfront payment and royalties by the publishers. Very few writers will refrain from writing because of the Alice Randall situation, i e too strong protection. The sum of this is that strong protection is good.
However, too strong protection will lead to fewer works beeing published. Nota bene - published, not written. I think that more or less the same amount and quality of works will be produced, i e written, regardless of the strength of the protection. Thus, the strength of the protection will in effect only affect the commercial aspects of innovation. In that respect I think the balance, as requested by Lessig, is very important. But it shouldn't be confused with innovation.
Regards
Mikael Pawlo
[1] Dixon, Jenny, The Copyright Extension Act, Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal, summer 1996.
The Debate was named Creativity, Commerce, & Culture: Lessig vs. Valenti and occured on November 29, 2001 at USC Annenberg School.
Watch the archived webcast (1.35 h) with Real Video under: http://annenberg.usc.edu/events/011129LessigValent i/debate.smil
Best regards
Mikael
They are still valid, even though you may not agree with me
Mikael
http://www.atlargestudy.org/final_report.shtml
If you don't have time reading the report, read the Wired summary of the report:
"On Monday, a committee of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), said it wants to adopt a proposal allowing directors to be elected by members of the public who own Internet domains."
Newsbytes take on the report:
"It's a mistake to push these issues entirely down to Ghana," Bildt said, referring to ICANN's next scheduled meeting, which is set to take place in Ghana, Africa next March."
Regards
Mikael
It would have been nice to have the archives online, but I guess Verisign could be pursuaded to republish them. If not, I'm pretty sure that some of the hard core (no pun intended) participants have collected all the postings.
This is not the end of the domain name policy discussions.
Bjorn Fries has in recent interviews expressed his sadness over the shutdown of Flashback (ehurm..!).
To me it's pretty clear that a government official can't act in this fashion. He's supposed to use the democratic means available. However, what's shocking is that all the ISPs and cable owners has listened to him and agreed to shut Flashback and Jan Axelsson of the net.
It should probably be added that Flashback is widely considered a menace on the Swedish Internet since a lot of uncomforting views have been expressed in Flashbacks net publications. This is also why the shutdown has not raised more fury in Sweden. The persons versed in the debate field didn't like Flashback in the first place so they don't mind the shutdown.
To me - Flashback is besides the point. The principle must be that the behaviour as such must not be accepted.
One version of the story is online here.
I don't know if Bjorn Fries is right. He might have been threatened or not. However, I find it very disturbing that a government official can act in this way, since it circumvents the legal protection of free speech.
What will it be next?
Will Bjorn Fries write the ISPs and tell them to shut me out for posting these comments on Slashdot?
Or will some religous group with a lot of money shut out their critics from the net?
On the other hand you should have the freedom to business with whoever you like. But maybe you can solve the problem by forcing cable companies and major internet providers to do business with all customers conducting legal operations. If so - the smaller ISPs and resellers of net access would be able to have clients like Flashback, i e using the Internet back bone.
I realise this is a very complicated issue, but it's also a very important one.