| richard barbrook on Sun, 11 Nov 2001 21:37:23 +0100 (CET) |
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]
| <nettime> Fwd: TidBITS#60(2|3)/2(2|9)-Oct-01 [x2] |
richard barbrook <richard@hrc.wmin.ac.uk>
Fwd: TidBITS#602/22-Oct-01
Fwd: TidBITS#603/29-Oct-01
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
From: richard barbrook <richard@hrc.wmin.ac.uk>
Subject: Fwd: TidBITS#602/22-Oct-01
Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 01:06:46 +0000 (GMT)
---- Begin Forwarded Text ----
>Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 21:00:00 -0700
>From: TidBITS Editors <editors@tidbits.com>
>Subject: TidBITS#602/22-Oct-01
>To: tidbits@tidbits.com (TidBITS Distribution)
>Reply-To: "TidBITS Editors" <editors@tidbits.com>
>
>TidBITS#602/22-Oct-01
>=====================
[snip]
>Steal This Essay 1: Content Is a Pure Public Good
>-------------------------------------------------
> by Dan Kohn
>
> Steal this essay, or, why these sorts of essays represent the
> future of all publishing. Hint: I'm not getting paid for them.
>
> "Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one."
> - A.J. Liebling
>
> If you or anyone you know has ever or will ever produce content
> (writing, music, video, etc.) and hopes to get paid for it, you
> should be afraid.
>
> To see why, start by downloading (for free, of course) one of the
> numerous peer-to-peer file sharing systems such as Aimster,
> LimeWire, and eDonkey2000 that have emerged hydra-like to take the
> place of Napster, whose head was cut off this spring by the
> Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). You will find
> that much the same selection of MP3 music that was on Napster is
> still available for free, as well as being accompanied by more and
> more movies ("ripped" directly from DVDs), and nearly all other
> forms of content, from Shakespeare's works to hard core adult
> materials.
>
><http://www.aimster.com/>
><http://www.limewire.com/>
><http://www.edonkey2000.com/>
><http://www.napster.com/>
><http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1206>
>
> What you will not find - even if you are the RIAA - is anyone to
> sue. Because unlike Napster, there are no companies underlying the
> software infrastructure, no servers to confiscate, no officers on
> whom to serve papers. The next generation of peer-to-peer clients
> relies on no central infrastructure whatsoever, and is being
> developed by a loose knit group of developers spread around the
> world, all donating their significant efforts without any real
> hope of getting paid for their work. All of the developers are men
> - or teenage boys - and though not following the typical societal
> track toward prestige, they are just as competitive as any rival
> athletes or entrepreneurs. Many are distributing their software as
> open source, so anyone else can fix bugs and make improvements.
> What this means is not just that the RIAA is applying makeup to
> the corpse of the music industry as we've known it. In fact, it
> heralds an even larger change about how all content is created and
> distributed, and raises serious questions as to whether content
> creators (such as the author of this essay) will ever be
> compensated for our work.
>
> Read a few dozen articles by top technology analysts, and it is
> often difficult to find one that doesn't breathlessly declare how
> this or that new technology represents a sea change, an inflection
> point, or the end of history. In fact, while the Internet's growth
> rates have been quite high, other technologies such as radio and
> gas cooking have actually been adopted faster. It may be, though,
> that all of the hype surrounding the digital duplication and
> peer-to-peer distribution of content actually underestimates the
> impact on the authors and publishers of music, movies, and written
> works.
>
> Put simply, in a world where there are essentially no costs to
> replicate content and it is effectively impossible to stop anyone
> from doing so at will, the current economic model underpinning
> content creation will be dead. Despite the protestations of
> lawyers, (certain) rock bands, and legislatures (all on the same
> losing side, oddly enough), we are entering that brave new world.
>
> If, as this hard technology determinist viewpoint suggests,
> content is destined to be free - i.e., the content creators and
> publishers will not be directly compensated the way they are today
> when you make a purchase from your local CD store - then the real
> question is what system could replace the content compensation
> system that has worked quite well for the last 300 years. However,
> implementing revenue models for infinitely redistributable goods
> is not an entirely novel question, and there are several economic
> models that can support the creation of content. What there may
> not be is _enough_ revenue to support the publishers of that
> content in addition to the authors, which helps explain why the
> RIAA is so eager to thwart digital distribution. When an ecosystem
> undergoes severe environmental changes, certain organisms that
> were previously essential - like the cyanobacteria that originally
> converted carbon dioxide to oxygen, or the record companies'
> A&R men - may recede to minor ecological niches.
>
> Economists have a term for what digital goods have become. Items
> are "nonrival" when we can all make use of them without anyone
> having to give them up. If I copy your CD, you're none the worse
> for it (nonrival), but if I steal your car, you will probably be
> upset (rival). Goods are "nonexcludable" when it becomes
> impractical to stop everyone from making use of the item, once one
> person can. It is infeasible, for instance, to stop additional
> viewers of broadcast television (nonexcludable), while it is very
> feasible to stop additional moviegoers from entering a theater
> (excludable). Economists call nonrival, nonexcludable items "pure
> public goods," although the name does not imply that public goods
> can be provided only by the government.
>
> Lighthouses are a classic pure public good. They are nonrival
> because each additional ship does not reduce the light available
> to the others. They are nonexcludable because any ship sailing by
> can see them. There are cases in New England two centuries ago of
> shipping guilds building privately managed lighthouses, even
> though the services couldn't be withheld from non-members. Most
> medical research and nearly all basic scientific research today is
> a pure public good, although for exactly this reason it is often
> financed (at least indirectly) by the government. Other textbook
> public goods are national defense, mosquito control, and public
> radio. In each case, the cost of providing the item to one
> consumer is the same as providing it to any number of consumers
> (nonrival), and it is impractical to stop anyone from making use
> of the good (nonexcludable). The table below provides some
> examples.
>
> | EXCLUDABLE | NONEXCLUDABLE
> -----------+--------------------+--------------------------------
> RIVAL | car, Walkman | unmanaged fishing rights
> -----------+--------------------+--------------------------------
> NONRIVAL | movie in a movie | lighthouses, national defense,
> | theater, concert | mosquito control
> | in a large hall |
>
> If content is becoming a pure public good, it will necessitate a
> radical rethinking of the recording industry's claim that copying
> content is stealing. We as a society react very differently toward
> the unpaid use of rival versus nonrival goods. Think of the
> punishment inflicted, for example, on those who steal cars versus
> those who listen to public radio without contributing to the fund
> drives. Of course, whether a good is rival or not is beside the
> point if you can successfully exclude people who don't pay. (Ask
> Microsoft, whose cost for selling one copy of Office is
> approximately the same as selling 100 million copies (nonrival),
> but which has used informant tactics and large legal penalties to
> make their software very excludable, at least for businesses.)
>
> The lawyers representing the recording and movie industry are well
> aware of the threat to their business models of digital content,
> and they believe they have already developed the answer:
> encryption. Encryption represents the music industry's last, best
> hope of maintaining their product as excludable. Why they are
> wrong, and content protection is doomed to failure, will have to
> wait for the next essay.
>
> [Dan Kohn is a General Partner with Skymoon Ventures. His writings
> are announced through <dankohn-subscribe@yahoogroups.com> and can
> be discussed through <dankohn-discuss-subscribe@yahoogroups.com>.]
>
><http://www.dankohn.com/>
><http://www.skymoonventures.com/>
>
>
>
>$$
>
> Non-profit, non-commercial publications may reprint articles if
> full credit is given. Others please contact us. We don't guarantee
> accuracy of articles. Caveat lector. Publication, product, and
> company names may be registered trademarks of their companies.
>
> This file is formatted as setext. For more information send email
> to <setext@tidbits.com>. A file will be returned shortly.
>
> For information: how to subscribe, where to find back issues,
> and more, email <info@tidbits.com>. TidBITS ISSN 1090-7017.
> Send comments and editorial submissions to: <editors@tidbits.com>
> Back issues available at: <http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/>
> And: <ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/issues/>
> Full text searching available at: <http://www.tidbits.com/search/>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
---- End Forwarded Text ----
--
___________________________________________________________________
Jeremy Quinn Karma Divers
webSpace Design
HyperMedia Research Centre
<mailto:sharkbait@mac.com> <http://www.media.demon.co.uk>
<phone:+44.[0].20.7737.6831> <pager:jermq@vizzavi.net>
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Get your FREE credit report with a FREE CreditCheck
Monitoring Service trial
http://us.click.yahoo.com/Gi0tnD/bQ8CAA/ySSFAA/GFYolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
From: richard barbrook <richard@hrc.wmin.ac.uk>
Subject: Fwd: TidBITS#603/29-Oct-01
Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 01:06:52 +0000 (GMT)
---- Begin Forwarded Text ----
>Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 21:00:00 -0800
>From: TidBITS Editors <editors@tidbits.com>
>Subject: TidBITS#603/29-Oct-01
>To: tidbits@tidbits.com (TidBITS Distribution)
>Reply-To: "TidBITS Editors" <editors@tidbits.com>
>
>TidBITS#603/29-Oct-01
>=====================
>Steal This Essay 2: Why Encryption Doesn't Help
>-----------------------------------------------
> by Dan Kohn
>
> "Doveriai no proveriai." (Trust but verify.)
> - Russian proverb, as quoted by Ronald Reagan
>
> Even as content becomes a public good, content creators (or at
> least the publishing and recording industries that claim to
> represent them) have been led to believe that encryption can
> protect their revenue streams. As I noted in the first of these
> essays, they are lambs being led to the slaughter.
>
><http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06604>
>
> Why is all content becoming a public good? It has realistically
> been nonrival for some time now, meaning that I can copy your CD
> of music or software for a few pennies or less, and you are in no
> way disadvantaged. (Of course, the author of that content may feel
> quite disadvantaged by this "theft," but as long as I don't
> scratch your CDs, there's no reason for you to care that I
> borrowed them for a few minutes.) In fact, the central concept
> of digitization - converting all content to streams of zeros and
> ones - entails making it infinitely copyable without any loss of
> quality, the very essence of nonrival goods.
>
> What has only become clear in the last couple years (although
> the Recording Industry Association of America - the RIAA -
> still has its head in the sand) is that digital content is also
> nonexcludable. Of course, tens of millions of dollars have been
> spent on a variety of means to make digital content uncopyable.
> Supposedly unremovable watermarks are embedded in images to detect
> copies (e.g., SDMI and Macrovision), content is encrypted so that
> it can only be viewed through an authorized player (e.g., DVD CSS
> and Microsoft's and Real Network's digital rights management
> systems being used in the music industry's Napster competitors,
> PressPlay and MusicNet), or some form of registration is required
> for activation (e.g., Office and Windows XP).
>
><http://www.riaa.org/>
><http://www.sdmi.org/>
><http://www.macrovision.com/>
><http://www.dvdcca.org/>
><http://www.pressplay.com/>
><http://www.musicnet.com/>
>
>
>**Encryption Is Ultimately Futile** -- The problem with the
> security of these approaches is that, as cryptographer Bruce
> Schneier points out, there are basically only two types of users:
> regular ones against whom _any_ form of copy protection will work,
> and experienced hackers, whom _no_ form of technology can stop.
> Your technophobe mother represents the first category, and your
> geeky nephew exemplifies the members of the second category. Why
> can't the hackers be stopped by encryption? If the challenge were
> just to transfer a file from one point to another without letting
> someone get to see its contents, encryption is up to the job. But,
> consumers don't listen to or watch encrypted versions of content.
> (I have, and it looks like static). They watch the regular,
> unencrypted version. So, somewhere close to the user, the content
> must be decrypted. And that decryption process typically runs on a
> PC, where experienced hackers can watch it work one instruction at
> a time, and change those instructions to enable the unencrypted
> content to be copied.
>
> Phrased differently, as long as the intention is ultimately to
> deliver the content to the customer (and hopefully even the RIAA
> is still trying to do that), then it's impossible to stop wily
> hackers from getting at the content in its unencrypted form and
> having their way with it. "Trying to secure [digital goods] is
> like trying to make water not wet," Schneier said recently. "Bits
> are copyable by definition."
>
> In early 2000, a 16-year-old in Norway named Jon Johansen was
> upset because he wanted to be able to play DVD movies in his Linux
> box's DVD drive, but the movie industry had not authorized any
> players for Linux. So, working with several anonymous contacts on
> the Internet, he cracked the copy protection scheme used by all
> DVDs, enabling them to be played on his machine and, incidentally,
> to be copied endlessly and perfectly. (The Norwegian police
> actually confiscated his computer at the request of the Motion
> Picture Association of America several days after he distributed
> the code on the Internet, providing a classic example of tardy
> barn door closing.) More to the point, one could ask what chance
> any copy protection scheme has, when random 16-year-olds with an
> Internet connection can succeed in breaking it in their spare
> time.
>
> But the news for authors such as myself, who might want to get
> paid for our work, gets worse. There are many in the music
> industry who believe that a 98 percent copy protection rate would
> be just fine, the same way that department stores calculate a
> presumed level of spoilage (i.e., stolen goods) in their
> inventories. That works for department stores because their goods
> are rival, so that even if a few shoplifters get their items for
> free, everyone else still has to pay. The problem for the RIAA is
> that nonrival content means crack once, run everywhere. That is,
> all it takes is one smart hacker to defeat the copy protection
> schemes for everyone. Then, your nephew can either distribute his
> hacks in an easy to use format that even your mother can install,
> or, more directly, he can just distribute the unencrypted content.
>
>
>**Advertising Support?** If content can't be made excludable (and
> thus easily charged for) via encryption, perhaps there are other
> ways to build business models around content. What about
> advertising? After all, broadcast television is essentially
> nonrival and nonexcludable, and it's financed by advertising.
> Unfortunately, no. First, as they have become ubiquitous, banner
> ads have dropped dramatically in effectiveness, as measured by
> click-through rates, which have fallen from 4 percent to 0.1
> percent. This is not too surprising, given that most people hate
> banner ads and do everything to try to ignore them. Ad rates for
> some large sites have fallen correspondingly from 40 cents per
> impression to less than 0.1 cents, one of the primary causes of
> the many new applications of former dot-com employees for
> Starbucks barista positions.
>
> And for content providers, the news grows still worse. The
> downturn in the economy has made it harder, particularly for
> publications without loyal readers, to attract advertisers, even
> at the lower ad rates. Then there's software such as WebWasher
> that automatically detects the banner ads on any given Web page
> and strips them out, which incidentally causes the page to load
> faster (just as a 30 minute television sitcom can be viewed in 22
> minutes without the ads). Ad blocking software replaces the ads
> that are supposed to be funding the content with blank space,
> which is what content providers' revenue models are starting to
> look like. The software is not perfect, but it's getting better
> and is already effective enough to strike fear into the hearts of
> content publishers and advertisers.
>
><http://www.webwasher.com/en/products/wwash/functions.htm>
>
> Even the soap companies that have funded so many years of daytime
> drama may start reconsidering their advertising budgets over the
> next decade, as digital video recorders such as TiVo become
> increasingly common. These enable viewers to have their favorite
> shows easily stored to a hard drive, where they can be
> conveniently replayed at the time of the viewer's (rather than the
> programmer's) convenience. Imagine setting your own viewing
> schedule rather than having it dictated by snotty network
> executives in LA and New York. Plus, these devices let you skip
> right past the commercials with a few clicks of the remote,
> thereby crumbling the foundations of 50 years of a profitable
> broadcast industry. New PC-based recorders such as SnapStream even
> support sharing recorded shows across the Internet, enabling video
> to take its place next to MP3s on the new peer-to-peer networks
> that are quickly replacing Napster. Why schedule your evening
> around a broadcast schedule and sit through brain-numbing
> commercials, when the show is available whenever you want it with
> the commercials already edited out? A world full of digital video
> recorders is one in which the couch potato is liberated from the
> slings and arrows of network programming (how dare they put that
> promising new show against Survivor!), and once again is empowered
> to make real choices about how, when, and what to watch. [For more
> on TiVo, see Andrew Laurence's two-part article series "TiVo:
> Freedom Through Time Shifting" and be sure to read the in-depth
> TidBITS Talk discussion on how personal video recorders are
> changing advertising. -Adam]
>
><http://www.snapstream.com/>
><http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1204>
><http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1461>
>
> Are there any categories of content from which individuals can be
> excluded? Only two that I can see. The first is showing movies at
> movie theaters. With a significant investment in digital
> distribution, and an even bigger investment into physical security
> at the theater, studios should be able to distribute movies
> without them immediately being copied onto the Internet (but watch
> out for those 16-year-old projectionist/hackers). The other
> category would appear to be Web services, where software is split
> into components that are loosely coupled and distributed across
> the Internet. Since you're interacting with numerous other
> computers, your identity can be continually reaffirmed (what
> Microsoft is planning with Hailstorm), making it nearly impossible
> to avoid paying. But any software that supports a disconnected
> mode (such as an operating system), can be easily (by hacker
> standards) modified so that it no longer "calls home" to ensure
> authenticity. The registration system for Windows XP was cracked
> so that running a simple program will remove the requirement for
> online activation, six months before the software was even
> released.
>
> Content won't truly be a pure public good for another ten years or
> so until broadband home Internet connections are ubiquitous,
> making it trivial to transfer large files around. But, since the
> process is already accelerating (Napster began with college
> students who already have broadband connectivity, and some new
> peer-to-peer file sharing services are designed explicitly for
> downloading very large files in the background), it's worth asking
> why anyone will create content when the old models for getting
> paid don't work. The answer will have to wait for another essay.
>
> [Dan Kohn is a General Partner with Skymoon Ventures. His writings
> are announced through <dankohn-subscribe@yahoogroups.com> and can
> be discussed through <dankohn-discuss-subscribe@yahoogroups.com>.]
>
><http://www.dankohn.com/>
><http://www.skymoonventures.com/>
>
>
>
>$$
>
> Non-profit, non-commercial publications may reprint articles if
> full credit is given. Others please contact us. We don't guarantee
> accuracy of articles. Caveat lector. Publication, product, and
> company names may be registered trademarks of their companies.
>
> This file is formatted as setext. For more information send email
> to <setext@tidbits.com>. A file will be returned shortly.
>
> For information: how to subscribe, where to find back issues,
> and more, email <info@tidbits.com>. TidBITS ISSN 1090-7017.
> Send comments and editorial submissions to: <editors@tidbits.com>
> Back issues available at: <http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/>
> And: <ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/issues/>
> Full text searching available at: <http://www.tidbits.com/search/>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
---- End Forwarded Text ----
--
<http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk> : <HyperMedia Research Centre>
<mailto:jeremy@hrc.wmin.ac.uk> : <http://www.media.demon.co.uk>
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
----- End forwarded message -----
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net