An assumption-challenging blog entry about how blogging in the classroom might change the way teachers and students interrelate. I don’t wholly agree with her use of the term “censorship” but I like the re-think it provokes. (You can take it up with Kaye and other educators at BloggerCon this weekend, if you’re coming to Cambridge).
Michael Best, fellow at the Berkman Center and longtime MIT Media Lab development expert, is talking about WiFi in the developing countries context today here in Hauser 104 at Harvard Law School. He’s wonderfully skeptical, yet also hopeful about how we might use technology to “democratize” not only ”consumers” but also ”providers.” “VoIP is a killer app,” he says, “and we want to live in an all-IP world.” Why is it essential? For small-scale entrepreneurs to succeed in some of the rural areas of developing countries that he’s focused on.
He’s talking about terrestrial technologies (non-satellite) as a means of establishing access to the Net. Three possibilities: Wireless Local Area Network, via microwave radio (it’s what I’m using right now to post this blog entry); Wireless Metropolitan Area Network (might support some number of kilometers, some section of a city); and a Wireless Backhaul (providing basic point-to-point capacity between two high-gain transmitters and receivers for basic data and voice packet transmission). There’s been confusion in the marketplace: 802.11b could work on all these technologies, but the properties would be different in each of these contexts. He’s got some great information about how they used microwave (not so powerful as an oven) to create a Village Area Network, at 10 watts, covering 1 km.
One interesting instantiation: the SARI project, which stands for Sustainable Access in Rural India, which he calls an “intervention.” They create local Internet kiosks, connected to the Net at 70kbps and providing toll-quality voice services and data access. The service area is 2,000 square km and their catchment is 32,000 people. They’re 2 years deep, and now have 80 connections in 50 villages (average size is 1,000-person villages). It may well be the highest density rural Internet kiosk connections project anywhere.
The idea of an alternative compensation system for digital music in the Internet context continues to provoke strong opinions: consider Dan Kennedy’s piece in the Boston Phoenix (part of a long special report on digital music) and one by Jefferson Graham in USA Today as well. If you are interested in seeking to refine such a system, be sure to let us know so that we can keep you in the loop in terms of what we learn.
Yesterday’s quite suprising decision by a federal district court judge in Oklahoma City adverse to the kick-off of the ”do not call” list (with the House voting 412 - 8 to reinstate it this morning) must have caught the attention of those working on the spam problem. If a “do not call” list passed by Congress can’t withstand legal challenge (maybe it just has; we’ll see), then can spam legislation that includes a “do not spam” list and other provisions that restrict commercial speech possibly make it (see what Sen. Schumer’s working on, for instance)? Well, two things. First, it looks like there’s a workaround for the decision of last night, which is that the Congress fixes the way it wrote the law in the first place. Second, the more serious challenge to the “do not call” lists is not on the grounds taken up by the Oklahoma City judge, which turned in essence on a question of authority for the FTC to carry out and enforce the legislation, but rather a challenge on speech, interstate commerce (in the state instances, anyway) or other constitutional grounds. Similar challenges might be leveled at the California law against spam signed into law in California by Gray Davis yesterday. There are evident differences between the two situations: a) telemarketing calls and spam rely on different technologies and have different levels of intrusion; b) much in these challenges could turn on whether it’s a state law or a fedearl law challenged; and c) there is huge relevance to how cleverly the specific legislation is drafted up front.
The spam problem is the most intractable issue on the Net at the moment, I think, right alongside the crisis in digital media. I still think that Prof. Lessig’s idea, put forth by Cong. Lofgren more or less, to require labeling and offer a $10,000 bounty to those who track down spammers to be paid by the spammer, is the best proposed solution.
The best part of this whole mess are the quotes. Congressman John Dingell: “Unwanted telemarketing calls are less popular than a skunk at a church picnic, and they are more persistent and obnoxious than athlete’s foot.” So what’s spam less popular, and more persistent, than? Actually, don’t answer that.
We had the pleasure of welcoming Jorge Contreras, a leading cyberlawyer and Vice-Chair of the Internet and E-commerce group at the firm of Hale and Dorr, to the Berkman Center yesterday for a talk on online liability as part of our speaker series. Wendy Koslow, our program coordinator, took notes (which was particularly good for me, since I had a conflict and had to miss most of it). Jorge talked about the kinds of things a client should think about when posting information to a web site and mentions the odd situation that the online taxation issue puts customers and sellers in.
Class notes from our Online Transactions discussion in Cyberlaw and the Global Economy are posted; on to Business Models for this coming week, with two terrific guests, Jeffrey Cunard and Bruce Keller, Esqs., from Debevoise & Plimpton. Messrs Cunard and Keller are leading practictioners in the Internet law field, with extensive cross-border experience, and recently taught a class at HLS called “Counseling the Internet Client” with Profs. Jonathan Zittrain and Charles Nesson.
A few thoughtful (though not exactly supportive) reax to Terry Fisher’s Alternative Compensation System, from Dave Winer (via here) and Richard Tallent (more here). Dave calls it “brilliant” but “unworkable because it’s unfair.” Derek Slater had insight earlier in the week, as did Ernest, on similar topics.
I agree with one thing in the posts listed here and elsewhere: we have to have this honest, hard discussion about ways out of the digital media crisis. The path we’re on is a bad one. Inertia — as well as occasional lack of vision — is working against everyone involved. We’ve got to work through the alternatives, and may have to accept one that’s less than perfect but that’s better than where we are and where we’re headed today.
Derek Slater explores EFF positions on regulation and the music industry, which seems to have generated some heat. Central to Derek’s position: “…I appreciate what the EFF’s doing. I like the idea of getting a CL [Compulsory Licensing system] on the table because I think P2P sharing isn’t going to go away; that DRM is a poor solution; that we will inevitably lead to greater regulation of technology if we don’t consider alternate solutions; and that the lawsuits are a less than optimal way to deal with the problem, levying out of proportion damages on random people without necessarily leading to any deterrence (although, if the lawsuits were to be a successful deterrent and we all were to live happily ever after with no DRM and great digital music services and such, then I’d be more content).”
One of the reasons why I think Derek’s so good is that he calls things the way he sees them, even if those of us with whom he is or has been affiliated are called out for something — which he manages to do in a constructive manner.
A very nice rant on lawyers and snobbery over at Civil Procedure (despite the dig at HLS summer associates — justified or not, I’m not sure) with some back-and-forth at EthicalEsq. “Our profession worships credentials.” Prof. Bainbridge picks up the thread and extends the argument from the legal profession to legal academics, in which he talks about rankings as “signals.” Economists love signals. Fun weekend reading.
Today, we’re dug in — as we are on many days — to the Digital Media problem. We’ve got about 100 guests, largely from the technology and media industries, and two partners (Gartner|G2 and IBM) in hosting a conference on this topic. There’s a very live feel to the topic, no doubt a result of the sense that we’ve found ourselves in crisis and exacerbated by the recent spate of lawsuits against file-sharers. The basic framework for the day is to consider five possible future scenarios for how this issue might be governed over the next five years: 1) no change; 2) taking property rights seriously; 3) technology defenses work; 4) public utility; 5) alternative compensation systems. The discussion takes as jumping-off points Terry Fisher’s research and the themes of his upcoming book, Promises to Keep, and the joint research the Berkman Center’s been doing with Gartner|G2’s Mike McGuire and others.
Update: Theo Emery of the Associated Press tells the story of the conference, which also ran in the Washington Post. Martin LaMonica covered the conference as well for New York Times Online/CNET. Rick Whiting of Information Week wrote a nice summary.
