Over-reaching
I have a recurring feeling that the MPAA and the RIAA may just have over-reached this past week. The lawsuit against college students by the RIAA is, definitely, a change in strategy: going after customers, and young, tech-savvy ones at that, rather than at technologists who were in the role of middle-persons. The state-level super-DMCAs — preposterous ideas, completely unnecessary and gratutitous at best – suggest that the MPAA has been blinded by similar ambition, though perhaps less egregious from a rhetorical perspective. Both of these actions seem to strain the ability of the MPAA and the RIAA to maintain credibility with the mainstream.
The frustration I feel is that those opposed to such policy and such tactics, including myself to be sure, may not be able to take advantage of this over-reach. We are poorly organized, overall, despite our effective use of technologies, like this one. Professor Lessig is right in the pessimism of his last book and recent speeches, much as I don’t like to admit it. We are out-gunned, mostly because the legislative process is rigged in favor of those with money. Attention is elsewhere, on the war and other things that people indeed should be paying attention to. But this is important, too, and those of us who don’t like it aren’t getting through.
There are smart people among us, good leaders, and we are committed, passionately, to keeping the Net from coming under (yet further) excessive proprietary control. We need to find our way, perhaps looking to political campaigners for help. We need to put those who would lock down the Net on the defensive for once, and stop fighting *only* defensive battles (viz., Eldred, these super-DMCA things, etc.). We need to figure out how to get out in front and start the pendulum swinging the other way, back toward a true balance between open and proprietary.
I just fear that we may not be able to take advantage of this over-reach. Which would mean it’s just a reach, and one they might make. Over and over again, until balance is somehow restored.
Jean-Luc Delatre
April 6, 2003 @ 12:10 am
Pheew!We are out-gunned, mostly because the legislative process is rigged in favor of those with money.Oh, Yeah! but money is BAAAAD (Stallman dixit).Sure it’s bad when you don’t have any for the lawyers fees.We need to figure out how to get out in front and start the pendulum swinging the other way, back toward a true balance between open and proprietary.Does “balanced” means that having both the GPL and Microsoft will make an average?Or that sensible licensing schemes should be sought?The extremist positions advocated by Lessig and als may very well bring about what they fear most (The Right to Read), how nice, they were right!That reminds of the 1936 Spanish civil war where diehard marxists managed to screw the anarchists only to have them BOTH ultimately f***ed up by the fascists!Great, keep going this way “free software” freaks.(also, WTF is this loosy commenting interface with neither a preview nor a post-edit?)
mrG
April 6, 2003 @ 12:21 am
We are not out-gunned or disadvantages by money, but we are perhaps underspending and ignoring our own capabilities. Consider the way international peace activists were able to move the Day of Protect back two weeks: How was that possible with no central office??
It was possible because it was not done on the scale of Washington DC, not on the scale of the USA, it was orchestrated in the domain space of the Second Superpower, ie, those of us who are networked
see http://www.teledyn.com/mt/archives/000728.html
There is education which needs to happen to close the Capabilities Gap so that all citizens of Joi Ito’s emergent democratic force can read the news of their nation — for example, this blog does not provide an RSS feed, so how do you expect the world to pick up on what you write as you write it? (see http://www.teledyn.com/node.php?id=303)
The first step is the networking, and from there the action plans can overturn any interim precidents if need be, but networking is not just keeping a blog rolodex, it’s the active under-the-hood mycelia of the blogspace. If viral-marketing of ideas by word-of-mouth alone were useful, of writers were made famous by the strength of their craft and thinking alone, many great artists would not have died penniless, and we would not be having this conversation.
John Palfrey
April 6, 2003 @ 12:56 pm
Very definitely agreed on the Capabilities Gap/education point. Maybe I’ve screwed it up but I thought I had set up an RSS feed? -JP
Jean-Luc Delatre
April 7, 2003 @ 3:43 am
Please get REAL.
“We are not out-gunned or disadvantages by money”
Yes you are, in the end, after everything else has been weighted in,
it’s money that makes the difference.
See Bill Moyers on American politics in Salon :
The money people primarily determine who runs and wins in both
parties.
Money is power.
Oh! It’s sooo nasty, let’s forget about it, dream of
a Wonderful World and go for the Second Superpower.
Bollocks!
The power of money cannot be dismissed and the rule changed, because
it is not a rule!
I mean, nobody choose, define or enforce the power of money. It is
only the residue which is left when everything else has been
wiped out in human communication. Just like the Dutch selling cannons
to the Spaniards they were at war with in the 16th century. Does not
this remind you of some more recent events
Therefore it is utterly
stupid
to willingly decrease one’s own monetary value in the hope that
it will “magically” bring “brotherhood” among the whole of
humanity.
It will on the contrary bring
<a
href=”http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=390625&host=5&dir=207″>dominion
of the dumb, the dark side of
democracy.
This is not to say that the exact opposite, the Enron like greed is of
any good either.
Neither the GPL nor the DMCA are the way to go!
And, YES of course John Palfrey, it’s all about education.
But education allied to simplistic wishfull thinking will do more harm
than good, because, as Henry Louis
Mencken remarked:
So, when calling for “balance between open and proprietary”, do not
assume that only the campaign for balance can be problematic and that
“networking” and “mycelia of the blogspace” are putting us in a better
position.
THINKING has to come before, and not an easy one at that!
John Palfrey
April 7, 2003 @ 11:07 am
Jean-Luc: Thinking certainly is good. Given that we’re writing from a Think Tank, I figure that “not thinking about it” is one critique that can’t effectively be levelled against us. You may well disagree with where we come out, but the process of thinking is in place. -JP
Jean-Luc Delatre
April 8, 2003 @ 3:09 am
“the process of thinking is in place”
When I say thinking is not easy, I do not only mean that the problems tackled can be tricky, but also that
thinking can go wrong due to
unconscious agenda and false premises or presuppositions (see
Bateson about those words).
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