on
22 January 2012 with no comments
This online blackouts last week were not only the largest in recent history, but in a narrow sense, they might be the most effective ever. Imagine: online protests and the resulting media coverage and legislator calls led to the shelving of two “sure thing” bills over the course of two days.
But the protests shouldn’t just be considered in that narrow a frame. As Dan Gillmor and Marco Arment correctly point out, any victory against specific legislation in this field is bound to be ephemeral. The entertainment lobbying groups aren’t going to rest in drafting new laws to slip by under the public notice.
So the question becomes: were the online protests effective on any scale beyond the legislation at hand? I think the answer to that is yes. For one thing, these online protests brought copyright policy to the public attention, and that’s almost always a good thing. The moment at this week’s South Carolina GOP primary debate where all four candidates came out strongly against SOPA and PIPA felt unprecedented in the copyright world. In a field where “common sense revolts” at the industry-penned laws that are on the books, public attention is a real first step to reform.
Another change that I hope persists is the way that contested facts are being framed. One of the frustrating things about statements against the bills has been the formula they all seem to follow: we all agree that piracy is a major problem, but these bills are the wrong way to address them. Joshua McVeigh-Schultz at USC has done some good writing on this phenomenon.
Until the last few days, people who were questioning the premise, by suggesting that maybe piracy isn’t a serious economic problem, were on the fringe. Rick Falkvinge of the Pirate Party opposed the statements on the grounds that we need to “stop pretending to endorse the copyright monopoly“. Tim O’Reilly has been persistent and eloquent in questioning the economic harm of piracy. And of course Julian Sanchez’s spot-on analysis for the Cato Institute has consistently called the MPAA et al out on their funny numbers.
But in the past few days, I think we’re starting to see this discussion creep into the mainstream — or at least from the “copyright nerd” to the “general nerd” arena. Not only have musician Jonathan Coulton and actor Wil Wheaton (admittedly, both nerd icons) come out with statements that piracy is not the issue, but sites like Forbes and Freakonomics have picked up the question as well.
Detractors of the Occupy movement complain that those protesters’ issues were too nebulous. Without specific demands they couldn’t expect to effect change. In the short term, it’s true that they couldn’t claim the legislative victory that this round of protests have. But the Occupy protests were absolutely able to change the conversation. As Alexis Madrigal describes in the Atlantic this week, the Occupy protests created a problem in the particular set of “foregrounding” a set of issues into something that should be addressed. Madrigal is skeptical that the anti-SOPA efforts will be able to bridge from specific to general, but I remain hopeful.
Finally, it’s important to consider how this week’s actions have changed the face of online protest. Anil Dash has taken a good look at the history and future of online protest, with thoughts about how it might develop. I’m encouraged by the Reddit front page lighting up with stories about ACTA, and Hacker News discussing anew the YCRFS 9 proposal to kill Hollywood. There’s energy in the air, and it’s being directed in the right place. Hopefully now we can look at ways to proactively shape copyright policy in a way that benefits the public, instead of reacting to bad legislation one after another.
There are a lot of places to reform copyright. Joel Spolsky has put together a good list of them, if you’re interested. We can’t know yet, but I hope to look back on the events of this week as a starting point for big changes.
on
15 January 2012 with no comments
This week I purchased a new cell phone. I’ve been using my current phone, an HTC Desire Z (dubbed the G2 by T-Mobile in the US), for a little over a year and it’s time for an upgrade.
Or maybe it’s a sidegrade. Instead of buying the newest model on the market (or waiting for one of the half a million or so introduced at CES this month) I re-bought the Nexus One, a phone released almost two years ago.
I bought my first Nexus One directly from Google when it came out, and it quickly became my all-time favorite phone. The hardware fits me perfectly — just the right weight, great screen and buttons. It’s had two follow-ups in the Nexus S and the Galaxy Nexus, but neither one has struck me the same way. Because of its background, as the first “Google Experience” phone, it fell into the hands of a lot of able hackers, and so has great community support and quick releases for the CyanogenMod and Whisper Systems software I like to use.
When that Nexus One was stolen in November 2010, I thought I’d appreciate the upgrade. But while the phone I got featured some souped-up specs and an upgraded OS, I just didn’t like the experience as much.
So for now, I’ve chosen to check out of the upgrade cycle and stick with a device that I know works for me. It’s tempting to think I’ll be out of some loop, but the truth is, the hardware I need for my phone is not that greatly different from what I needed two years ago.
Keeping off of the high-end upgrade cycle — because really, having the shiniest phone in your pocket is not a one-time choice, but a commitment to regular upgrades — is cheaper, less disappointing, and less likely to contribute to a mountain of stuff in my house that is just too expensive to throw away. Much better, if you know what works, to stick with it.
Of course, there are other approaches. Lore Sjöberg, a writer for Wired, wrote about founding the Cult of the Somewhat Delayed a few years back. His cult would consist of people who kept on top of the latest advances in technology and culture, but with a two-year offset. This month, devotees would be checking out the movies, news, and gadgets from January 2010, which makes my new phone a crazy device from the future.
Those not ready to take the two-year plunge might check out Last Year’s Model, a project to get people to hold on to their devices a little longer. They advertise their MySpace page as a way to keep up with the project, which makes me think it’s either a bit out of date, or they’re very committed to the cause.
In any case, I’m happy to live at a time where the progress we can achieve in two years is enough to give the feeling of obsolescence. But I’m also happy to know that I’m not really out of the loop if I decide to skip the upgrade.
on
7 January 2012 with no comments
Over on his blog, John Lilly provides the best sort of analysis of the SOPA conversation — reasonable and measured. The problem with the “dialogue” so far, he says, is that (1) it has basically consisted of each side calling the other names, (2) which isn’t going to help now, and (3) will set a bad precedent for making new tech policy.
Expanding on that first point, he says that while the bill’s supporters may have kicked things off by accusing the tech community of engaging in, supporting, and profiting from piracy, that community should not respond with further name-calling and accusations of censorship. Instead, the tech sector should acknowledge the real problem with online piracy overseas and work together with the content industry to address it.
I really appreciate calls for civility, especially in a discussion that has gotten as heated as the one around SOPA and PROTECT IP. But as an active participant in that discussion, three things immediately popped out at me that deserve attention.
John wants there to be a “nuanced, technically-informed, respectful discussion/debate/conversation/working relationship” between these two parties, but doesn’t see a way that can happen. He may be right when he says that one missing piece is civility. But another is that both parties need to approach this discussion honestly. Supporters of this bill have, in example after example, demonstrated no remorse in lying outright to support their position.
Opponents of the bill point out when its supporters are lying, and when they seem to be advocating for measures suited for repressive regimes. Maybe these are attacks, but they are also true. While both sides may need to tone down the vitriol, there is no hope of progress until everybody first agrees to give the process enough respect to stick to the truth.
(I’ll acknowledge that, in some cases, the bill’s supporters may simply be misinformed; that lack of information would be a consequence of them not taking the debate seriously. Or that they’re not being dishonest, per se, but intellectually dishonest. It’s hard to know without being in their head, but in any case, the point stands.)
John also rightly points out that we need to be thinking critically about how copyright law can and should work today, and he claims that part of that process needs to be acknowledging the real problem facing rightsholders. I agree, of course, with the first part. But I think the second needs to be examined closer. Rightsholders might only have a “real problem” in a very limited sense of the word.
The ease of copying can absolutely lead to missed profit opportunities. But as Steve Blank points out in the Atlantic, the content industry’s track record of identifying which technologies will ultimately be profitable is abysmal, and they’re also not alone in dealing with “piracy”. Every area of commerce grapples with the fact that bad actors can thwart controls, but only the content industries are willing (and able!) to destroy innovation in other sectors to control it.
Combine that history with the first point — that studios and labels are willing to flat-out lie to support their points — and it becomes hard to take their “problem” seriously. The tech community isn’t denying that Internet users can download Hollywood movies off servers in Sweden, but what does that actually mean for their business? The rightsholders’ plain insincerity, the lack of real data to support their position, and their uncanny knack for attacking each new technology as it emerges conspire against the precariousness of their position.
Finally, and this is a point John acknowledges, these bills were not introduced in a way to foster a conversation. If the content industries were interested in a real conversation, they’d find willing participants. Trying to push through legislation that they wrote in secret with “Hollywood’s favorite Republican“, to a Congress they’ve spent $91 million lobbying this year alone, does not demonstrate a good faith effort on their part.
A discussion about how copyright should be shaped and enforced in the face of changing technology and norms is a good one to have. But the people who recognize the importance of technology continue to be denied the opportunity to have that conversation with the other stakeholders. Instead, we have been put on the defensive against incoming legislative U-boats. Without a doubt, a meaningful dialogue would be better now and for the future; unfortunately, our only option at the moment is to point out the glaring flaws in these proposals and keep fighting them until they sink.
on
4 January 2012 with 1 comment
The first week of the new year: time to make resolutions about the sort of person you want to be, and the sorts of behaviors you want to have. Go to the gym, blog more, that sort of thing.
Of course, these promises don’t usually pan out on the strength of the resolution alone; you need a bit of a carrot and/or a stick to make you stick to it.
So it’s in that spirit that I introduce the San Francisco chapter of Iron Blogger. Inspired by Mako’s Iron Blogger in Boston, and joining my friends Iron-Blogging in Berlin, I decided it was time to put some skin (or at least a few dollars) into the blogging game.
In case you don’t know the rules of Iron Blogger: every participant must post something to her blog every week. If she fails, she owes the organizer $5. (That’s the stick.) Once enough money has been collected, everybody goes out and gets beer with it. (That’s the carrot.) I’ve gotten a group of friends together to start, and if you’re in San Francisco and interested in participating, let me know.
I’m looking forward to it!
on
25 December 2011 with 1 comment
In the spirit of BoingBoing’s annual charitable giving guide, here’s a list of organizations that I’ve given to this year. As far as I can tell, these groups are each doing great work, and deserve every penny they can get.
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
I’ve given to the EFF in the past, but in the past two months of working there, I’ve got an even deeper respect for the work they do. On so many fronts, the EFF has your back.
- Free Software Foundation
I happily renewed my membership in the Free Software Foundation this year. Few organizations are as consistent and dedicated to their ideals as the FSF is to software freedom, and their licenses have been a de facto standard in the software world for decades now.
- Creative Commons
The Creative Commons license suite is now nine years old, and the six core licenses have become part of the architecture of the web. The quantity of collaboration and creativity that this organization has enabled is staggering, and they’re doing good work now putting together the next major update to the licenses, version 4.0.
- Mozilla
It’s easy to underestimate the impact Mozilla has had on the Web, especially now that Google Chrome has ensured they’re not the only high-quality free software browser around. It’s so important, though, that one of the major players in the browser space is run by a foundation that cares about users first. Top that off with the fact that Firefox is a great piece of software that keeps getting better, and these guys are a no-brainer.
- The Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation does so much — a top 10 website, advancing free culture and the world’s knowledge to everybody with access to the web — with so little: fewer than 100 employees, 400 servers, and a budget that’s a blip on the radar of many large companies. I know the face of Jimbo Wales causes nightmares to some, but it’s good to support these guys.
- Software Freedom Law Center
Free software licenses are a lot less effective if they don’t have any “bite”, but there aren’t many lawyers who really get the concept of software freedom. Enter the Software Freedom Law Center, run by the inimitable Eben Moglen, who consistently advance the free software cause by counseling on patents, trademarks, and copyright licenses.
- ACLU
The ACLU understands the importance of civil liberties, and isn’t afraid to take unpopular positions supporting them. They’ve also been working hard to protect personal freedoms for over 90 years, and know what they’re doing.
- National Lawyer’s Guild
Like the ACLU, the NLG provides legal support where civil liberties are in danger. NLG works particularly with progressive political movements, and have played an instrumental role in the Occupy movements. You can find people with NLG numbers sharpied onto their bodies at every Occupation.
- Mother Jones
Mother Jones provides good long-form, timely, investigative journalism. And because they’re reader-supported, they can focus more on what people want to read, and less about what ads look good next to. Their coverage of Occupy has been excellent, and they’ve been one of my favorite examples of print publications working on the Web.
- Southern California Public Radio
KPCC out of Pasadena is the station I grew up listening to. Next year I’m likely to give to my local station in San Francisco, but KPCC is a great public resource in Los Angeles, and one I’m proud to support.
Without a doubt, there are many deserving organizations that aren’t on this list, devoted to these issues and others, but each of us is only able to chip away at the block so much. If there are charitable organizations that you feel strongly about, please share with me!
on
29 November 2011 with no comments
I’ve been impressed with the quality of language used to describe the Stop Online Piracy Act. The bill is a disaster for the internet, and its opponents are devising some pretty creative ways of expressing that. Two of my favorites:
From Alexandra Petri on the Washington Post ComPost blog:
This isn’t even throwing the baby out with the bathwater. This is bludgeoning the baby repeatedly with a sledgehammer and then throwing out the whole bathroom.
From Jeffrey Zeldman on A List Apart:
SOPA approaches the piracy problem with a broad brush, lights that brush on fire, and soaks the whole internet in gasoline.
UPDATE: Dec 9: From the great Marvin Ammori, on his letter with Laurence Tribe:
The bills are not limited; they’re sledgehammers not scalpels.
UPDATE: Dec 13: From Julian Sanchez at the Cato Institute:
A third clause says the bill shouldn’t be construed in a way that would impair the security or integrity of the network—which is a bit like slapping a label on a cake stipulating that it shouldn’t be construed to make you fat.
From user roxtafari on Reddit:
SOPA in a nutshell: If a criminal hid counterfeit goods in a bank safe deposit box, SOPA would allow the legitimate IP owner to shut down the entire bank and all other branches without any notice, search warrant, or due process.
UPDATE: Dec 18: From Brad Plumer on Washington Post’s Wonkblog:
Essentially, copyright holders are asking for a really enormous sledgehammer to play this game of whack-a-mole.
I’ll keep updating as I come across good ones, and let me know in the comments if you’ve seen one.
on
4 September 2011 with 3 comments
Over on his personal blog, my buddy Peter Bihr has come to the defense of that most reviled breed of start-up — the German copycat. And while the whole thing’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, he’s actually right about some of the benefits that so-called “copycats” offer; they are in a position to make marginal changes and improvements that “original” start-ups might be hesitant about, from small feature improvements to big things like internationalization.
In the last year in Berlin, the tone used to discuss copycats has become too aggressive. I’m all for celebrating creativity and innovation, but it shouldn’t take the form of denigrating the “copycats”. It doesn’t make sense to dismiss a company, or a whole swath of companies, because their influences are showing.
That said, there is a “right way” to incorporate those influences, and there’s a way that people think is sleazy. Peter is one of the founders of Cognitive Cities, a beautifully orchestrated and executed set of events celebrating the emergent intelligence in cities, which recently had its name and logo copied wholesale by an American/Swiss research project.
Acknowledging the ideas of others in the field, incorporating and building upon them, should not be discouraged. But implying an endorsement, or hoping to create and cash in on confusion of users is a different thing. It’s a good idea to recognize that difference.
on
4 September 2011 with 3 comments
I recently finished reading the new book by Robert Levine, called Free Ride: How the Internet is Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business can Fight Back. (I’m giving the whole subtitle so that it’s clear what kind of book this was, but I’m not really writing about the book here.)
Because of the title, I had hoped that the book would spend some time addressing the common conflation of copyright free riding with other kinds of infringement. One element of that conflation is combining “creative-” and “consumptive infringement”; those terms were coined in a paper by Christopher Jon Sprigman, and actually do appear on a single page of Levine’s book, with a reference to the excellent Copyhype post on the topic.
(Side note: I’m talking specifically about “infringement” in this post, but a similar phenomenon exists around the word “piracy”. William Patry is among those who have railed on the use of that word to mean anything other than “the massive, commercial, unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted works“, but Adrian Johns, in his dense but enjoyable history of piracy, points to the “free rider” definition of the word being used in the UK as early as the 1920s, to describe people who didn’t pay their broadcast receiving license fees. In any case, the general problem of imprecise usage of words that describe concepts related to the internet is pretty widespread.)
Splitting up infringement into creative and consumptive varieties is useful, but doesn’t go far enough. Any book with the ambitious scope of “Free Ride” needs to acknowledge that there are at least a handful of different behavioral patterns that include “infringement” in some form, but which have completely distinct motivations and explanations. I propose the following list of four. It’s not totally exhaustive, but to my mind is a good start.
- Free riders represent most “leeching” users of a peer-to-peer network, or downloaders on the big file-hosting sites. These are the individuals that the RIAA and the MPAA have spent the years after the Napster and Grokster cases suing. The four different types of “piracy” that Lawrence Lessig describes in chapter 5 of Free Culture are performed mostly by people in this group.
- Commercial pirates engage in behavior that is pretty widely rejected, and are often the rhetorical target of media groups, and the reason for penalties that are overly harsh and ridiculous when applied outside of this group. Theater “camming” laws were aimed at commercial pirates, but caught 19-year-old Jhannet Sejas. The DeCSS trial in Norway was purported to be about commercial piracy, but concerned decryption technology that isn’t required for commercial duplication.
- The Scene is one of the more enigmatic groups, and I’ll admit that their motivation is far less straightforward than “getting free music” or “making money”. Members of the Scene (or the Warez Scene) belong to different groups that compete to release popular content as quickly and in as high quality as possible. These same kinds of individuals spend long hours and sometimes serious money creating complete databases of content and coding private trackers, and often describe their work as being driven by a commitment to free speech or to sharing art.
- Remix culture is the only strictly “creative infringement” category on this list. Individuals making transformative uses of copyrighted works have stayed out of the media companies legal sights, for the most part, but artists like Girl Talk have still become the poster children for this kind of “illegal art”. The occasional lawsuits around these uses have carried potential damages that, driven up by laws targeting commercial pirates, are so ruinously high that it can make sense to settle even if you believe you’re in the legal clear.
As I’ve said, this list isn’t exhaustive, but I hope that I’ve demonstrated why it’s necessary, say, to draw a distinction between the penalties assigned to commercial pirates and free riders, or to consider the motivations of remixers separately from those of The Scene. If you have or want more information about these categories, sound off in the comments.
on
31 August 2011 with no comments
Since it was introduced, the SoundCloud Record button has been hard to get to work in Ubuntu and other GNU/Linux distributions. Fortunately, my buddy Omid, who is a SoundCloud developer, has found a solution.
It turns out the problem is caused by a “Linux-specific security feature” (read: bug [login required]) that prevents a Flash settings dialogue from appearing when wmode=opaque is used. In any case, there are a few easy workarounds.
If you’ve got the flash-player-properties package installed (which, at least on Ubuntu, ships separately from the flash-plugin, but is available in the standard repositories), you can add “a1.sndcdn.com” to the allowed sites under the “Camera & Mic” tab of that program.
Otherwise, if you’ve unsuccessfully attempted to record at least once on the SoundCloud upload page, you can add a1.sndcdn.com from the Flash player’s web settings panel. While you’re there, check your security settings!
Hope this is helpful to other SoundCloud users on Linux who haven’t quite been able to get recording working.
on
26 July 2011 with 1 comment
NPR Berlin reported today that Berlin’s public transportation authority, the BVG, launched the Touch&Travel program [de] earlier this month, which allows Vodafone and Telekom customers to use an Android phone or an iPhone to pay for their transport tickets. Participants “check in” while boarding, and confirm their location either through continuous GPS data directly from their phones, or by scanning a QR code at the end points of their trip.
From a privacy perspective, this system stands in stark contrast to the current standard procedure in Berlin. As with nearly all German municipal rail, Berlin subways and buses operate on a proof-of-payment system: tickets are required while on board, but are only very occasionally checked.
Apparently, such proof-of-payment systems rose to popularity because of German labor shortages in the 1960s, but they also happen to be extremely respectful of rider privacy. Because travel and location data is never even collected, there’s no chance of it being cross-referenced against other data sets, given to the government, or sold to corporations. Though tickets may be traced to a buyer’s credit card, their actual use is not tracked, and riders may also pay cash with no penalty, preserving anonymity.
Berlin’s recently launched pilot program has none of these advantages. First, there’s the issue of anonymity: even taking the BVG and Deutsche Bahn at face value that the user data will be “scrubbed” and saved anonymously for only six months — a dubious proposition given the tempting law enforcement and ridership research opportunities of slipping from that stance — there is a huge and growing body of scholarship covering the possibilities of de-anonymizing large data sets. AOL search queries, Netflix movie ratings, even US Census data have effectively received the de-anonymization treatment.
There’s also the general question of locational privacy: individuals should have the “ability to move in public space with the expectation that … their location will not be systematically” recorded. That definition is at odds with the premise of the Touch&Travel program, which is basically consent to systematic tracking in exchange for a more convenient ticket purchase process.
Obviously that convenience is nice, and you only need to experience once the feeling of seeing your train pull away while you’re waiting for your ticket to print to understand the temptation of such a trade. And it’s true that there are occasionally positive outcomes of large-scale surveillance programs — New York City’s MetroCard data has been used in both legitimate alibis and criminal convictions, and even critics acknowledge that there are a small number of crimes that London’s CCTV system has helped solve. I won’t argue that there are no advantages to such a system, but that they’re outweighed by more subtle and incremental disadvantages. The loss of privacy and anonymity carries a real cost, even if it’s not one that’s immediately tangible.
Berlin’s public transportation system is currently one of the best imaginable in terms of privacy, and implementing a system that strips those benefits away is irresponsible and short-sighted. Further, privacy is a hard thing to introduce into a developed system; Berlin should reject any new solution that doesn’t make adequate consideration of privacy in its basic design, even if it’s a promised eventual addition.
Being mindful of privacy doesn’t require foregoing an update to ticket-buying infrastructure, either. There are cryptographic techniques for validating credentials anonymously that, while complex and occasionally difficult to understand, can be used to address the current pain points while still preserving privacy and anonymity. A system built with those techniques might not be as straightforward to develop and deploy, but would be invaluable to the people living in and visiting Berlin, and as a model to transportation agencies all over the world.