From b4855d80bac816e0b616cfb81666d72f4d9fcf9a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Ralph Amissah Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2013 13:38:57 -0400 Subject: data/samples/, provide alternative sisu markup style directories (and content) * in addition to data/samples/generic/ * data/samples/current/ * data/samples/minimal/ * data/samples/wrapped/ --- data/samples/wrapped/en/content.cory_doctorow.sst | 6215 +++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 6215 insertions(+) create mode 100644 data/samples/wrapped/en/content.cory_doctorow.sst (limited to 'data/samples/wrapped/en/content.cory_doctorow.sst') diff --git a/data/samples/wrapped/en/content.cory_doctorow.sst b/data/samples/wrapped/en/content.cory_doctorow.sst new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db40f7b --- /dev/null +++ b/data/samples/wrapped/en/content.cory_doctorow.sst @@ -0,0 +1,6215 @@ +% SiSU 4.0 + +@title: CONTENT + :subtitle: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright and the Future of the Future + +@creator: + :author: Doctorow, Cory |email doctorow@craphound.com + +@date: + :published: 2008-09 + +@rights: + :copyright: Copyright (C) Cory Doctorow, 2008. + :license: This entire work (with the exception of the introduction by John Perry Barlow) is copyright 2008 by Cory Doctorow and released under the terms of a Creative Commons US Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/). Some Rights Reserved. \\ The introduction is copyright 2008 by John Perry Barlow and released under the terms of a Creative Commons US Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/). Some Rights Reserved. + +@classify: + :topic_register: SiSU markup sample:book:discourse;book:discourse:copyright|content|creative commons|intellectual property;copyright;content;creative commons;intellectual property:copyright;intellectual property:copyright:creative commons;book:subject:culture|copyright|society|content|social aspects of technology;culture;society;technology:social aspects + :subject: Selected Essays + +@identifier: + :oclc: 268676051 + :isbn: 9781892391810 + +@links: + { CONTENT }http://craphound.com/content/ + { @ Wikipedia }http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow + { @ Amazon.com }http://www.amazon.com/Content-Selected-Technology-Creativity-Copyright/dp/1892391813 + { @ Barnes & Noble }http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Content/Cory-Doctorow/e/9781892391810/?itm=1&USRI=content+cory+doctorow + +@make: + :num_top: 1 + :breaks: break=1 + :emphasis: italics + :home_button_text: {CONTENT}http://craphound.com/content; {Cory Doctorow}http://www.doctorow.com + :footer: {CONTENT}http://craphound.com/content; {Cory Doctorow}http://www.doctorow.com + +:A~ @title @author + +--~# + +1~cc- A word about this downloadable file: + +I've been releasing my books online for free since my first novel, Down and Out +in the Magic Kingdom, came out in 2003, and with every one of those books, I've +included a little essay explaining why I do this sort of thing. + +I was tempted to write another one of these essays for this collection, but +then it hit me: *{this is a collection of essays that are largely concerned +with exactly this subject}*. + +You see, I don't just write essays about copyright to serve as forewards to my +books: I write them for magazine,s, newspapers, and websites -- I write +speeches on the subject for audiences of every description and in every nation. +And finally, here, I've collected my favorites, the closest I've ever come to a +Comprehensive Doctorow Manifesto. + +So I'm going to skip the foreword this time around: the *{whole book}* is my +explanation for why I'm giving it away for free online. + +If you like this book and you want to thank me, here's what I'd ask you to do, +in order of preference: + +_* Buy a copy: http://craphound.com/content/buy + +_* Donate a copy to a school or library: http://craphound.com/content/donate + +_* Send the ebook to five friends and tell them why you liked it + +_* Convert the ebook to a new file-format (see the download page for more) + +Now, on to the book! + +% $$$$ + +% Copyright notice: + +% This entire work (with the exception of the introduction by John Perry +% Barlow) is copyright 2008 by Cory Doctorow and released under the terms of a +% Creative Commons US Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license +% (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/). Some Rights Reserved. + +% The introduction is copyright 2008 by John Perry Barlow and released under +% the terms of a Creative Commons US Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license +% (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/). Some Rights Reserved. + +% $$$$ + +1~ha- Publication history and acknowledgments: + +Introductio: 2008, John Perry Barlow + +Microsoft Research DRM Talk (This talk was originally given to Microsoft's +Research Group and other interested parties from within the company at their +Redmond offices on June 17, 2004.) + +The DRM Sausage Factory (Originally published as "A Behind-The-Scenes Look At +How DRM Becomes Law," InformationWeek, July 11, 2007) + +Happy Meal Toys versus Copyright: How America chose Hollywood and Wal-Mart, and +why it's doomed us, and how we might survive anyway (Originally published as +"How Hollywood, Congress, And DRM Are Beating Up The American Economy," +InformationWeek, June 11, 2007) + +Why Is Hollywood Making A Sequel To The Napster Wars? (Originally published in +InformationWeek, August 14, 2007) + +You DO Like Reading Off a Computer Screen (Originally published in Locus +Magazine, March 2007) + +How Do You Protect Artists? (Originally published in The Guardian as "Online +censorship hurts us all," Tuesday, Oct 2, 2007) + +It's the Information Economy, Stupid (Originally published in The Guardian as +"Free data sharing is here to stay," September 18, 2007) + +Downloads Give Amazon Jungle Fever (Originally published in The Guardian, +December 11, 2007) + +What's the Most Important Right Creators Have? (Originally published as "How +Big Media's Copyright Campaigns Threaten Internet Free Expression," +InformationWeek, November 5, 2007) + +Giving it Away (Originally published on Forbes.com, December 2006) + +Science Fiction is the Only Literature People Care Enough About to Steal on the +Internet (Originally published in Locus Magazine, July 2006) + +How Copyright Broke (Originally published in Locus Magazine, September, 2006) + +In Praise of Fanfic (Originally published in Locus Magazine, May 2007) + +Metacrap: Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia +(Self-published, 26 August 2001) + +Amish for QWERTY (Originally published on the O'Reilly Network, 07/09/2003, +http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/wireless/2003/07/09/amish_qwerty.html) + +Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books (Paper for the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies +Conference, San Diego, February 12, 2004) + +Free(konomic) E-books (Originally published in Locus Magazine, September 2007) + +The Progressive Apocalypse and Other Futurismic Delights (Originally published +in Locus Magazine, July 2007) + +When the Singularity is More Than a Literary Device: An Interview with +Futurist-Inventor Ray Kurzweil (Originally published in Asimov's Science +Fiction Magazine, June 2005) + +Wikipedia: a genuine Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy -- minus the editors +(Originally published in The Anthology at the End of the Universe, April 2005) + +Warhol is Turning in His Grave (Originally published in The Guardian, November +13, 2007) + +The Future of Ignoring Things (Originally published on InformationWeek's +Internet Evolution, October 3, 2007) + +Facebook's Faceplant (Originally published as "How Your Creepy Ex-Co-Workers +Will Kill Facebook," in InformationWeek, November 26, 2007) + +The Future of Internet Immune Systems (Originally published on +InformationWeek's Internet Evolution, November 19, 2007) + +All Complex Ecosystems Have Parasites (Paper delivered at the O'Reilly Emerging +Technology Conference, San Diego, California, 16 March 2005) + +READ CAREFULLY (Originally published as "Shrinkwrap Licenses: An Epidemic Of +Lawsuits Waiting To Happen" in InformationWeek, February 3, 2007) + +World of Democracycraft (Originally published as "Why Online Games Are +Dictatorships," InformationWeek, April 16, 2007) + +Snitchtown (Originally published in Forbes.com, June 2007) + +$$$$ + +1~dedication- Dedication: + +For the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation: John Perry Barlow, +Mitch Kapor and John Gilmore + +For the staff -- past and present -- of the Electronic Frontier Foundation + +For the supporters of the Electronic Frontier Foundation + +--+# + +$$$$ + +% 1~ Table of Contents: + +% 1 Introduction by John Perry Barlow + +% 2 Microsoft Research DRM talk + +% 3 The DRM Sausage Factory + +% 4 Happy Meal Toys versus Copyright: How America chose Hollywood and +% Wal-Mart, and why it's doomed us, and how we might survive anyway + +% 5 Why Is Hollywood Making A Sequel To The Napster Wars? + +% 6 You DO Like Reading Off a Computer Screen + +% 7 How Do You Protect Artists? + +% 8 It's the Information Economy, Stupid + +% 9 Downloads Give Amazon Jungle Fever + +% 10 What's the Most Important Right Creators Have? + +% 11 Giving it Away + +% 12 Science Fiction is the Only Literature People Care Enough About to Steal on the Internet + +% 13 How Copyright Broke + +% 14 In Praise of Fanfic + +% 15 Metacrap: Putting the Torch to Seven Straw-Men of the Meta-Utopia + +% 16 Amish for QWERTY + +% 17 Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books + +% 18 Free(konomic) E-books + +% 19 The Progressive Apocalypse and Other Futurismic Delights + +% 20 When the Singularity is More Than a Literary Device: An Interview with Futurist-Inventor Ray Kurzweil + +% 21 Wikipedia: a genuine Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy -- minus the editors + +% 22 Warhol is Turning in His Grave + +% 23 The Future of Ignoring Things + +% 24 Facebook's Faceplant + +% 25 The Future of Internet Immune Systems + +% 26 All Complex Ecosystems Have Parasites + +% 27 READ CAREFULLY + +% 28 World of Democracycraft + +% 29 Snitchtown + +$$$$ + +1~ Introduction by John Perry Barlow + +San Francisco - Seattle - Vancouver - San Francisco + +Tuesday, April 1, 2008 + +"Content," huh? Ha! Where's the container? + +Perhaps these words appear to you on the pages of a book, a physical object +that might be said to have "contained" the thoughts of my friend and +co-conspirator Cory Doctorow as they were transported in boxes and trucks all +the way from his marvelous mind into yours. If that is so, I will concede that +you might be encountering "content". (Actually, if that's the case, I'm +delighted on Cory's behalf, since that means that you have also paid him for +these thoughts. We still know how to pay creators directly for the works they +embed in stuff.) + +But the chances are excellent that you're reading these liquid words as +bit-states of light on a computer screen, having taken advantage of his +willingness to let you have them in that form for free. In such an instance, +what "contains" them? Your hard disk? His? The Internet and all the servers and +routers in whose caches the ghosts of their passage might still remain? Your +mind? Cory's? + +To me, it doesn't matter. Even if you're reading this from a book, I'm still +not convinced that what you have in your hands is its container, or that, even +if we agreed on that point, that a little ink in the shape of, say, the visual +pattern you're trained to interpret as meaning "a little ink" in whatever font +the publisher chooses, is not, as Magritte would remind us, the same thing as a +little ink, even though it is. + +Meaning is the issue. If you couldn't read English, this whole book would +obviously contain nothing as far as you were concerned. Given that Cory is +really cool and interesting, you might be motivated to learn English so that +you could read this book, but even then it wouldn't be a container so much as a +conduit. + +The real "container" would be process of thought that began when I compressed +my notion of what is meant by the word "ink" - which, when it comes to the +substances that can be used to make marks on paper, is rather more variable +than you might think - and would kind of end when you decompressed it in your +own mind as whatever you think it is. + +I know this is getting a bit discursive, but I do have a point. Let me just +make it so we can move on. + +I believe, as I've stated before, that information is simultaneously a +relationship, an action, and an area of shared mind. What it isn't is a noun. + +Information is not a thing. It isn't an object. It isn't something that, when +you sell it or have it stolen, ceases to remain in your possession. It doesn't +have a market value that can be objectively determined. It is not, for example, +much like a 2004 Ducati ST4S motorcycle, for which I'm presently in the market, +and which seems - despite variabilities based on, I must admit, +informationally- based conditions like mileage and whether it's been dropped - +to have a value that is pretty consistent among the specimens I can find for a +sale on the Web. + +Such economic clarity could not be established for anything "in" this book, +which you either obtained for free or for whatever price the publisher +eventually puts on it. If it's a book you're reading from, then presumably Cory +will get paid some percentage of whatever you, or the person who gave it to +you, paid for it. + +But I won't. I'm not getting paid to write this forward, neither in royalties +nor upfront. I am, however, getting some intangible value, as one generally +does whenever he does a favor for a friend. For me, the value being retrieved +from going to the trouble of writing these words is not so different from the +value you retrieve from reading them. We are both mining a deeply intangible +"good," which lies in interacting with The Mind of Cory Doctorow. I mention +this because it demonstrates the immeasurable role of relationship as the +driving force in an information economy. + +But neither am I creating content at the moment nor are you "consuming" it +(since, unlike a hamburger, these words will remain after you're done with +them, and, also unlike a hamburger you won't subsequently, wellŠ never +mind.) Unlike real content, like the stuff in a shipping container, these words +have neither grams nor liters by which one might measure their value. Unlike +gasoline, ten bucks worth of this stuff will get some people a lot further than +others, depending on their interest and my eloquence, neither of which can be +quantified. + +It's this simple: the new meaning of the word "content," is plain wrong. In +fact, it is intentionally wrong. It's a usage that only arose when the +institutions that had fattened on their ability to bottle and distribute the +genius of human expression began to realize that their containers were melting +away, along with their reason to be in business. They started calling it +content at exactly the time it ceased to be. Previously they had sold books and +records and films, all nouns to be sure. They didn't know what to call the +mysterious ghosts of thought that were attached to them. + +Thus, when not applied to something you can put in a bucket (of whatever size), +"content" actually represents a plot to make you think that meaning is a thing. +It isn't. The only reason they want you to think that it is because they know +how to own things, how to give them a value based on weight or quantity, and, +more to the point, how to make them artificially scarce in order to increase +their value. + +That, and the fact that after a good 25 years of advance warning, they still +haven't done much about the Economy of Ideas besides trying to stop it from +happening. + +As I get older, I become less and less interested in saying "I told you so." +But in this case, I find it hard to resist. Back during the Internet equivalent +of the Pleistocene. I wrote a piece for an ancestor of Wired magazine called +Wired magazine that was titled, variously, "The Economy of Ideas" or "Wine +without Bottles." In this essay, I argued that it would be deucedly difficult +to continue to apply the Adam Smithian economic principles regarding the +relationship between scarcity and value to any products that could be +reproduced and distributed infinitely at zero cost. + +I proposed, moreover, that, to the extent that anything might be scarce in such +an economy, it would be attention, and that invisibility would be a bad +strategy for increasing attention. That, in other words, familiarity might +convey more value to information that scarcity would. + +I did my best to tell the folks in what is now called "The Content Industry" - +the institutions that once arose for the useful purpose of conveying creative +expression from one mind to many - that this would be a good time to change +their economic model. I proposed that copyright had worked largely because it +had been difficult, as a practical matter, to make a book or a record or motion +picture film spool. + +It was my theory that as soon as all human expression could be reduced into +ones and zeros, people would begin to realize what this "stuff" really was and +come up with an economic paradigm for rewarding its sources that didn't seem as +futile as claiming to own the wind. Organizations would adapt. The law would +change. The notion of "intellectual property," itself only about 35 years old, +would be chucked immediately onto the magnificent ash-heap of Civilization's +idiotic experiments. + +Of course, as we now know, I was wrong. Really wrong. + +As is my almost pathological inclination, I extended them too much credit. I +imputed to institutions the same capacities for adaptability and recognition of +the obvious that I assume for humans. But institutions, having the legal system +a fundamental part of their genetic code, are not so readily ductile. + +This is particularly true in America, where some combination of certainty and +control is the actual "deity" before whose altar we worship, and where we have +a regular practice of spawning large and inhuman collective organisms that are +a kind of meta-parasite. These critters - let's call them publicly-held +corporations - may be made out of humans, but they are not human. Given human +folly, that characteristic might be semi-ok if they were actually as +cold-bloodedly expedient as I once fancied them - yielding only to the will of +the markets and the raw self-interest of their shareholders. But no. They are +also symbiotically subject to the "religious beliefs" of those humans who feed +in their upper elevations. + +Unfortunately, the guys (and they mostly are guys) who've been running The +Content Industry since it started to die share something like a doctrinal +fundamentalism that has led them to such beliefs as the conviction that there's +no difference between listening to a song and shop-lifting a toaster. + +Moreover, they dwell in such a sublime state of denial that they think they are +stewarding the creative process as it arises in the creative humans they +exploit savagely - knowing, as they do, that a creative human would rather be +heard than paid - and that they, a bunch of sated old scoundrels nearing +retirement would be able to find technological means for wrapping "containers" +around "their" "content" that the adolescent electronic Hezbollah they've +inspired by suing their own customers will neither be smart nor motivated +enough to shred whatever pathetic digital bottles their lackeys design. + +And so it has been for the last 13 years. The companies that claim the ability +to regulate humanity's Right to Know have been tireless in their endeavors to +prevent the inevitable. The won most of the legislative battles in the U.S. and +abroad, having purchased all the government money could buy. They even won most +of the contests in court. They created digital rights management software +schemes that behaved rather like computer viruses. + +Indeed, they did about everything they could short of seriously examining the +actual economics of the situation - it has never been proven to me that illegal +downloads are more like shoplifted goods than viral marketing - or trying to +come up with a business model that the market might embrace. + +Had it been left to the stewardship of the usual suspects, there would scarcely +be a word or a note online that you didn't have to pay to experience. There +would be increasingly little free speech or any consequence, since free speech +is not something anyone can own. + +Fortunately there were countervailing forces of all sorts, beginning with the +wise folks who designed the Internet in the first place. Then there was +something called the Electronic Frontier Foundation which I co-founded, along +with Mitch Kapor and John Gilmore, back in 1990. Dedicated to the free exchange +of useful information in cyberspace, it seemed at times that I had been right +in suggesting then that practically every institution of the Industrial Period +would try to crush, or at least own, the Internet. That's a lot of lawyers to +have stacked against your cause. + +But we had Cory Doctorow. + +Had nature not provided us with a Cory Doctorow when we needed one, it would +have been necessary for us to invent a time machine and go into the future to +fetch another like him. That would be about the only place I can imagine +finding such a creature. Cory, as you will learn from his various rants +"contained" herein was perfectly suited to the task of subduing the dinosaurs +of content. + +He's a little like the guerilla plumber Tuttle in the movie Brazil. Armed with +a utility belt of improbable gizmos, a wildly over-clocked mind, a keyboard he +uses like a verbal machine gun, and, best of all, a dark sense of humor, he'd +go forth against massive industrial forces and return grinning, if a little +beat up. + +Indeed, many of the essays collected under this dubious title are not only +memoirs of his various campaigns but are themselves the very weapons he used in +them. Fortunately, he has spared you some of the more sophisticated utilities +he employed. He is not battering you with the nerdy technolingo he commands +when stacked up against various minutiacrats, but I assure you that he can +speak geek with people who, unlike Cory, think they're being pretty social when +they're staring at the other person's shoes. + +This was a necessary ability. One of the problems that EFF has to contend with +is that even though most of our yet-unborn constituency would agree heartily +with our central mission - giving everybody everywhere the right to both +address and hear everybody everywhere else - the decisions that will determine +the eventual viability of that right are being made now and generally in +gatherings invisible to the general public, using terminology, whether +technical or legal, that would be the verbal equivalent of chloroform to anyone +not conversant with such arcana. + +I've often repeated my belief that the first responsibility of a human being is +to be a better ancestor. Thus, it seems fitting that the appearance of this +book, which details much of Cory's time with the EFF, coincides with the +appearance of his first-born child, about whom he is a shameless sentimental +gusher. + +I would like to think that by the time this newest prodigy, Poesy Emmeline +Fibonacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow - you see what I mean about paternal +enthusiasm - has reached Cory's age of truly advanced adolescence, the world +will have recognized that there are better ways to regulate the economy of mind +than pretending that its products are something like pig iron. But even if it +hasn't, I am certain that the global human discourse will be less encumbered +than it would have been had not Cory Doctorow blessed our current little chunk +of space/time with his fierce endeavors. + +And whatever it is that might be "contained" in the following. + +$$$$ + +1~ Microsoft Research DRM Talk + +(This talk was originally given to Microsoft's Research Group and other +interested parties from within the company at their Redmond offices on June 17, +2004.) ~# + +Greetings fellow pirates! Arrrrr! + +I'm here today to talk to you about copyright, technology and DRM, I work for +the Electronic Frontier Foundation on copyright stuff (mostly), and I live in +London. I'm not a lawyer -- I'm a kind of mouthpiece/activist type, though +occasionally they shave me and stuff me into my Bar Mitzvah suit and send me to +a standards body or the UN to stir up trouble. I spend about three weeks a +month on the road doing completely weird stuff like going to Microsoft to talk +about DRM. + +I lead a double life: I'm also a science fiction writer. That means I've got a +dog in this fight, because I've been dreaming of making my living from writing +since I was 12 years old. Admittedly, my IP-based biz isn't as big as yours, +but I guarantee you that it's every bit as important to me as yours is to you. + +Here's what I'm here to convince you of: + +1. That DRM systems don't work + +2. That DRM systems are bad for society + +3. That DRM systems are bad for business + +4. That DRM systems are bad for artists + +5. That DRM is a bad business-move for MSFT + +It's a big brief, this talk. Microsoft has sunk a lot of capital into DRM +systems, and spent a lot of time sending folks like Martha and Brian and Peter +around to various smoke-filled rooms to make sure that Microsoft DRM finds a +hospitable home in the future world. Companies like Microsoft steer like old +Buicks, and this issue has a lot of forward momentum that will be hard to soak +up without driving the engine block back into the driver's compartment. At best +I think that Microsoft might convert some of that momentum on DRM into angular +momentum, and in so doing, save all our asses. + +Let's dive into it. + +-- + +2~x- 1. DRM systems don't work + +This bit breaks down into two parts: + +1. A quick refresher course in crypto theory + +2. Applying that to DRM + +Cryptography -- secret writing -- is the practice of keeping secrets. It +involves three parties: a sender, a receiver and an attacker (actually, there +can be more attackers, senders and recipients, but let's keep this simple). We +usually call these people Alice, Bob and Carol. + +Let's say we're in the days of the Caesar, the Gallic War. You need to send +messages back and forth to your generals, and you'd prefer that the enemy +doesn't get hold of them. You can rely on the idea that anyone who intercepts +your message is probably illiterate, but that's a tough bet to stake your +empire on. You can put your messages into the hands of reliable messengers +who'll chew them up and swallow them if captured -- but that doesn't help you +if Brad Pitt and his men in skirts skewer him with an arrow before he knows +what's hit him. + +So you encipher your message with something like ROT-13, where every character +is rotated halfway through the alphabet. They used to do this with non-worksafe +material on Usenet, back when anyone on Usenet cared about work-safe-ness -- A +would become N, B is O, C is P, and so forth. To decipher, you just add 13 +more, so N goes to A, O to B yadda yadda. + +Well, this is pretty lame: as soon as anyone figures out your algorithm, your +secret is g0nez0red. + +So if you're Caesar, you spend a lot of time worrying about keeping the +existence of your messengers and their payloads secret. Get that? You're +Augustus and you need to send a message to Brad without Caceous (a word I'm +reliably informed means "cheese-like, or pertaining to cheese") getting his +hands on it. You give the message to Diatomaceous, the fleetest runner in the +empire, and you encipher it with ROT-13 and send him out of the garrison in the +pitchest hour of the night, making sure no one knows that you've sent it out. +Caceous has spies everywhere, in the garrison and staked out on the road, and +if one of them puts an arrow through Diatomaceous, they'll have their hands on +the message, and then if they figure out the cipher, you're b0rked. So the +existence of the message is a secret. The cipher is a secret. The ciphertext is +a secret. That's a lot of secrets, and the more secrets you've got, the less +secure you are, especially if any of those secrets are shared. Shared secrets +aren't really all that secret any longer. + +Time passes, stuff happens, and then Tesla invents the radio and Marconi takes +credit for it. This is both good news and bad news for crypto: on the one hand, +your messages can get to anywhere with a receiver and an antenna, which is +great for the brave fifth columnists working behind the enemy lines. On the +other hand, anyone with an antenna can listen in on the message, which means +that it's no longer practical to keep the existence of the message a secret. +Any time Adolf sends a message to Berlin, he can assume Churchill overhears it. + +Which is OK, because now we have computers -- big, bulky primitive mechanical +computers, but computers still. Computers are machines for rearranging numbers, +and so scientists on both sides engage in a fiendish competition to invent the +most cleverest method they can for rearranging numerically represented text so +that the other side can't unscramble it. The existence of the message isn't a +secret anymore, but the cipher is. + +But this is still too many secrets. If Bobby intercepts one of Adolf's Enigma +machines, he can give Churchill all kinds of intelligence. I mean, this was +good news for Churchill and us, but bad news for Adolf. And at the end of the +day, it's bad news for anyone who wants to keep a secret. + +Enter keys: a cipher that uses a key is still more secure. Even if the cipher +is disclosed, even if the ciphertext is intercepted, without the key (or a +break), the message is secret. Post-war, this is doubly important as we begin +to realize what I think of as Schneier's Law: "any person can invent a security +system so clever that she or he can't think of how to break it." This means +that the only experimental methodology for discovering if you've made mistakes +in your cipher is to tell all the smart people you can about it and ask them to +think of ways to break it. Without this critical step, you'll eventually end up +living in a fool's paradise, where your attacker has broken your cipher ages +ago and is quietly decrypting all her intercepts of your messages, snickering +at you. + +Best of all, there's only one secret: the key. And with dual-key crypto it +becomes a lot easier for Alice and Bob to keep their keys secret from Carol, +even if they've never met. So long as Alice and Bob can keep their keys secret, +they can assume that Carol won't gain access to their cleartext messages, even +though she has access to the cipher and the ciphertext. Conveniently enough, +the keys are the shortest and simplest of the secrets, too: hence even easier +to keep away from Carol. Hooray for Bob and Alice. + +Now, let's apply this to DRM. + +In DRM, the attacker is *{also the recipient}*. It's not Alice and Bob and +Carol, it's just Alice and Bob. Alice sells Bob a DVD. She sells Bob a DVD +player. The DVD has a movie on it -- say, Pirates of the Caribbean -- and it's +enciphered with an algorithm called CSS -- Content Scrambling System. The DVD +player has a CSS un-scrambler. + +Now, let's take stock of what's a secret here: the cipher is well-known. The +ciphertext is most assuredly in enemy hands, arrr. So what? As long as the key +is secret from the attacker, we're golden. + +But there's the rub. Alice wants Bob to buy Pirates of the Caribbean from her. +Bob will only buy Pirates of the Caribbean if he can descramble the +CSS-encrypted VOB -- video object -- on his DVD player. Otherwise, the disc is +only useful to Bob as a drinks-coaster. So Alice has to provide Bob -- the +attacker -- with the key, the cipher and the ciphertext. + +Hilarity ensues. + +DRM systems are usually broken in minutes, sometimes days. Rarely, months. It's +not because the people who think them up are stupid. It's not because the +people who break them are smart. It's not because there's a flaw in the +algorithms. At the end of the day, all DRM systems share a common +vulnerability: they provide their attackers with ciphertext, the cipher and the +key. At this point, the secret isn't a secret anymore. + +-- + +2~x- 2. DRM systems are bad for society + +Raise your hand if you're thinking something like, "But DRM doesn't have to be +proof against smart attackers, only average individuals! It's like a +speedbump!" + +Put your hand down. + +This is a fallacy for two reasons: one technical, and one social. They're both +bad for society, though. + +Here's the technical reason: I don't need to be a cracker to break your DRM. I +only need to know how to search Google, or Kazaa, or any of the other +general-purpose search tools for the cleartext that someone smarter than me has +extracted. + +Raise your hand if you're thinking something like, "But NGSCB can solve this +problem: we'll lock the secrets up on the logic board and goop it all up with +epoxy." + +Put your hand down. + +Raise your hand if you're a co-author of the Darknet paper. + +Everyone in the first group, meet the co-authors of the Darknet paper. This is +a paper that says, among other things, that DRM will fail for this very reason. +Put your hands down, guys. + +Here's the social reason that DRM fails: keeping an honest user honest is like +keeping a tall user tall. DRM vendors tell us that their technology is meant to +be proof against average users, not organized criminal gangs like the Ukrainian +pirates who stamp out millions of high-quality counterfeits. It's not meant to +be proof against sophisticated college kids. It's not meant to be proof against +anyone who knows how to edit her registry, or hold down the shift key at the +right moment, or use a search engine. At the end of the day, the user DRM is +meant to defend against is the most unsophisticated and least capable among us. + +Here's a true story about a user I know who was stopped by DRM. She's smart, +college educated, and knows nothing about electronics. She has three kids. She +has a DVD in the living room and an old VHS deck in the kids' playroom. One +day, she brought home the Toy Story DVD for the kids. That's a substantial +investment, and given the generally jam-smeared character of everything the +kids get their paws on, she decided to tape the DVD off to VHS and give that to +the kids -- that way she could make a fresh VHS copy when the first one went +south. She cabled her DVD into her VHS and pressed play on the DVD and record +on the VCR and waited. + +Before I go farther, I want us all to stop a moment and marvel at this. Here is +someone who is practically technophobic, but who was able to construct a mental +model of sufficient accuracy that she figured out that she could connect her +cables in the right order and dub her digital disc off to analog tape. I +imagine that everyone in this room is the front-line tech support for someone +in her or his family: wouldn't it be great if all our non-geek friends and +relatives were this clever and imaginative? + +I also want to point out that this is the proverbial honest user. She's not +making a copy for the next door neighbors. She's not making a copy and selling +it on a blanket on Canal Street. She's not ripping it to her hard-drive, DivX +encoding it and putting it in her Kazaa sharepoint. She's doing something +*{honest}* -- moving it from one format to another. She's home taping. + +Except she fails. There's a DRM system called Macrovision embedded -- by law -- +in every VHS that messes with the vertical blanking interval in the signal and +causes any tape made in this fashion to fail. Macrovision can be defeated for +about $10 with a gadget readily available on eBay. But our infringer doesn't +know that. She's "honest." Technically unsophisticated. Not stupid, mind you -- +just naive. + +The Darknet paper addresses this possibility: it even predicts what this person +will do in the long run: she'll find out about Kazaa and the next time she +wants to get a movie for the kids, she'll download it from the net and burn it +for them. + +In order to delay that day for as long as possible, our lawmakers and big +rightsholder interests have come up with a disastrous policy called +anticircumvention. + +Here's how anticircumvention works: if you put a lock -- an access control -- +around a copyrighted work, it is illegal to break that lock. It's illegal to +make a tool that breaks that lock. It's illegal to tell someone how to make +that tool. One court even held it illegal to tell someone where she can find +out how to make that tool. + +Remember Schneier's Law? Anyone can come up with a security system so clever +that he can't see its flaws. The only way to find the flaws in security is to +disclose the system's workings and invite public feedback. But now we live in a +world where any cipher used to fence off a copyrighted work is off-limits to +that kind of feedback. That's something that a Princeton engineering prof named +Ed Felten and his team discovered when he submitted a paper to an academic +conference on the failings in the Secure Digital Music Initiative, a +watermarking scheme proposed by the recording industry. The RIAA responded by +threatening to sue his ass if he tried it. We fought them because Ed is the +kind of client that impact litigators love: unimpeachable and clean-cut and the +RIAA folded. Lucky Ed. Maybe the next guy isn't so lucky. + +Matter of fact, the next guy wasn't. Dmitry Sklyarov is a Russian programmer +who gave a talk at a hacker con in Vegas on the failings in Adobe's e-book +locks. The FBI threw him in the slam for 30 days. He copped a plea, went home +to Russia, and the Russian equivalent of the State Department issued a blanket +warning to its researchers to stay away from American conferences, since we'd +apparently turned into the kind of country where certain equations are illegal. + +Anticircumvention is a powerful tool for people who want to exclude +competitors. If you claim that your car engine firmware is a "copyrighted +work," you can sue anyone who makes a tool for interfacing with it. That's not +just bad news for mechanics -- think of the hotrodders who want to chip their +cars to tweak the performance settings. We have companies like Lexmark claiming +that their printer cartridges contain copyrighted works -- software that trips +an "I am empty" flag when the toner runs out, and have sued a competitor who +made a remanufactured cartridge that reset the flag. Even garage-door opener +companies have gotten in on the act, claiming that their receivers' firmware +are copyrighted works. Copyrighted cars, print carts and garage-door openers: +what's next, copyrighted light-fixtures? + +Even in the context of legitimate -- excuse me, "traditional" -- copyrighted +works like movies on DVDs, anticircumvention is bad news. Copyright is a +delicate balance. It gives creators and their assignees some rights, but it +also reserves some rights to the public. For example, an author has no right to +prohibit anyone from transcoding his books into assistive formats for the +blind. More importantly, though, a creator has a very limited say over what you +can do once you lawfully acquire her works. If I buy your book, your painting, +or your DVD, it belongs to me. It's my property. Not my "intellectual property" +-- a whacky kind of pseudo-property that's swiss-cheesed with exceptions, +easements and limitations -- but real, no-fooling, actual tangible *{property}* +-- the kind of thing that courts have been managing through property law for +centuries. + +But anticirumvention lets rightsholders invent new and exciting copyrights for +themselves -- to write private laws without accountability or deliberation -- +that expropriate your interest in your physical property to their favor. +Region-coded DVDs are an example of this: there's no copyright here or in +anywhere I know of that says that an author should be able to control where you +enjoy her creative works, once you've paid for them. I can buy a book and throw +it in my bag and take it anywhere from Toronto to Timbuktu, and read it +wherever I am: I can even buy books in America and bring them to the UK, where +the author may have an exclusive distribution deal with a local publisher who +sells them for double the US shelf-price. When I'm done with it, I can sell it +on or give it away in the UK. Copyright lawyers call this "First Sale," but it +may be simpler to think of it as "Capitalism." + +The keys to decrypt a DVD are controlled by an org called DVD-CCA, and they +have a bunch of licensing requirements for anyone who gets a key from them. +Among these is something called region-coding: if you buy a DVD in France, +it'll have a flag set that says, "I am a European DVD." Bring that DVD to +America and your DVD player will compare the flag to its list of permitted +regions, and if they don't match, it will tell you that it's not allowed to +play your disc. + +Remember: there is no copyright that says that an author gets to do this. When +we wrote the copyright statutes and granted authors the right to control +display, performance, duplication, derivative works, and so forth, we didn't +leave out "geography" by accident. That was on-purpose. + +So when your French DVD won't play in America, that's not because it'd be +illegal to do so: it's because the studios have invented a business-model and +then invented a copyright law to prop it up. The DVD is your property and so is +the DVD player, but if you break the region-coding on your disc, you're going +to run afoul of anticircumvention. + +That's what happened to Jon Johansen, a Norwegian teenager who wanted to watch +French DVDs on his Norwegian DVD player. He and some pals wrote some code to +break the CSS so that he could do so. He's a wanted man here in America; in +Norway the studios put the local fuzz up to bringing him up on charges of +*{unlawfully trespassing upon a computer system}*. When his defense asked, +"Which computer has Jon trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own." + +His no-fooling, real and physical property has been expropriated by the weird, +notional, metaphorical intellectual property on his DVD: DRM only works if your +record player becomes the property of whomever's records you're playing. + +-- + +2~x- 3. DRM systems are bad for biz + +This is the worst of all the ideas embodied by DRM: that people who make +record-players should be able to spec whose records you can listen to, and that +people who make records should have a veto over the design of record-players. + +We've never had this principle: in fact, we've always had just the reverse. +Think about all the things that can be plugged into a parallel or serial +interface, which were never envisioned by their inventors. Our strong economy +and rapid innovation are byproducts of the ability of anyone to make anything +that plugs into anything else: from the Flo-bee electric razor that snaps onto +the end of your vacuum-hose to the octopus spilling out of your car's dashboard +lighter socket, standard interfaces that anyone can build for are what makes +billionaires out of nerds. + +The courts affirm this again and again. It used to be illegal to plug anything +that didn't come from AT&T into your phone-jack. They claimed that this was for +the safety of the network, but really it was about propping up this little +penny-ante racket that AT&T had in charging you a rental fee for your phone +until you'd paid for it a thousand times over. + +When that ban was struck down, it created the market for third-party phone +equipment, from talking novelty phones to answering machines to cordless +handsets to headsets -- billions of dollars of economic activity that had been +suppressed by the closed interface. Note that AT&T was one of the big +beneficiaries of this: they *{also}* got into the business of making phone-kit. + +DRM is the software equivalent of these closed hardware interfaces. Robert +Scoble is a Softie who has an excellent blog, where he wrote an essay about the +best way to protect your investment in the digital music you buy. Should you +buy Apple iTunes music, or Microsoft DRM music? Scoble argued that Microsoft's +music was a sounder investment, because Microsoft would have more downstream +licensees for its proprietary format and therefore you'd have a richer +ecosystem of devices to choose from when you were shopping for gizmos to play +your virtual records on. + +What a weird idea: that we should evaluate our record-purchases on the basis of +which recording company will allow the greatest diversity of record-players to +play its discs! That's like telling someone to buy the Betamax instead of the +Edison Kinetoscope because Thomas Edison is a crank about licensing his +patents; all the while ignoring the world's relentless march to the more open +VHS format. + +It's a bad business. DVD is a format where the guy who makes the records gets +to design the record players. Ask yourself: how much innovation has there been +over the past decade of DVD players? They've gotten cheaper and smaller, but +where are the weird and amazing new markets for DVD that were opened up by the +VCR? There's a company that's manufacturing the world's first HDD-based DVD +jukebox, a thing that holds 100 movies, and they're charging *{$27,000}* for +this thing. We're talking about a few thousand dollars' worth of components -- +all that other cost is the cost of anticompetition. + +-- + +2~x- 4. DRM systems are bad for artists + +But what of the artist? The hardworking filmmaker, the ink-stained scribbler, +the heroin-cured leathery rock-star? We poor slobs of the creative class are +everyone's favorite poster-children here: the RIAA and MPAA hold us up and say, +"Won't someone please think of the children?" File-sharers say, "Yeah, we're +thinking about the artists, but the labels are The Man, who cares what happens +to you?" + +To understand what DRM does to artists, you need to understand how copyright +and technology interact. Copyright is inherently technological, since the +things it addresses -- copying, transmitting, and so on -- are inherently +technological. + +The piano roll was the first system for cheaply copying music. It was invented +at a time when the dominant form of entertainment in America was getting a +talented pianist to come into your living room and pound out some tunes while +you sang along. The music industry consisted mostly of sheet-music publishers. + +The player piano was a digital recording and playback system. Piano-roll +companies bought sheet music and ripped the notes printed on it into 0s and 1s +on a long roll of computer tape, which they sold by the thousands -- the +hundreds of thousands -- the millions. They did this without a penny's +compensation to the publishers. They were digital music pirates. Arrrr! + +Predictably, the composers and music publishers went nutso. Sousa showed up in +Congress to say that: + +group{ + + These talking machines are going to ruin the + artistic development of music in this + country. When I was a boy...in front of every + house in the summer evenings, you would find + young people together singing the songs of + the day or old songs. Today you hear these + infernal machines going night and day. We + will not have a vocal chord left. The vocal + chord will be eliminated by a process of + evolution, as was the tail of man when he + came from the ape. + +}group + +The publishers asked Congress to ban the piano roll and to create a law that +said that any new system for reproducing music should be subject to a veto from +their industry association. Lucky for us, Congress realized what side of their +bread had butter on it and decided not to criminalize the dominant form of +entertainment in America. + +But there was the problem of paying artists. The Constitution sets out the +purpose of American copyright: to promote the useful arts and sciences. The +composers had a credible story that they'd do less composing if they weren't +paid for it, so Congress needed a fix. Here's what they came up with: anyone +who paid a music publisher two cents would have the right to make one piano +roll of any song that publisher published. The publisher couldn't say no, and +no one had to hire a lawyer at $200 an hour to argue about whether the payment +should be two cents or a nickel. + +This compulsory license is still in place today: when Joe Cocker sings "With a +Little Help from My Friends," he pays a fixed fee to the Beatles' publisher and +away he goes -- even if Ringo hates the idea. If you ever wondered how Sid +Vicious talked Anka into letting him get a crack at "My Way," well, now you +know. + +That compulsory license created a world where a thousand times more money was +made by a thousand times more creators who made a thousand times more music +that reached a thousand times more people. + +This story repeats itself throughout the technological century, every ten or +fifteen years. Radio was enabled by a voluntary blanket license -- the music +companies got together and asked for a consent decree so that they could offer +all their music for a flat fee. Cable TV took a compulsory: the only way cable +operators could get their hands on broadcasts was to pirate them and shove them +down the wire, and Congress saw fit to legalize this practice rather than screw +around with their constituents' TVs. + +Sometimes, the courts and Congress decided to simply take away a copyright -- +that's what happened with the VCR. When Sony brought out the VCR in 1976, the +studios had already decided what the experience of watching a movie in your +living room would look like: they'd licensed out their programming for use on a +machine called a Discovision, which played big LP-sized discs that were +read-only. Proto-DRM. + +The copyright scholars of the day didn't give the VCR very good odds. Sony +argued that their box allowed for a fair use, which is defined as a use that a +court rules is a defense against infringement based on four factors: whether +the use transforms the work into something new, like a collage; whether it uses +all or some of the work; whether the work is artistic or mainly factual; and +whether the use undercuts the creator's business-model. + +The Betamax failed on all four fronts: when you time-shifted or duplicated a +Hollywood movie off the air, you made a non-transformative use of 100 percent +of a creative work in a way that directly undercut the Discovision licensing +stream. + +Jack Valenti, the mouthpiece for the motion-picture industry, told Congress in +1982 that the VCR was to the American film industry "as the Boston Strangler is +to a woman home alone." + +But the Supreme Court ruled against Hollywood in 1984, when it determined that +any device capable of a substantial non-infringing use was legal. In other +words, "We don't buy this Boston Strangler business: if your business model +can't survive the emergence of this general-purpose tool, it's time to get +another business-model or go broke." + +Hollywood found another business model, as the broadcasters had, as the +Vaudeville artists had, as the music publishers had, and they made more art +that paid more artists and reached a wider audience. + +There's one thing that every new art business-model had in common: it embraced +the medium it lived in. + +This is the overweening characteristic of every single successful new medium: +it is true to itself. The Luther Bible didn't succeed on the axes that made a +hand-copied monk Bible valuable: they were ugly, they weren't in Church Latin, +they weren't read aloud by someone who could interpret it for his lay audience, +they didn't represent years of devoted-with-a-capital-D labor by someone who +had given his life over to God. The thing that made the Luther Bible a success +was its scalability: it was more popular because it was more proliferate: all +success factors for a new medium pale beside its profligacy. The most +successful organisms on earth are those that reproduce the most: bugs and +bacteria, nematodes and virii. Reproduction is the best of all survival +strategies. + +Piano rolls didn't sound as good as the music of a skilled pianist: but they +*{scaled better}*. Radio lacked the social elements of live performance, but +more people could build a crystal set and get it aimed correctly than could +pack into even the largest Vaudeville house. MP3s don't come with liner notes, +they aren't sold to you by a hipper-than-thou record store clerk who can help +you make your choice, bad rips and truncated files abound: I once downloaded a +twelve-second copy of "Hey Jude" from the original Napster. Yet MP3 is +outcompeting the CD. I don't know what to do with CDs anymore: I get them, and +they're like the especially nice garment bag they give you at the fancy suit +shop: it's nice and you feel like a goof for throwing it out, but Christ, how +many of these things can you usefully own? I can put ten thousand songs on my +laptop, but a comparable pile of discs, with liner notes and so forth -- that's +a liability: it's a piece of my monthly storage-locker costs. + +Here are the two most important things to know about computers and the +Internet: + +1. A computer is a machine for rearranging bits + +2. The Internet is a machine for moving bits from one place to another very +cheaply and quickly + +Any new medium that takes hold on the Internet and with computers will embrace +these two facts, not regret them. A newspaper press is a machine for spitting +out cheap and smeary newsprint at speed: if you try to make it output fine art +lithos, you'll get junk. If you try to make it output newspapers, you'll get +the basis for a free society. + +And so it is with the Internet. At the heyday of Napster, record execs used to +show up at conferences and tell everyone that Napster was doomed because no one +wanted lossily compressed MP3s with no liner notes and truncated files and +misspelled metadata. + +Today we hear ebook publishers tell each other and anyone who'll listen that +the barrier to ebooks is screen resolution. It's bollocks, and so is the whole +sermonette about how nice a book looks on your bookcase and how nice it smells +and how easy it is to slip into the tub. These are obvious and untrue things, +like the idea that radio will catch on once they figure out how to sell you +hotdogs during the intermission, or that movies will really hit their stride +when we can figure out how to bring the actors out for an encore when the +film's run out. Or that what the Protestant Reformation really needs is Luther +Bibles with facsimile illumination in the margin and a rent-a-priest to read +aloud from your personal Word of God. + +New media don't succeed because they're like the old media, only better: they +succeed because they're worse than the old media at the stuff the old media is +good at, and better at the stuff the old media are bad at. Books are good at +being paperwhite, high-resolution, low-infrastructure, cheap and disposable. +Ebooks are good at being everywhere in the world at the same time for free in a +form that is so malleable that you can just pastebomb it into your IM session +or turn it into a page-a-day mailing list. + +The only really successful epublishing -- I mean, hundreds of thousands, +millions of copies distributed and read -- is the bookwarez scene, where +scanned-and-OCR'd books are distributed on the darknet. The only legit +publishers with any success at epublishing are the ones whose books cross the +Internet without technological fetter: publishers like Baen Books and my own, +Tor, who are making some or all of their catalogs available in ASCII and HTML +and PDF. + +The hardware-dependent ebooks, the DRM use-and-copy-restricted ebooks, they're +cratering. Sales measured in the tens, sometimes the hundreds. Science fiction +is a niche business, but when you're selling copies by the ten, that's not even +a business, it's a hobby. + +Every one of you has been riding a curve where you read more and more words off +of more and more screens every day through most of your professional careers. +It's zero-sum: you've also been reading fewer words off of fewer pages as time +went by: the dinosauric executive who prints his email and dictates a reply to +his secretary is info-roadkill. + +Today, at this very second, people read words off of screens for every hour +that they can find. Your kids stare at their Game Boys until their eyes fall +out. Euroteens ring doorbells with their hypertrophied, SMS-twitching thumbs +instead of their index fingers. + +Paper books are the packaging that books come in. Cheap printer-binderies like +the Internet Bookmobile that can produce a full bleed, four color, glossy +cover, printed spine, perfect-bound book in ten minutes for a dollar are the +future of paper books: when you need an instance of a paper book, you generate +one, or part of one, and pitch it out when you're done. I landed at SEA-TAC on +Monday and burned a couple CDs from my music collection to listen to in the +rental car. When I drop the car off, I'll leave them behind. Who needs 'em? + +Whenever a new technology has disrupted copyright, we've changed copyright. +Copyright isn't an ethical proposition, it's a utilitarian one. There's nothing +*{moral}* about paying a composer tuppence for the piano-roll rights, there's +nothing *{immoral}* about not paying Hollywood for the right to videotape a +movie off your TV. They're just the best way of balancing out so that people's +physical property rights in their VCRs and phonographs are respected and so +that creators get enough of a dangling carrot to go on making shows and music +and books and paintings. + +Technology that disrupts copyright does so because it simplifies and cheapens +creation, reproduction and distribution. The existing copyright businesses +exploit inefficiencies in the old production, reproduction and distribution +system, and they'll be weakened by the new technology. But new technology +always gives us more art with a wider reach: that's what tech is *{for}*. + +Tech gives us bigger pies that more artists can get a bite out of. That's been +tacitly acknowledged at every stage of the copyfight since the piano roll. When +copyright and technology collide, it's copyright that changes. + +Which means that today's copyright -- the thing that DRM nominally props up -- +didn't come down off the mountain on two stone tablets. It was created in +living memory to accommodate the technical reality created by the inventors of +the previous generation. To abandon invention now robs tomorrow's artists of +the new businesses and new reach and new audiences that the Internet and the PC +can give them. + +-- + +2~x- 5. DRM is a bad business-move for MSFT + +When Sony brought out the VCR, it made a record player that could play +Hollywood's records, even if Hollywood didn't like the idea. The industries +that grew up on the back of the VCR -- movie rentals, home taping, camcorders, +even Bar Mitzvah videographers -- made billions for Sony and its cohort. + +That was good business -- even if Sony lost the Betamax-VHS format wars, the +money on the world-with-VCRs table was enough to make up for it. + +But then Sony acquired a relatively tiny entertainment company and it started +to massively screw up. When MP3 rolled around and Sony's walkman customers were +clamoring for a solid-state MP3 player, Sony let its music business-unit run +its show: instead of making a high-capacity MP3 walkman, Sony shipped its Music +Clips, low-capacity devices that played brain-damaged DRM formats like Real and +OpenMG. They spent good money engineering "features" into these devices that +kept their customers from freely moving their music back and forth between +their devices. Customers stayed away in droves. + +Today, Sony is dead in the water when it comes to walkmen. The market leaders +are poky Singaporean outfits like Creative Labs -- the kind of company that +Sony used to crush like a bug, back before it got borged by its entertainment +unit -- and PC companies like Apple. + +That's because Sony shipped a product that there was no market demand for. No +Sony customer woke up one morning and said, "Damn, I wish Sony would devote +some expensive engineering effort in order that I may do less with my music." +Presented with an alternative, Sony's customers enthusiastically jumped ship. + +The same thing happened to a lot of people I know who used to rip their CDs to +WMA. You guys sold them software that produced smaller, better-sounding rips +than the MP3 rippers, but you also fixed it so that the songs you ripped were +device-locked to their PCs. What that meant is that when they backed up their +music to another hard-drive and reinstalled their OS (something that the +spyware and malware wars has made more common than ever), they discovered that +after they restored their music that they could no longer play it. The player +saw the new OS as a different machine, and locked them out of their own music. + +There is no market demand for this "feature." None of your customers want you +to make expensive modifications to your products that make backing up and +restoring even harder. And there is no moment when your customers will be less +forgiving than the moment that they are recovering from catastrophic technology +failures. + +I speak from experience. Because I buy a new Powerbook every ten months, and +because I always order the new models the day they're announced, I get a lot of +lemons from Apple. That means that I hit Apple's +three-iTunes-authorized-computers limit pretty early on and found myself unable +to play the hundreds of dollars' worth of iTunes songs I'd bought because one +of my authorized machines was a lemon that Apple had broken up for parts, one +was in the shop getting fixed by Apple, and one was my mom's computer, 3,000 +miles away in Toronto. + +If I had been a less good customer for Apple's hardware, I would have been +fine. If I had been a less enthusiastic evangelist for Apple's products -- if I +hadn't shown my mom how iTunes Music Store worked -- I would have been fine. If +I hadn't bought so much iTunes music that burning it to CD and re-ripping it +and re-keying all my metadata was too daunting a task to consider, I would have +been fine. + +As it was Apple rewarded my trust, evangelism and out-of-control spending by +treating me like a crook and locking me out of my own music, at a time when my +Powerbook was in the shop -- i.e., at a time when I was hardly disposed to feel +charitable to Apple. + +I'm an edge case here, but I'm a *{leading edge}* case. If Apple succeeds in +its business plans, it will only be a matter of time until even average +customers have upgraded enough hardware and bought enough music to end up where +I am. + +You know what I would totally buy? A record player that let me play everybody's +records. Right now, the closest I can come to that is an open source app called +VLC, but it's clunky and buggy and it didn't come pre-installed on my computer. + +Sony didn't make a Betamax that only played the movies that Hollywood was +willing to permit -- Hollywood asked them to do it, they proposed an early, +analog broadcast flag that VCRs could hunt for and respond to by disabling +recording. Sony ignored them and made the product they thought their customers +wanted. + +I'm a Microsoft customer. Like millions of other Microsoft customers, I want a +player that plays anything I throw at it, and I think that you are just the +company to give it to me. + +Yes, this would violate copyright law as it stands, but Microsoft has been +making tools of piracy that change copyright law for decades now. Outlook, +Exchange and MSN are tools that abet widescale digital infringement. + +More significantly, IIS and your caching proxies all make and serve copies of +documents without their authors' consent, something that, if it is legal today, +is only legal because companies like Microsoft went ahead and did it and dared +lawmakers to prosecute. + +Microsoft stood up for its customers and for progress, and won so decisively +that most people never even realized that there was a fight. + +Do it again! This is a company that looks the world's roughest, toughest +anti-trust regulators in the eye and laughs. Compared to anti-trust people, +copyright lawmakers are pantywaists. You can take them with your arm behind +your back. + +In Siva Vaidhyanathan's book The Anarchist in the Library, he talks about why +the studios are so blind to their customers' desires. It's because people like +you and me spent the 80s and the 90s telling them bad science fiction stories +about impossible DRM technology that would let them charge a small sum of money +every time someone looked at a movie -- want to fast-forward? That feature +costs another penny. Pausing is two cents an hour. The mute button will cost +you a quarter. + +When Mako Analysis issued their report last month advising phone companies to +stop supporting Symbian phones, they were just writing the latest installment +in this story. Mako says that phones like my P900, which can play MP3s as +ringtones, are bad for the cellphone economy, because it'll put the +extortionate ringtone sellers out of business. What Mako is saying is that just +because you bought the CD doesn't mean that you should expect to have the +ability to listen to it on your MP3 player, and just because it plays on your +MP3 player is no reason to expect it to run as a ringtone. I wonder how they +feel about alarm clocks that will play a CD to wake you up in the morning? Is +that strangling the nascent "alarm tone" market? + +The phone companies' customers want Symbian phones and for now, at least, the +phone companies understand that if they don't sell them, someone else will. + +The market opportunity for a truly capable devices is enormous. There's a +company out there charging *{$27,000}* for a DVD jukebox -- go and eat their +lunch! Steve Jobs isn't going to do it: he's off at the D conference telling +studio execs not to release hi-def movies until they're sure no one will make a +hi-def DVD burner that works with a PC. + +Maybe they won't buy into his BS, but they're also not much interested in what +you have to sell. At the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group meetings where +the Broadcast Flag was hammered out, the studios' position was, "We'll take +anyone's DRM except Microsoft's and Philips'." When I met with UK broadcast +wonks about the European version of the Broadcast Flag underway at the Digital +Video Broadcasters' forum, they told me, "Well, it's different in Europe: +mostly they're worried that some American company like Microsoft will get their +claws into European television." + +American film studios didn't want the Japanese electronics companies to get a +piece of the movie pie, so they fought the VCR. Today, everyone who makes +movies agrees that they don't want to let you guys get between them and their +customers. + +Sony didn't get permission. Neither should you. Go build the record player that +can play everyone's records. + +Because if you don't do it, someone else will. + +$$$$ + +1~ The DRM Sausage Factory + +(Originally published as "A Behind-The-Scenes Look At How DRM Becomes Law," +InformationWeek, July 11, 2007) ~# + +Otto von Bismarck quipped, "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see +them being made." I've seen sausages made. I've seen laws made. Both pale in +comparison to the process by which anti-copying technology agreements are made. + +This technology, usually called "Digital Rights Management" (DRM) proposes to +make your computer worse at copying some of the files on its hard-drive or on +other media. Since all computer operations involve copying, this is a daunting +task -- as security expert Bruce Schneier has said, "Making bits harder to copy +is like making water that's less wet." + +At root, DRMs are technologies that treat the owner of a computer or other +device as an attacker, someone against whom the system must be armored. Like +the electrical meter on the side of your house, a DRM is a technology that you +possess, but that you are never supposed to be able to manipulate or modify. +Unlike the your meter, though, a DRM that is defeated in one place is defeated +in all places, nearly simultaneously. That is to say, once someone takes the +DRM off a song or movie or ebook, that freed collection of bits can be sent to +anyone else, anywhere the network reaches, in an eyeblink. DRM crackers need +cunning: those who receive the fruits of their labor need only know how to +download files from the Internet. + +Why manufacture a device that attacks its owner? A priori, one would assume +that such a device would cost more to make than a friendlier one, and that +customers would prefer not to buy devices that treat them as presumptive +criminals. DRM technologies limit more than copying: they limit ranges of uses, +such as viewing a movie in a different country, copying a song to a different +manufacturer's player, or even pausing a movie for too long. Surely, this stuff +hurts sales: who goes into a store and asks, "Do you have any music that's +locked to just one company's player? I'm in the market for some lock-in." + +So why do manufacturers do it? As with many strange behaviors, there's a carrot +at play here, and a stick. + +The carrot is the entertainment industries' promise of access to their +copyrighted works. Add DRM to your iPhone and we'll supply music for it. Add +DRM to your TiVo and we'll let you plug it into our satellite receivers. Add +DRM to your Zune and we'll let you retail our music in your Zune store. + +The stick is the entertainment industries' threat of lawsuits for companies +that don't comply. In the last century, entertainment companies fought over the +creation of records, radios, jukeboxes, cable TV, VCRs, MP3 players and other +technologies that made it possible to experience a copyrighted work in a new +way without permission. There's one battle that serves as the archetype for the +rest: the fight over the VCR. + +The film studios were outraged by Sony's creation of the VCR. They had found a +DRM supplier they preferred, a company called Discovision that made +non-recordable optical discs. Discovision was the only company authorized to +play back movies in your living room. The only way to get a copyrighted work +onto a VCR cassette was to record it off the TV, without permission. The +studios argued that Sony -- whose Betamax was the canary in this legal coalmine +-- was breaking the law by unjustly endangering their revenue from Discovision +royalties. Sure, they *{could}* just sell pre-recorded Betamax tapes, but +Betamax was a read-write medium: they could be *{copied}*. Moreover, your +personal library of Betamax recordings of the Sunday night movie would eat into +the market for Discovision discs: why would anyone buy a pre-recorded video +cassette when they could amass all the video they needed with a home recorder +and a set of rabbit-ears? + +The Supreme Court threw out these arguments in a 1984 5-4 decision, the +"Betamax Decision." This decision held that the VCR was legal because it was +"capable of sustaining a substantially non-infringing use." That means that if +you make a technology that your customers *{can}* use legally, you're not on +the hook for the illegal stuff they do. + +This principle guided the creation of virtually every piece of IT invented +since: the Web, search engines, YouTube, Blogger, Skype, ICQ, AOL, MySpace... +You name it, if it's possible to violate copyright with it, the thing that made +it possible is the Betamax principle. + +Unfortunately, the Supremes shot the Betamax principle in the gut two years +ago, with the Grokster decision. This decision says that a company can be found +liable for its customers' bad acts if they can be shown to have "induced" +copyright infringement. So, if your company advertises your product for an +infringing use, or if it can be shown that you had infringement in mind at the +design stage, you can be found liable for your customers' copying. The studios +and record labels and broadcasters *{love}* this ruling, and they like to think +that it's even broader than what the courts set out. For example, Viacom is +suing Google for inducing copyright infringement by allowing YouTube users to +flag some of their videos as private. Private videos can't be found by Viacom's +copyright-enforcement bots, so Viacom says that privacy should be illegal, and +that companies that give you the option of privacy should be sued for anything +you do behind closed doors. + +The gutshot Betamax doctrine will bleed out all over the industry for decades +(or until the courts or Congress restore it to health), providing a grisly +reminder of what happens to companies that try to pour the entertainment +companies' old wine into new digital bottles without permission. The +tape-recorder was legal, but the digital tape-recorder is an inducement to +infringement, and must be stopped. + +The promise of access to content and the threat of legal execution for +non-compliance is enough to lure technology's biggest players to the DRM table. + +I started attending DRM meetings in March, 2002, on behalf of my former +employers, the Electronic Frontier Foundation. My first meeting was the one +where Broadcast Flag was born. The Broadcast Flag was weird even by DRM +standards. Broadcasters are required, by law, to deliver TV and radio without +DRM, so that any standards-compliant receiver can receive them. The airwaves +belong to the public, and are loaned to broadcasters who have to promise to +serve the public interest in exchange. But the MPAA and the broadcasters wanted +to add DRM to digital TV, and so they proposed that a law should be passed that +would make all manufacturers promise to *{pretend}* that there was DRM on +broadcast signals, receiving them and immediately squirreling them away in +encrypted form. + +The Broadcast Flag was hammered out in a group called the Broadcast Protection +Discussion Group (BPDG) a sub-group from the MPAA's "Content Protection +Technology Working Group," which also included reps from all the big IT +companies (Microsoft, Apple, Intel, and so on), consumer electronics companies +(Panasonic, Philips, Zenith), cable companies, satellite companies, and anyone +else who wanted to pay $100 to attend the "public" meetings, held every six +weeks or so (you can attend these meetings yourself if you find yourself near +LAX on one of the upcoming dates). + +CPTWG (pronounced Cee-Pee-Twig) is a venerable presence in the DRM world. It +was at CPTWG that the DRM for DVDs was hammered out. CPTWG meetings open with a +"benediction," delivered by a lawyer, who reminds everyone there that what they +say might be quoted "on the front page of the New York Times," (though +journalists are barred from attending CPTWG meetings and no minutes are +published by the organization) and reminding all present not to do anything +that would raise eyebrows at the FTC's anti-trust division (I could swear I've +seen the Microsoft people giggling during this part, though that may have been +my imagination). + +The first part of the meeting is usually taken up with administrative business +and presentations from DRM vendors, who come out to promise that this time +they've really, really figured out how to make computers worse at copying. The +real meat comes after the lunch, when the group splits into a series of smaller +meetings, many of them closed-door and private (the representatives of the +organizations responsible for managing DRM on DVDs splinter off at this point). + +Then comes the working group meetings, like the BPDG. The BPDG was nominally +set up to set up the rules for the Broadcast Flag. Under the Flag, +manufacturers would be required to limit their "outputs and recording methods" +to a set of "approved technologies." Naturally, every manufacturer in the room +showed up with a technology to add to the list of approved technologies -- and +the sneakier ones showed up with reasons why their competitors' technologies +*{shouldn't}* be approved. If the Broadcast Flag became law, a spot on the +"approved technologies" list would be a license to print money: everyone who +built a next-gen digital TV would be required, by law, to buy only approved +technologies for their gear. + +The CPTWG determined that there would be three "chairmen" of the meetings: a +representative from the broadcasters, a representative from the studios, and a +representative from the IT industry (note that no "consumer rights" chair was +contemplated -- we proposed one and got laughed off the agenda). The IT chair +was filled by an Intel representative, who seemed pleased that the MPAA chair, +Fox Studios's Andy Setos, began the process by proposing that the approved +technologies should include only two technologies, both of which Intel +partially owned. + +Intel's presence on the committee was both reassurance and threat: reassurance +because Intel signaled the fundamental reasonableness of the MPAA's +requirements -- why would a company with a bigger turnover than the whole movie +industry show up if the negotiations weren't worth having? Threat because Intel +was poised to gain an advantage that might be denied to its competitors. + +We settled in for a long negotiation. The discussions were drawn out and +heated. At regular intervals, the MPAA reps told us that we were wasting time +-- if we didn't hurry things along, the world would move on and consumers would +grow accustomed to un-crippled digital TVs. Moreover, Rep Billy Tauzin, the +lawmaker who'd evidently promised to enact the Broadcast Flag into law, was +growing impatient. The warnings were delivered in quackspeak, urgent and +crackling, whenever the discussions dragged, like the crack of the commissars' +pistols, urging us forward. + +You'd think that a "technology working group" would concern itself with +technology, but there was precious little discussion of bits and bytes, ciphers +and keys. Instead, we focused on what amounted to contractual terms: if your +technology got approved as a DTV "output," what obligations would you have to +assume? If a TiVo could serve as an "output" for a receiver, what outputs would +the TiVo be allowed to have? + +The longer we sat there, the more snarled these contractual terms became: +winning a coveted spot on the "approved technology" list would be quite a +burden! Once you were in the club, there were all sorts of rules about whom you +could associate with, how you had to comport yourself and so on. + +One of these rules of conduct was "robustness." As a condition of approval, +manufacturers would have to harden their technologies so that their customers +wouldn't be able to modify, improve upon, or even understand their workings. As +you might imagine, the people who made open source TV tuners were not thrilled +about this, as "open source" and "non-user-modifiable" are polar opposites. + +Another was "renewability:" the ability of the studios to revoke outputs that +had been compromised in the field. The studios expected the manufacturers to +make products with remote "kill switches" that could be used to shut down part +or all of their device if someone, somewhere had figured out how to do +something naughty with it. They promised that we'd establish criteria for +renewability later, and that it would all be "fair." + +But we soldiered on. The MPAA had a gift for resolving the worst snarls: when +shouting failed, they'd lead any recalcitrant player out of the room and +negotiate in secret with them, leaving the rest of us to cool our heels. Once, +they took the Microsoft team out of the room for *{six hours}*, then came back +and announced that digital video would be allowed to output on non-DRM monitors +at a greatly reduced resolution (this "feature" appears in Vista as "fuzzing"). + +The further we went, the more nervous everyone became. We were headed for the +real meat of the negotiations: the *{criteria}* by which approved technology +would be evaluated: how many bits of crypto would you need? Which ciphers would +be permissible? Which features would and wouldn't be allowed? + +Then the MPAA dropped the other shoe: the sole criteria for inclusion on the +list would be the approval of one of its member-companies, or a quorum of +broadcasters. In other words, the Broadcast Flag wouldn't be an "objective +standard," describing the technical means by which video would be locked away +-- it would be purely subjective, up to the whim of the studios. You could have +the best product in the world, and they wouldn't approve it if your +business-development guys hadn't bought enough drinks for their +business-development guys at a CES party. + +To add insult to injury, the only technologies that the MPAA were willing to +consider for initial inclusion as "approved" were the two that Intel was +involved with. The Intel co-chairman had a hard time hiding his grin. He'd +acted as Judas goat, luring in Apple, Microsoft, and the rest, to legitimize a +process that would force them to license Intel's patents for every TV +technology they shipped until the end of time. + +Why did the MPAA give Intel such a sweetheart deal? At the time, I figured that +this was just straight quid pro quo, like Hannibal said to Clarice. But over +the years, I started to see a larger pattern: Hollywood likes DRM consortia, +and they hate individual DRM vendors. (I've written an entire article about +this, but here's the gist: a single vendor who succeeds can name their price +and terms -- think of Apple or Macrovision -- while a consortium is a more +easily divided rabble, susceptible to co-option in order to produce +ever-worsening technologies -- think of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD). Intel's +technologies were held through two consortia, the 5C and 4C groups. + +The single-vendor manufacturers were livid at being locked out of the digital +TV market. The final report of the consortium reflected this -- a few sheets +written by the chairmen describing the "consensus" and hundreds of pages of +angry invective from manufacturers and consumer groups decrying it as a sham. + +Tauzin washed his hands of the process: a canny, sleazy Hill operator, he had +the political instincts to get his name off any proposal that could be shown to +be a plot to break voters' televisions (Tauzin found a better industry to shill +for, the pharmaceutical firms, who rewarded him with a $2,000,000/year job as +chief of PHARMA, the pharmaceutical lobby). + +Even Representative Ernest "Fritz" Hollings ("The Senator from Disney," who +once proposed a bill requiring entertainment industry oversight of all +technologies capable of copying) backed away from proposing a bill that would +turn the Broadcast Flag into law. Instead, Hollings sent a memo to Michael +Powell, then-head of the FCC, telling him that the FCC already had jurisdiction +to enact a Broadcast Flag regulation, without Congressional oversight. + +Powell's staff put Hollings's letter online, as they are required to do by +federal sunshine laws. The memo arrived as a Microsoft Word file -- which EFF +then downloaded and analyzed. Word stashes the identity of a document's author +in the file metadata, which is how EFF discovered that the document had been +written by a staffer at the MPAA. + +This was truly remarkable. Hollings was a powerful committee chairman, one who +had taken immense sums of money from the industries he was supposed to be +regulating. It's easy to be cynical about this kind of thing, but it's +genuinely unforgivable: politicians draw a public salary to sit in public +office and work for the public good. They're supposed to be working for us, not +their donors. + +But we all know that this isn't true. Politicians are happy to give special +favors to their pals in industry. However, the Hollings memo was beyond the +pale. Staffers for the MPAA were writing Hollings's memos, memos that Hollings +then signed and mailed off to the heads of major governmental agencies. + +The best part was that the legal eagles at the MPAA were wrong. The FCC took +"Hollings's" advice and enacted a Broadcast Flag regulation that was almost +identical to the proposal from the BPDG, turning themselves into America's +"device czars," able to burden any digital technology with "robustness," +"compliance" and "revocation rules." The rule lasted just long enough for the +DC Circuit Court of Appeals to strike it down and slap the FCC for grabbing +unprecedented jurisdiction over the devices in our living rooms. + +So ended the saga of the Broadcast Flag. More or less. In the years since the +Flag was proposed, there have been several attempts to reintroduce it through +legislation, all failed. And as more and more innovative, open devices like the +Neuros OSD enter the market, it gets harder and harder to imagine that +Americans will accept a mandate that takes away all that functionality. + +But the spirit of the Broadcast Flag lives on. DRM consortia are all the rage +now -- outfits like AACS LA, the folks who control the DRM in Blu-Ray and +HD-DVD, are thriving and making headlines by issuing fatwas against people who +publish their secret integers. In Europe, a DRM consortium working under the +auspices of the Digital Video Broadcasters Forum (DVB) has just shipped a +proposed standard for digital TV DRM that makes the Broadcast Flag look like +the work of patchouli-scented infohippies. The DVB proposal would give DRM +consortium the ability to define what is and isn't a valid "household" for the +purposes of sharing your video within your "household's devices." It limits how +long you're allowed to pause a video for, and allows for restrictions to be put +in place for hundreds of years, longer than any copyright system in the world +would protect any work for. + +If all this stuff seems a little sneaky, underhanded and even illegal to you, +you're not alone. When representatives of nearly all the world's entertainment, +technology, broadcast, satellite and cable companies gather in a room to +collude to cripple their offerings, limit their innovation, and restrict the +market, regulators take notice. + +That's why the EU is taking a hard look at HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. These systems +aren't designed: they're governed, and the governors are shadowy group of +offshore giants who answer to no one -- not even their own members! I once +called the DVD-Copy Control Association (DVD-CCA) on behalf of a Time-Warner +magazine, Popular Science, for a comment about their DRM. Not only wouldn't +they allow me to speak to a spokesman, the person who denied my request also +refused to be identified. + +The sausage factory grinds away, but today, more activists than ever are +finding ways to participate in the negotiations, slowing them up, making them +account for themselves to the public. And so long as you, the technology-buying +public, pay attention to what's going on, the activists will continue to hold +back the tide. + +$$$$ + +1~ Happy Meal Toys versus Copyright: How America chose Hollywood and Wal-Mart, +and why it's doomed us, and how we might survive anyway + +(Originally published as "How Hollywood, Congress, And DRM Are Beating Up The +American Economy," InformationWeek, June 11, 2007) ~# + +Back in 1985, the Senate was ready to clobber the music industry for exposing +America's impressionable youngsters to sex, drugs and rock-and-roll. Today, the +the Attorney General is proposing to give the RIAA legal tools to attack people +who attempt infringement. + +Through most of America's history, the US government has been at odds with the +entertainment giants, treating them as purveyors of filth. But not anymore: +today, the US Trade Rep using America's political clout to force Russia to +institute police inspections of its CD presses (savor the irony: post-Soviet +Russia forgoes its hard-won freedom of the press to protect Disney and +Universal!). + +How did entertainment go from trenchcoat pervert to top trade priority? I blame +the "Information Economy." + +No one really knows what "Information Economy" means, but by the early 90s, we +knew it was coming. America deployed her least reliable strategic resource to +puzzle out what an "information economy" was and to figure out how to ensure +America stayed atop the "new economy" -- America sent in the futurists. + +We make the future in much the same way as we make the past. We don't remember +everything that happened to us, just selective details. We weave our memories +together on demand, filling in any empty spaces with the present, which is +lying around in great abundance. In Stumbling on Happiness, Harvard psych prof +Daniel Gilbert describes an experiment in which people with delicious lunches +in front of them are asked to remember their breakfast: overwhelmingly, the +people with good lunches have more positive memories of breakfast than those +who have bad lunches. We don't remember breakfast -- we look at lunch and +superimpose it on breakfast. + +We make the future in the same way: we extrapolate as much as we can, and +whenever we run out of imagination, we just shovel the present into the holes. +That's why our pictures of the future always seem to resemble the present, only +moreso. + +So the futurists told us about the Information Economy: they took all the +"information-based" businesses (music, movies and microcode, in the neat +coinage of Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel Snow Crash) and projected a future in +which these would grow to dominate the world's economies. + +There was only one fly in the ointment: most of the world's economies consist +of poor people who have more time than money, and if there's any lesson to +learn from American college kids, it's that people with more time than money +would rather copy information than pay for it. + +Of course they would! Why, when America was a-borning, she was a pirate nation, +cheerfully copying the inventions of European authors and inventors. Why not? +The fledgling revolutionary republic could copy without paying, keep the money +on her shores, and enrich herself with the products and ideas of imperial +Europe. Of course, once the US became a global hitter in the creative +industries, out came the international copyright agreements: the US signed +agreements to protect British authors in exchange for reciprocal agreements +from the Brits to protect American authors. + +It's hard to see why a developing country would opt to export its GDP to a rich +country when it could get the same benefit by mere copying. The US would have +to sweeten the pot. + +The pot-sweetener is the elimination of international trade-barriers. +Historically, the US has used tariffs to limit the import of manufactured goods +from abroad, and to encourage the import of raw materials from abroad. +Generally speaking, rich countries import poor countries' raw materials, +process them into manufactured goods, and export them again. Globally speaking, +if your country imports sugar and exports sugar cane, chances are you're poor. +If your country imports wood and sells paper, chances are you're rich. + +In 1995, the US signed onto the World Trade Organization and its associated +copyright and patent agreement, the TRIPS Agreement, and the American economy +was transformed. + +Any fellow signatory to the WTO/TRIPS can export manufactured goods to the USA +without any tariffs. If it costs you $5 to manufacture and ship a plastic +bucket from your factory in Shenjin Province to the USA, you can sell it for $6 +and turn a $1 profit. And if it costs an American manufacturer $10 to make the +same bucket, the American manufacturer is out of luck. + +The kicker is this: if you want to export your finished goods to America, you +have to sign up to protect American copyrights in your own country. Quid pro +quo. + +The practical upshot, 12 years later, is that most American manufacturing has +gone belly up, Wal-Mart is filled with Happy Meal toys and other cheaply +manufactured plastic goods, and the whole world has signed onto US copyright +laws. + +But signing onto those laws doesn't mean you'll enforce them. Sure, where a +country is really over a barrel (cough, Russia, cough), they'll take the +occasional pro forma step to enforce US copyrights, no matter how ridiculous +and totalitarian it makes them appear. But with the monthly Russian per-capita +GDP hovering at $200, it's just not plausible that Russians are going to start +paying $15 for a CD, nor is it likely that they'll stop listening to music +until their economy picks up. + +But the real action is in China, where pressing bootleg media is a national +sport. China keeps promising that it will do something about this, but it's not +like the US has any recourse if China drags its heels. Trade courts may find +against China, but China holds all the cards. The US can't afford to abandon +Chinese manufacturing (and no one will vote for the politician who hextuples +the cost of WiFi cards, brassieres, iPods, staplers, yoga mats, and spatulas by +cutting off trade with China). The Chinese can just sit tight. + +The futurists were just plain wrong. An "information economy" can't be based on +selling information. Information technology makes copying information easier +and easier. The more IT you have, the less control you have over the bits you +send out into the world. It will never, ever, EVER get any harder to copy +information from here on in. The information economy is about selling +everything except information. + +The US traded its manufacturing sector's health for its entertainment industry, +hoping that Police Academy sequels could take the place of the rustbelt. The US +bet wrong. + +But like a losing gambler who keeps on doubling down, the US doesn't know when +to quit. It keeps meeting with its entertainment giants, asking how US foreign +and domestic policy can preserve its business-model. Criminalize 70 million +American file-sharers? Check. Turn the world's copyright laws upside down? +Check. Cream the IT industry by criminalizing attempted infringement? Check. + +It'll never work. It can never work. There will always be an entertainment +industry, but not one based on excluding access to published digital works. +Once it's in the world, it'll be copied. This is why I give away digital copies +of my books and make money on the printed editions: I'm not going to stop +people from copying the electronic editions, so I might as well treat them as +an enticement to buy the printed objects. + +But there is an information economy. You don't even need a computer to +participate. My barber, an avowed technophobe who rebuilds antique motorcycles +and doesn't own a PC, benefited from the information economy when I found him +by googling for barbershops in my neighborhood. + +Teachers benefit from the information economy when they share lesson plans with +their colleagues around the world by email. Doctors benefit from the +information economy when they move their patient files to efficient digital +formats. Insurance companies benefit from the information economy through +better access to fresh data used in the preparation of actuarial tables. +Marinas benefit from the information economy when office-slaves look up the +weekend's weather online and decide to skip out on Friday for a weekend's +sailing. Families of migrant workers benefit from the information economy when +their sons and daughters wire cash home from a convenience store Western Union +terminal. + +This stuff generates wealth for those who practice it. It enriches the country +and improves our lives. + +And it can peacefully co-exist with movies, music and microcode, but not if +Hollywood gets to call the shots. Where IT managers are expected to police +their networks and systems for unauthorized copying -- no matter what that does +to productivity -- they cannot co-exist. Where our operating systems are +rendered inoperable by "copy protection," they cannot co-exist. Where our +educational institutions are turned into conscript enforcers for the record +industry, they cannot co-exist. + +The information economy is all around us. The countries that embrace it will +emerge as global economic superpowers. The countries that stubbornly hold to +the simplistic idea that the information economy is about selling information +will end up at the bottom of the pile. + +What country do you want to live in? + +$$$$ + +1~ Why Is Hollywood Making A Sequel To The Napster Wars? + +(Originally published in InformationWeek, August 14, 2007) ~# + +Hollywood loves sequels -- they're generally a safe bet, provided that you're +continuing an already successful franchise. But you'd have to be nuts to shoot +a sequel to a disastrous flop -- say, The Adventures of Pluto Nash or Town and +Country. + +As disastrous as Pluto Nash was, it was practically painless when compared to +the Napster debacle. That shipwreck took place six years ago, when the record +industry succeeded in shutting down the pioneering file-sharing service, and +they show no signs of recovery. + +!_ The disastrous thing about Napster wasn't that it it existed, but rather +that the record industry managed to kill it. + +Napster had an industry-friendly business-model: raise venture capital, start +charging for access to the service, and then pay billions of dollars to the +record companies in exchange for licenses to their works. Yes, they kicked this +plan off without getting permission from the record companies, but that's not +so unusual. The record companies followed the same business plan a hundred +years ago, when they started recording sheet music without permission, raising +capital and garnering profits, and *{then}* working out a deal to pay the +composers for the works they'd built their fortunes on. + +Napster's plan was plausible. They had the fastest-adopted technology in the +history of the world, garnering 52,000,000 users in 18 months -- more than had +voted for either candidate in the preceding US election! -- and discovering, +via surveys, that a sizable portion would happily pay between $10 and $15 a +month for the service. What's more, Napster's architecture included a +gatekeeper that could be used to lock-out non-paying users. + +The record industry refused to deal. Instead, they sued, bringing Napster to +its knees. Bertelsmann bought Napster out of the ensuing bankruptcy, a pattern +that was followed by other music giants, like Universal, who slayed MP3.com in +the courts, then brought home the corpse on the cheap, running it as an +internal project. + +After that, the record companies had a field day: practically every +venture-funded P2P company went down, and millions of dollars were funneled +from the tech venture capital firms to Sand Hill Road to the RIAA's members, +using P2P companies and the courts as conduits. + +But the record companies weren't ready to replace these services with equally +compelling alternatives. Instead, they fielded inferior replacements like +PressPlay, with limited catalog, high prices, and anti-copying technology +(digital rights management, or DRM) that alienated users by the millions by +treating them like crooks instead of customers. These half-baked ventures did +untold damage to the record companies and their parent firms. + +Just look at Sony: they should have been at the top of the heap. They produce +some of the world's finest, best-designed electronics. They own one of the +largest record labels in the world. The synergy should have been incredible. +Electronics would design the walkmen, music would take care of catalog, and +marketing would sell it all. + +You know the joke about European hell? The English do the cooking, the Germans +are the lovers, the Italians are the police and the French run the government. +With Sony, it seemed like music was designing the walkmen, marketing was doing +the catalog, and electronic was in charge of selling. Sony's portable players +-- the MusicClip and others -- were so crippled by anti-copying technology that +they couldn't even play MP3s, and the music selection at Sony services like +PressPlay was anemic, expensive, and equally hobbled. Sony isn't even a name in +the portable audio market anymore -- today's walkman is an iPod. + +Of course, Sony still has a record-label -- for now. But sales are falling, and +the company is reeling from the 2005 "rootkit" debacle, where in deliberately +infected eight million music CDs with a hacker tool called a rootkit, +compromising over 500,000 US computer networks, including military and +government networks, all in a (failed) bid to stop copying of its CDs. + +The public wasn't willing to wait for Sony and the rest to wake up and offer a +service that was as compelling, exciting and versatile as Napster. Instead, +they flocked to a new generation of services like Kazaa and the various +Gnutella networks. Kazaa's business model was to set up offshore, on the tiny +Polynesian island of Vanuatu, and bundle spyware with its software, making its +profits off of fees from spyware crooks. Kazaa didn't want to pay billions for +record industry licenses -- they used the international legal and finance +system to hopelessly snarl the RIAA's members through half a decade of wild +profitability. The company was eventually brought to ground, but the founders +walked away and started Skype and then Joost. + +Meantime, dozens of other services had sprung up to fill Kazaa's niche -- +AllofMP3, the notorious Russian site, was eventually killed through +intervention of the US Trade Representative and the WTO, and was reborn +practically the next day under a new name. + +It's been eight years since Sean Fanning created Napster in his college +dorm-room. Eight years later, there isn't a single authorized music service +that can compete with the original Napster. Record sales are down every year, +and digital music sales aren't filling in the crater. The record industry has +contracted to four companies, and it may soon be three if EMI can get +regulatory permission to put itself on the block. + +The sue-em-all-and-let-God-sort-em-out plan was a flop in the box office, a +flop in home video, and a flop overseas. So why is Hollywood shooting a remake? + +# + +YouTube, 2007, bears some passing similarity to Napster, 2001. Founded by a +couple guys in a garage, rocketed to popular success, heavily capitalized by a +deep-pocketed giant. Its business model? Turn popularity into dollars and offer +a share to the rightsholders whose works they're using. This is an historically +sound plan: cable operators got rich by retransmitting broadcasts without +permission, and once they were commercial successes, they sat down to negotiate +to pay for those copyrights (just as the record companies negotiated with +composers *{after}* they'd gotten rich selling records bearing those +compositions). + +YouTube 07 has another similarity to Napster 01: it is being sued by +entertainment companies. + +Only this time, it's not (just) the record industry. Broadcasters, movie +studios, anyone who makes video or audio is getting in on the act. I recently +met an NBC employee who told me that he thought that a severe, punishing legal +judgment would send a message to the tech industry not to field this kind of +service anymore. + +Let's hope he's wrong. Google -- YouTube's owners -- is a grown-up of a +company, unusual in a tech industry populated by corporate adolescents. They +have lots of money and a sober interest in keeping it. They want to sit down +with A/V rightsholders and do a deal. Six years after the Napster verdict, that +kind of willingness is in short supply. + +Most of the tech "companies" with an interest in commercializing Internet AV +have no interest in sitting down with the studios. They're either nebulous open +source projects (like mythtv, a free hyper-TiVo that skips commercials, +downloads and shares videos and is wide open to anyone who wants to modify and +improve it), politically motivated anarchists (like ThePirateBay, a Swedish +BitTorrent tracker site that has mirrors in three countries with +non-interoperable legal systems, where they respond to legal notices by writing +sarcastic and profane letters and putting them online), or out-and-out crooks +like the bootleggers who use P2P to seed their DVD counterfeiting operations. + +It's not just YouTube. TiVo, who pioneered the personal video recorder, is +feeling the squeeze, being systematically locked out of the digital cable and +satellite market. Their efforts to add a managed TiVoToGo service were attacked +by the rightsholders who fought at the FCC to block them. Cable/satellite +operators and the studios would much prefer the public to transition to +"bundled" PVRs that come with your TV service. + +These boxes are owned by the cable/satellite companies, who have absolute +control over them. Time-Warner has been known to remotely delete stored +episodes of shows just before the DVD ships, and many operators have started +using "flags" that tell recorders not to allow fast-forwarding, or to prevent +recording altogether. + +The reason that YouTube and TiVo are more popular than ThePirateBay and mythtv +is that they're the easiest way for the public to get what it wants -- the +video we want, the way we want it. We use these services because they're like +the original Napster: easy, well-designed, functional. + +But if the entertainment industry squeezes these players out, ThePirateBay and +mythtv are right there, waiting to welcome us in with open arms. ThePirateBay +has already announced that it is launching a YouTube competitor with no-plugin, +in-browser viewing. Plenty of entrepreneurs are looking at easing the pain and +cast of setting up your own mythtv box. The only reason that the barriers to +BitTorrent and mythtv exist is that it hasn't been worth anyone's while to +capitalize projects to bring them down. But once the legit competitors of these +services are killed, look out. + +The thing is, the public doesn't want managed services with limited rights. We +don't want to be stuck using approved devices in approved ways. We never have +-- we are the spiritual descendants of the customers for "illegal" record +albums and "illegal" cable TV. The demand signal won't go away. + +There's no good excuse for going into production on a sequel to The Napster +Wars. We saw that movie. We know how it turns out. Every Christmas, we get +articles about how this was the worst Christmas ever for CDs. You know what? CD +sales are *{never}* going to improve. CDs have been rendered obsolete by +Internet distribution -- and the record industry has locked itself out of the +only profitable, popular music distribution systems yet invented. + +Companies like Google/YouTube and TiVo are rarities: tech companies that want +to do deals. They need to be cherished by entertainment companies, not sued. + +(Thanks to Bruce Nash and The-Numbers.com for research assistance with this +article) + +$$$$ + +1~ You DO Like Reading Off a Computer Screen + +(Originally published in Locus Magazine, March 2007) ~# + +"I don't like reading off a computer screen" -- it's a cliché of the e-book +world. It means "I don't read novels off of computer screens" (or phones, or +PDAs, or dedicated e-book readers), and often as not the person who says it is +someone who, in fact, spends every hour that Cthulhu sends reading off a +computer screen. It's like watching someone shovel Mars Bars into his gob while +telling you how much he hates chocolate. + +But I know what you mean. You don't like reading long-form works off of a +computer screen. I understand perfectly -- in the ten minutes since I typed the +first word in the paragraph above, I've checked my mail, deleted two spams, +checked an image-sharing community I like, downloaded a YouTube clip of Stephen +Colbert complaining about the iPhone (pausing my MP3 player first), cleared out +my RSS reader, and then returned to write this paragraph. + +This is not an ideal environment in which to concentrate on long-form narrative +(sorry, one sec, gotta blog this guy who's made cardboard furniture) (wait, the +Colbert clip's done, gotta start the music up) (19 more RSS items). But that's +not to say that it's not an entertainment medium -- indeed, practically +everything I do on the computer entertains the hell out of me. It's nearly all +text-based, too. Basically, what I do on the computer is pleasure-reading. But +it's a fundamentally more scattered, splintered kind of pleasure. Computers +have their own cognitive style, and it's not much like the cognitive style +invented with the first modern novel (one sec, let me google that and confirm +it), Don Quixote, some 400 years ago. + +The novel is an invention, one that was engendered by technological changes in +information display, reproduction, and distribution. The cognitive style of the +novel is different from the cognitive style of the legend. The cognitive style +of the computer is different from the cognitive style of the novel. + +Computers want you to do lots of things with them. Networked computers doubly +so -- they (another RSS item) have a million ways of asking for your attention, +and just as many ways of rewarding it. + +There's a persistent fantasy/nightmare in the publishing world of the advent of +very sharp, very portable computer screens. In the fantasy version, this +creates an infinite new market for electronic books, and we all get to sell the +rights to our work all over again. In the nightmare version, this leads to +runaway piracy, and no one ever gets to sell a novel again. + +I think they're both wrong. The infinitely divisible copyright ignores the +"decision cost" borne by users who have to decide, over and over again, whether +they want to spend a millionth of a cent on a millionth of a word -- no one +buys newspapers by the paragraph, even though most of us only read a slim +fraction of any given paper. A super-sharp, super-portable screen would be used +to read all day long, but most of us won't spend most of our time reading +anything recognizable as a book on them. + +Take the record album. Everything about it is technologically pre-determined. +The technology of the LP demanded artwork to differentiate one package from the +next. The length was set by the groove density of the pressing plants and +playback apparatus. The dynamic range likewise. These factors gave us the idea +of the 40-to-60-minute package, split into two acts, with accompanying artwork. +Musicians were encouraged to create works that would be enjoyed as a unitary +whole for a protracted period -- think of Dark Side of the Moon, or Sgt. +Pepper's. + +No one thinks about albums today. Music is now divisible to the single, as +represented by an individual MP3, and then subdivisible into snippets like +ringtones and samples. When recording artists demand that their works be +considered as a whole -- like when Radiohead insisted that the iTunes Music +Store sell their whole album as a single, indivisible file that you would have +to listen to all the way through -- they sound like cranky throwbacks. + +The idea of a 60-minute album is as weird in the Internet era as the idea of +sitting through 15 hours of Der Ring des Nibelungen was 20 years ago. There are +some anachronisms who love their long-form opera, but the real action is in the +more fluid stuff that can slither around on hot wax -- and now the superfluid +droplets of MP3s and samples. Opera survives, but it is a tiny sliver of a much +bigger, looser music market. The future composts the past: old operas get +mounted for living anachronisms; Andrew Lloyd Webber picks up the rest of the +business. + +Or look at digital video. We're watching more digital video, sooner, than +anyone imagined. But we're watching it in three-minute chunks from YouTube. The +video's got a pause button so you can stop it when the phone rings and a +scrubber to go back and forth when you miss something while answering an IM. + +And attention spans don't increase when you move from the PC to a handheld +device. These things have less capacity for multitasking than real PCs, and the +network connections are slower and more expensive. But they are fundamentally +multitasking devices -- you can always stop reading an e-book to play a hand of +solitaire that is interrupted by a phone call -- and their social context is +that they are used in public places, with a million distractions. It is +socially acceptable to interrupt someone who is looking at a PDA screen. By +contrast, the TV room -- a whole room for TV! -- is a shrine where none may +speak until the commercial airs. + +The problem, then, isn't that screens aren't sharp enough to read novels off +of. The problem is that novels aren't screeny enough to warrant protracted, +regular reading on screens. + +Electronic books are a wonderful adjunct to print books. It's great to have a +couple hundred novels in your pocket when the plane doesn't take off or the +line is too long at the post office. It's cool to be able to search the text of +a novel to find a beloved passage. It's excellent to use a novel socially, +sending it to your friends, pasting it into your sig file. + +But the numbers tell their own story -- people who read off of screens all day +long buy lots of print books and read them primarily on paper. There are some +who prefer an all-electronic existence (I'd like to be able to get rid of the +objects after my first reading, but keep the e-books around for reference), but +they're in a tiny minority. + +There's a generation of web writers who produce "pleasure reading" on the web. +Some are funny. Some are touching. Some are enraging. Most dwell in Sturgeon's +90th percentile and below. They're not writing novels. If they were, they +wouldn't be web writers. + +Mostly, we can read just enough of a free e-book to decide whether to buy it in +hardcopy -- but not enough to substitute the e-book for the hardcopy. Like +practically everything in marketing and promotion, the trick is to find the +form of the work that serves as enticement, not replacement. + +Sorry, got to go -- eight more e-mails. + +$$$$ + +1~ How Do You Protect Artists? + +(Originally published in The Guardian as "Online censorship hurts us all," +Tuesday, Oct 2, 2007) ~# + +Artists have lots of problems. We get plagiarized, ripped off by publishers, +savaged by critics, counterfeited -- and we even get our works copied by +"pirates" who give our stuff away for free online. + +But no matter how bad these problems get, they're a distant second to the +gravest, most terrifying problem an artist can face: censorship. + +It's one thing to be denied your credit or compensation, but it's another thing +entirely to have your work suppressed, burned or banned. You'd never know it, +however, judging from the state of the law surrounding the creation and use of +internet publishing tools. + +Since 1995, every single legislative initiative on this subject in the UK's +parliament, the European parliament and the US Congress has focused on making +it easier to suppress "illegitimate" material online. From libel to copyright +infringement, from child porn to anti-terror laws, our legislators have +approached the internet with a single-minded focus on seeing to it that bad +material is expeditiously removed. + +And that's the rub. I'm certainly no fan of child porn or hate speech, but +every time a law is passed that reduces the burden of proof on those who would +remove material from the internet, artists' fortunes everywhere are endangered. + +Take the US's 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which has equivalents in +every European state that has implemented the 2001 European Union Copyright +Directive. The DMCA allows anyone to have any document on the internet removed, +simply by contacting its publisher and asserting that the work infringes his +copyright. + +The potential for abuse is obvious, and the abuse has been widespread: from the +Church of Scientology to companies that don't like what reporters write about +them, DMCA takedown notices have fast become the favorite weapon in the +cowardly bully's arsenal. + +But takedown notices are just the start. While they can help silence critics +and suppress timely information, they're not actually very effective at +stopping widespread copyright infringement. Viacom sent over 100,000 takedown +notices to YouTube last February, but seconds after it was all removed, new +users uploaded it again. + +Even these takedown notices were sloppily constructed: they included videos of +friends eating at barbecue restaurants and videos of independent bands +performing their own work. As a Recording Industry Association of America +spokesman quipped, "When you go trawling with a net, you catch a few dolphins." + +Viacom and others want hosting companies and online service providers to +preemptively evaluate all the material that their users put online, holding it +to ensure that it doesn't infringe copyright before they release it. + +This notion is impractical in the extreme, for at least two reasons. First, an +exhaustive list of copyrighted works would be unimaginably huge, as every +single creative work is copyrighted from the instant that it is created and +"fixed in a tangible medium". + +Second, even if such a list did exist, it would be trivial to defeat, simply by +introducing small changes to the infringing copies, as spammers do with the +text of their messages in order to evade spam filters. + +In fact, the spam wars have some important lessons to teach us here. Like +copyrighted works, spams are infinitely varied and more are being created every +second. Any company that could identify spam messages -- including permutations +and variations on existing spams -- could write its own ticket to untold +billions. + +Some of the smartest, most dedicated engineers on the planet devote every +waking hour to figuring out how to spot spam before it gets delivered. If your +inbox is anything like mine, you'll agree that the war is far from won. + +If the YouTubes of the world are going to prevent infringement, they're going +to have to accomplish this by hand-inspecting every one of the tens of billions +of blog posts, videos, text-files, music files and software uploads made to +every single server on the internet. + +And not just cursory inspections, either -- these inspections will have to be +undertaken by skilled, trained specialists (who'd better be talented linguists, +too -- how many English speakers can spot an infringement in Urdu?). + +Such experts don't come cheap, which means that you can anticipate a terrible +denuding of the fertile jungle of internet hosting companies that are primary +means by which tens of millions of creative people share the fruits of their +labor with their fans and colleagues. + +It would be a great Sovietisation of the world's digital printing presses, a +contraction of a glorious anarchy of expression into a regimented world of +expensive and narrow venues for art. + +It would be a death knell for the kind of focused, non-commercial material +whose authors couldn't fit the bill for a "managed" service's legion of +lawyers, who would be replaced by more of the same -- the kind of lowest common +denominator rubbish that fills the cable channels today. + +And the worst of it is, we're marching toward this "solution" in the name of +protecting artists. Gee, thanks. + +$$$$ + +1~ It's the Information Economy, Stupid + +(Originally published in The Guardian as "Free data sharing is here to stay," +September 18, 2007) ~# + +Since the 1970s, pundits have predicted a transition to an "information +economy." The vision of an economy based on information seized the imaginations +of the world's governments. For decades now, they have been creating policies +to "protect" information -- stronger copyright laws, international treaties on +patents and trademarks, treaties to protect anti-copying technology. + +The thinking is simple: an information economy must be based on buying and +selling information. Therefore, we need policies to make it harder to get +access to information unless you've paid for it. That means that we have to +make it harder for you to share information, even after you've paid for it. +Without the ability to fence off your information property, you can't have an +information market to fuel the information economy. + +But this is a tragic case of misunderstanding a metaphor. Just as the +industrial economy wasn't based on making it harder to get access to machines, +the information economy won't be based on making it harder to get access to +information. Indeed, the opposite seems to be true: the more IT we have, the +easier it is to access any given piece of information -- for better or for +worse. + +It used to be that copy-prevention companies' strategies went like this: "We'll +make it easier to buy a copy of this data than to make an unauthorized copy of +it. That way, only the uber-nerds and the cash-poor/time-rich classes will +bother to copy instead of buy." But every time a PC is connected to the +Internet and its owner is taught to use search tools like Google (or The Pirate +Bay), a third option appears: you can just download a copy from the Internet. +Every techno-literate participant in the information economy can choose to +access any data, without having to break the anti-copying technology, just by +searching for the cracked copy on the public Internet. If there's one thing we +can be sure of, it's that an information economy will increase the +technological literacy of its participants. + +As I write this, I am sitting in a hotel room in Shanghai, behind the Great +Firewall of China. Theoretically, I can't access blogging services that carry +negative accounts of Beijing's doings, like Wordpress, Blogspot and +Livejournal, nor the image-sharing site Flickr, nor Wikipedia. The +(theoretically) omnipotent bureaucrats of the local Minitrue have deployed +their finest engineering talent to stop me. Well, these cats may be able to +order political prisoners executed and their organs harvested for Party +members, but they've totally failed to keep Chinese people (and big-nose +tourists like me) off the world's Internet. The WTO is rattling its sabers at +China today, demanding that they figure out how to stop Chinese people from +looking at Bruce Willis movies without permission -- but the Chinese government +can't even figure out how to stop Chinese people from looking at seditious +revolutionary tracts online. + +And, of course, as Paris Hilton, the Church of Scientology and the King of +Thailand have discovered, taking a piece of information off the Internet is +like getting food coloring out of a swimming pool. Good luck with that. + +To see the evidence of the real information economy, look to all the economic +activity that the Internet enables -- not the stuff that it impedes. All the +commerce conducted by salarymen who can book their own flights with Expedia +instead of playing blind-man's bluff with a travel agent ("Got any flights +after 4PM to Frankfurt?"). All the garage crafters selling their goods on +Etsy.com. All the publishers selling obscure books through Amazon that no +physical bookstore was willing to carry. The salwar kameez tailors in India +selling bespoke clothes to westerners via eBay, without intervention by a +series of skimming intermediaries. The Internet-era musicians who use the net +to pack venues all over the world by giving away their recordings on social +services like MySpace. Hell, look at my last barber, in Los Angeles: the man +doesn't use a PC, but I found him by googling for "barbers" with my postcode -- +the information economy is driving his cost of customer acquisition to zero, +and he doesn't even have to actively participate in it. + +Better access to more information is the hallmark of the information economy. +The more IT we have, the more skill we have, the faster our networks get and +the better our search tools get, the more economic activity the information +economy generates. Many of us sell information in the information economy -- I +sell my printed books by giving away electronic books, lawyers and architects +and consultants are in the information business and they drum up trade with +Google ads, and Google is nothing but an info-broker -- but none of us rely on +curtailing access to information. Like a bottled water company, we compete with +free by supplying a superior service, not by eliminating the competition. + +The world's governments might have bought into the old myth of the information +economy, but not so much that they're willing to ban the PC and the Internet. + +$$$$ + +1~ Downloads Give Amazon Jungle Fever + +(Originally published in The Guardian, December 11, 2007) ~# + +Let me start by saying that I love Amazon. I buy everything from books to +clothes to electronics to medication to food to batteries to toys to furniture +to baby supplies from the company. I once even bought an ironing board on +Amazon. No company can top them for ease of use or for respecting consumer +rights when it comes to refunds, ensuring satisfaction, and taking good care of +loyal customers. + +As a novelist, I couldn't be happier about Amazon's existence. Not only does +Amazon have a set of superb recommendation tools that help me sell books, but +it also has an affiliate program that lets me get up to 8.5% in commissions for +sales of my books through the site - nearly doubling my royalty rate. + +As a consumer advocate and activist, I'm delighted by almost every public +policy initiative from Amazon. When the Author's Guild tried to get Amazon to +curtail its used-book market, the company refused to back down. Founder Jeff +Bezos (who is a friend of mine) even wrote, "when someone buys a book, they are +also buying the right to resell that book, to loan it out, or to even give it +away if they want. Everyone understands this." + +More recently, Amazon stood up to the US government, who'd gone on an illegal +fishing expedition for terrorists (TERRORISTS! TERRORISTS! TERRORISTS!) and +asked Amazon to turn over the purchasing history of 24,000 Amazon customers. +The company spent a fortune fighting for our rights, and won. + +It also has a well-deserved reputation for taking care over copyright +"takedown" notices for the material that its customers post on its site, +discarding ridiculous claims rather than blindly acting on every single notice, +no matter how frivolous. + +But for all that, it has to be said: Whenever Amazon tries to sell a digital +download, it turns into one of the dumbest companies on the web. + +Take the Kindle, the $400 handheld ebook reader that Amazon shipped recently, +to vast, ringing indifference. + +The device is cute enough - in a clumsy, overpriced, generation-one kind of way +- but the early adopter community recoiled in horror at the terms of service +and anti-copying technology that infected it. Ebooks that you buy through the +Kindle can't be lent or resold (remember, "when someone buys a book, they are +also buying the right to resell that book...Everyone understands this.") + +Mark Pilgrim's "The Future of Reading" enumerates five other Kindle +showstoppers: Amazon can change your ebooks without notifying you or getting +your permission; and if you violate any of the "agreement", it can delete your +ebooks, even if you've paid for them, and you get no appeal. + + +It's not just the Kindle, either. Amazon Unbox, the semi-abortive video +download service, shipped with terms of service that included your granting +permission for Amazon to install any software on your computer, to spy on you, +to delete your videos, to delete any other file on your hard drive, to deny you +access to your movies if you lose them in a crash. This comes from the company +that will cheerfully ship you a replacement DVD if you email them and tell them +that the one you just bought never turned up in the post. + +Even Amazon's much-vaunted MP3 store comes with terms of service that prevent +lending and reselling. + +I am mystified by this. Amazon is the kind of company that every etailer should +study and copy - the gold standard for e-commerce. You'd think that if there +was any company that would intuitively get the web, it would be Amazon. + +What's more, this is a company that stands up to rightsholder groups, +publishers and the US government - but only when it comes to physical goods. +Why is it that whenever a digital sale is in the offing, Amazon rolls over on +its back and wets itself? + +$$$$ + +1~ What's the Most Important Right Creators Have? + +(Originally published as "How Big Media's Copyright Campaigns Threaten Internet +Free Expression," InformationWeek, November 5, 2007) ~# + +Any discussion of "creator's rights" is likely to be limited to talk about +copyright, but copyright is just a side-dish for creators: the most important +right we have is the right to free expression. And these two rights are always +in tension. + +Take Viacom's claims against YouTube. The entertainment giant says that YouTube +has been profiting from the fact that YouTube users upload clips from Viacom +shows, and they demand that YouTube take steps to prevent this from happening +in the future. YouTube actually offered to do something very like this: they +invited Viacom and other rightsholders to send them all the clips they wanted +kept offline, and promised to programatically detect these clips and interdict +them. + +But Viacom rejected this offer. Rather, the company wants YouTube to just +figure it out, determine a priori which video clips are being presented with +permission and which ones are not. After all, Viacom does the very same thing: +it won't air clips until a battalion of lawyers have investigated them and +determined whether they are lawful. + +But the Internet is not cable television. Net-based hosting outfits -- +including YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, Scribd, and the Internet Archive -- offer +free publication venues to all comers, enabling anyone to publish anything. In +1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Congress considered the question of +liability for these companies and decided to offer them a mixed deal: hosting +companies don't need to hire a million lawyers to review every blog-post before +it goes live, but rightsholders can order them to remove any infringing +material from the net just by sending them a notice that the material +infringes. + +This deal enabled hosting companies to offer free platforms for publication and +expression to everyone. But it also allowed anyone to censor the Internet, just +by making claims of infringement, without offering any evidence to support +those claims, without having to go to court to prove their claims (this has +proven to be an attractive nuisance, presenting an irresistible lure to anyone +with a beef against an online critic, from the Church of Scientology to +Diebold's voting machines division). + +The proposal for online hosts to figure out what infringes and what doesn't is +wildly impractical. Under most countries' copyright laws, creative works +receive a copyright from the moment that they are "fixed in a tangible medium" +(hard drives count), and this means that the pool of copyrighted works is so +large as to be practically speaking infinite. Knowing whether a work is +copyrighted, who holds the copyright, and whether a posting is made with the +rightsholder's permission (or in accord with each nation's varying ideas about +fair use) is impossible. The only way to be sure is to start from the +presumption that each creative work is infringing, and then make each Internet +user prove, to some lawyer's satisfaction, that she has the right to post each +drib of content that appears on the Web. + +Imagine that such a system were the law of the land. There's no way Blogger or +YouTube or Flickr could afford to offer free hosting to their users. Rather, +all these hosted services would have to charge enough for access to cover the +scorching legal bills associated with checking all material. And not just the +freebies, either: your local ISP, the servers hosting your company's website or +your page for family genealogy: they'd all have to do the same kind of +continuous checking and re-checking of every file you publish with them. + +It would be the end of any publication that couldn't foot the legal bills to +get off the ground. The multi-billion-page Internet would collapse into the +homogeneous world of cable TV (remember when we thought that a "500-channel +universe" would be unimaginably broad? Imagine an Internet with only 500 +"channels!"). From Amazon to Ask A Ninja, from Blogger to The Everlasting +Blort, every bit of online content is made possible by removing the cost of +paying lawyers to act as the Internet's gatekeepers. + +This is great news for artists. The traditional artist's lament is that our +publishers have us over a barrel, controlling the narrow and vital channels for +making works available -- from big gallery owners to movie studios to record +labels to New York publishers. That's why artists have such a hard time +negotiating a decent deal for themselves (for example, most beginning recording +artists have to agree to have money deducted from their royalty statements for +"breakage" of records en route to stores -- and these deductions are also +levied against digital sales through the iTunes Store!). + +But, thanks to the web, artists have more options than ever. The Internet's +most popular video podcasts aren't associated with TV networks (with all the +terrible, one-sided deals that would entail), rather, they're independent +programs like RocketBoom, Homestar Runner, or the late, lamented Ze Frank Show. +These creators -- along with all the musicians, writers, and other artists +using the net to earn their living -- were able to write their own ticket. +Today, major artists like Radiohead and Madonna are leaving the record labels +behind and trying novel, net-based ways of promoting their work. + +And it's not just the indies who benefit: the existence of successful +independent artists creates fantastic leverage for artists who negotiate with +the majors. More and more, the big media companies' "like it or leave it" +bargaining stance is being undermined by the possibility that the next big star +will shrug, turn on her heel, and make her fortune without the big companies' +help. This has humbled the bigs, making their deals better and more +artist-friendly. + +Bargaining leverage is just for starters. The greatest threat that art faces is +suppression. Historically, artists have struggled just to make themselves +heard, just to safeguard the right to express themselves. Censorship is +history's greatest enemy of art. A limited-liability Web is a Web where anyone +can post anything and reach *{everyone}*. + +What's more, this privilege isn't limited to artists. All manner of +communication, from the personal introspection in public "diaries" to social +chatter on MySpace and Facebook, are now possible. Some artists have taken the +bizarre stance that this "trivial" matter is unimportant and thus a poor excuse +for allowing hosted services to exist in the first place. This is pretty +arrogant: a society where only artists are allowed to impart "important" +messages and where the rest of us are supposed to shut up about our loves, +hopes, aspirations, jokes, family and wants is hardly a democratic paradise. + +Artists are in the free expression business, and technology that helps free +expression helps artists. When lowering the cost of copyright enforcement +raises the cost of free speech, every artist has a duty to speak out. Our +ability to make our art is inextricably linked with the billions of Internet +users who use the network to talk about their lives. + +$$$$ + +1~ Giving it Away + +(Originally published in Forbes.com, December 2006) ~# + +I've been giving away my books ever since my first novel came out, and boy has +it ever made me a bunch of money. + +When my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, was published by Tor +Books in January 2003, I also put the entire electronic text of the novel on +the Internet under a Creative Commons License that encouraged my readers to +copy it far and wide. Within a day, there were 30,000 downloads from my site +(and those downloaders were in turn free to make more copies). Three years and +six printings later, more than 700,000 copies of the book have been downloaded +from my site. The book's been translated into more languages than I can keep +track of, key concepts from it have been adopted for software projects and +there are two competing fan audio adaptations online. + +Most people who download the book don't end up buying it, but they wouldn't +have bought it in any event, so I haven't lost any sales, I've just won an +audience. A tiny minority of downloaders treat the free e-book as a substitute +for the printed book--those are the lost sales. But a much larger minority +treat the e-book as an enticement to buy the printed book. They're gained +sales. As long as gained sales outnumber lost sales, I'm ahead of the game. +After all, distributing nearly a million copies of my book has cost me nothing. + +The thing about an e-book is that it's a social object. It wants to be copied +from friend to friend, beamed from a Palm device, pasted into a mailing list. +It begs to be converted to witty signatures at the bottom of e-mails. It is so +fluid and intangible that it can spread itself over your whole life. Nothing +sells books like a personal recommendation--when I worked in a bookstore, the +sweetest words we could hear were "My friend suggested I pick up...." The +friend had made the sale for us, we just had to consummate it. In an age of +online friendship, e-books trump dead trees for word of mouth. + +There are two things that writers ask me about this arrangement: First, does it +sell more books, and second, how did you talk your publisher into going for +this mad scheme? + +There's no empirical way to prove that giving away books sells more books--but +I've done this with three novels and a short story collection (and I'll be +doing it with two more novels and another collection in the next year), and my +books have consistently outperformed my publisher's expectations. Comparing +their sales to the numbers provided by colleagues suggests that they perform +somewhat better than other books from similar writers at similar stages in +their careers. But short of going back in time and re-releasing the same books +under the same circumstances without the free e-book program, there's no way to +be sure. + +What is certain is that every writer who's tried giving away e-books to sell +books has come away satisfied and ready to do it some more. + +How did I talk Tor Books into letting me do this? It's not as if Tor is a +spunky dotcom upstart. They're the largest science fiction publisher in the +world, and they're a division of the German publishing giant Holtzbrinck. +They're not patchouli-scented info-hippies who believe that information wants +to be free. Rather, they're canny assessors of the world of science fiction, +perhaps the most social of all literary genres. Science fiction is driven by +organized fandom, volunteers who put on hundreds of literary conventions in +every corner of the globe, every weekend of the year. These intrepid promoters +treat books as markers of identity and as cultural artifacts of great import. +They evangelize the books they love, form subcultures around them, cite them in +political arguments, sometimes they even rearrange their lives and jobs around +them. + +What's more, science fiction's early adopters defined the social character of +the Internet itself. Given the high correlation between technical employment +and science fiction reading, it was inevitable that the first nontechnical +discussion on the Internet would be about science fiction. The online norms of +idle chatter, fannish organizing, publishing and leisure are descended from SF +fandom, and if any literature has a natural home in cyberspace, it's science +fiction, the literature that coined the very word "cyberspace." + +Indeed, science fiction was the first form of widely pirated literature online, +through "bookwarez" channels that contained books that had been hand-scanned, a +page at a time, converted to digital text and proof-read. Even today, the +mostly widely pirated literature online is SF. + +Nothing could make me more sanguine about the future. As publisher Tim O'Reilly +wrote in his seminal essay, Piracy is Progressive Taxation, "being well-enough +known to be pirated [is] a crowning achievement." I'd rather stake my future on +a literature that people care about enough to steal than devote my life to a +form that has no home in the dominant medium of the century. + +What about that future? Many writers fear that in the future, electronic books +will come to substitute more readily for print books, due to changing audiences +and improved technology. I am skeptical of this--the codex format has endured +for centuries as a simple and elegant answer to the affordances demanded by +print, albeit for a relatively small fraction of the population. Most people +aren't and will never be readers--but the people who are readers will be +readers forever, and they are positively pervy for paper. + +But say it does come to pass that electronic books are all anyone wants. + +I don't think it's practical to charge for copies of electronic works. Bits +aren't ever going to get harder to copy. So we'll have to figure out how to +charge for something else. That's not to say you can't charge for a copy-able +bit, but you sure can't force a reader to pay for access to information +anymore. + +This isn't the first time creative entrepreneurs have gone through one of these +transitions. Vaudeville performers had to transition to radio, an abrupt shift +from having perfect control over who could hear a performance (if they don't +buy a ticket, you throw them out) to no control whatsoever (any family whose +12-year-old could build a crystal set, the day's equivalent of installing +file-sharing software, could tune in). There were business models for radio, +but predicting them a priori wasn't easy. Who could have foreseen that radio's +great fortunes would be had through creating a blanket license, securing a +Congressional consent decree, chartering a collecting society and inventing a +new form of statistical mathematics to fund it? + +Predicting the future of publishing--should the wind change and printed books +become obsolete--is just as hard. I don't know how writers would earn their +living in such a world, but I do know that I'll never find out by turning my +back on the Internet. By being in the middle of electronic publishing, by +watching what hundreds of thousands of my readers do with my e-books, I get +better market intelligence than I could through any other means. As does my +publisher. As serious as I am about continuing to work as a writer for the +foreseeable future, Tor Books and Holtzbrinck are just as serious. They've got +even more riding on the future of publishing than me. So when I approached my +publisher with this plan to give away books to sell books, it was a no-brainer +for them. + +It's good business for me, too. This "market research" of giving away e-books +sells printed books. What's more, having my books more widely read opens many +other opportunities for me to earn a living from activities around my writing, +such as the Fulbright Chair I got at USC this year, this high-paying article in +Forbes, speaking engagements and other opportunities to teach, write and +license my work for translation and adaptation. My fans' tireless evangelism +for my work doesn't just sell books--it sells me. + +The golden age of hundreds of writers who lived off of nothing but their +royalties is bunkum. Throughout history, writers have relied on day jobs, +teaching, grants, inheritances, translation, licensing and other varied sources +to make ends meet. The Internet not only sells more books for me, it also gives +me more opportunities to earn my keep through writing-related activities. + +There has never been a time when more people were reading more words by more +authors. The Internet is a literary world of written words. What a fine thing +that is for writers. + +$$$$ + +1~ Science Fiction is the Only Literature People Care Enough About to Steal on +the Internet + +(Originally published in Locus Magazine, July 2006) + +As a science fiction writer, no piece of news could make me more hopeful. It +beats the hell out of the alternative -- a future where the dominant, +pluripotent, ubiquitous medium has no place for science fiction literature. + +When radio and records were invented, they were pretty bad news for the +performers of the day. Live performance demanded charisma, the ability to +really put on a magnetic show in front of a crowd. It didn't matter how +technically accomplished you were: if you stood like a statue on stage, no one +wanted to see you do your thing. On the other hand, you succeeded as a mediocre +player, provided you attacked your performance with a lot of brio. + +Radio was clearly good news for musicians -- lots more musicians were able to +make lots more music, reaching lots more people and making lots more money. It +turned performance into an industry, which is what happens when you add +technology to art. But it was terrible news for charismatics. It put them out +on the street, stuck them with flipping burgers and driving taxis. They knew +it, too. Performers lobbied to have the Marconi radio banned, to send Marconi +back to the drawing board, charged with inventing a radio they could charge +admission to. "We're charismatics, we do something as old and holy as the first +story told before the first fire in the first cave. What right have you to +insist that we should become mere clerks, working in an obscure back-room, +leaving you to commune with our audiences on our behalf?" + +Technology giveth and technology taketh away. Seventy years later, Napster +showed us that, as William Gibson noted, "We may be at the end of the brief +period during which it is possible to charge for recorded music." Surely we're +at the end of the period where it's possible to exclude those who don't wish to +pay. Every song released can be downloaded gratis from a peer-to-peer network +(and will shortly get easier to download, as hard-drive price/performance +curves take us to a place where all the music ever recorded will fit on a +disposable pocket-drive that you can just walk over to a friend's place and +copy). + +But have no fear: the Internet makes it possible for recording artists to reach +a wider audience than ever dreamt of before. Your potential fans may be spread +in a thin, even coat over the world, in a configuration that could never be +cost-effective to reach with traditional marketing. But the Internet's ability +to lower the costs for artists to reach their audiences and for audiences to +find artists suddenly renders possible more variety in music than ever before. + +Those artists can use the Internet to bring people back to the live +performances that characterized the heyday of Vaudeville. Use your recordings +-- which you can't control -- to drive admissions to your performances, which +you can control. It's a model that's worked great for jam bands like the +Grateful Dead and Phish. It's also a model that won't work for many of today's +artists; 70 years of evolutionary pressure has selected for artists who are +more virtuoso than charismatic, artists optimized for recording-based income +instead of performance-based income. "How dare you tell us that we are to be +trained monkeys, capering on a stage for your amusement? We're not +charismatics, we're white-collar workers. We commune with our muses behind +closed doors and deliver up our work product when it's done, through plastic, +laser-etched discs. You have no right to demand that we convert to a +live-performance economy." + +Technology giveth and technology taketh away. As bands on MySpace -- who can +fill houses and sell hundreds of thousands of discs without a record deal, by +connecting individually with fans -- have shown, there's a new market aborning +on the Internet for music, one with fewer gatekeepers to creativity than ever +before. + +That's the purpose of copyright, after all: to decentralize who gets to make +art. Before copyright, we had patronage: you could make art if the Pope or the +king liked the sound of it. That produced some damned pretty ceilings and +frescos, but it wasn't until control of art was given over to the market -- by +giving publishers a monopoly over the works they printed, starting with the +Statute of Anne in 1710 -- that we saw the explosion of creativity that +investment-based art could create. Industrialists weren't great arbiters of who +could and couldn't make art, but they were better than the Pope. + +The Internet is enabling a further decentralization in who gets to make art, +and like each of the technological shifts in cultural production, it's good for +some artists and bad for others. The important question is: will it let more +people participate in cultural production? Will it further decentralize +decision-making for artists? + +And for SF writers and fans, the further question is, "Will it be any good to +our chosen medium?" Like I said, science fiction is the only literature people +care enough about to steal on the Internet. It's the only literature that +regularly shows up, scanned and run through optical character recognition +software and lovingly hand-edited on darknet newsgroups, Russian websites, IRC +channels and elsewhere (yes, there's also a brisk trade in comics and technical +books, but I'm talking about prose fiction here -- though this is clearly a +sign of hope for our friends in tech publishing and funnybooks). + +Some writers are using the Internet's affinity for SF to great effect. I've +released every one of my novels under Creative Commons licenses that encourage +fans to share them freely and widely -- even, in some cases, to remix them and +to make new editions of them for use in the developing world. My first novel, +Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, is in its sixth printing from Tor, and has +been downloaded more than 650,000 times from my website, and an untold number +of times from others' websites. + +I've discovered what many authors have also discovered: releasing electronic +texts of books drives sales of the print editions. An SF writer's biggest +problem is obscurity, not piracy. Of all the people who chose not to spend +their discretionary time and cash on our works today, the great bulk of them +did so because they didn't know they existed, not because someone handed them a +free e-book version. + +But what kind of artist thrives on the Internet? Those who can establish a +personal relationship with their readers -- something science fiction has been +doing for as long as pros have been hanging out in the con suite instead of the +green room. These conversational artists come from all fields, and they combine +the best aspects of charisma and virtuosity with charm -- the ability to +conduct their online selves as part of a friendly salon that establishes a +non-substitutable relationship with their audiences. You might find a film, a +game, and a book to be equally useful diversions on a slow afternoon, but if +the novel's author is a pal of yours, that's the one you'll pick. It's a +competitive advantage that can't be beat. + +See Neil Gaiman's blog, where he manages the trick of carrying on a +conversation with millions. Or Charlie Stross's Usenet posts. Scalzi's blogs. +J. Michael Straczynski's presence on Usenet -- while in production on Babylon +5, no less -- breeding an army of rabid fans ready to fax-bomb recalcitrant TV +execs into submission and syndication. See also the MySpace bands selling a +million units of their CDs by adding each buyer to their "friends lists." Watch +Eric Flint manage the Baen Bar, and Warren Ellis's good-natured growling on his +sites, lists, and so forth. + +Not all artists have in them to conduct an online salon with their audiences. +Not all Vaudevillians had it in them to transition to radio. Technology giveth +and technology taketh away. SF writers are supposed to be soaked in the future, +ready to come to grips with it. The future is conversational: when there's more +good stuff that you know about that's one click away or closer than you will +ever click on, it's not enough to know that some book is good. The least +substitutable good in the Internet era is the personal relationship. + +Conversation, not content, is king. If you were stranded on a desert island and +you opted to bring your records instead of your friends, we'd call you a +sociopath. Science fiction writers who can insert themselves into their +readers' conversations will be set for life. + +$$$$ + +1~ How Copyright Broke + +(Originally published in Locus Magazine, September, 2006) ~# + +The theory is that if the Internet can't be controlled, then copyright is dead. +The thing is, the Internet is a machine for copying things cheaply, quickly, +and with as little control as possible, while copyright is the right to control +who gets to make copies, so these two abstractions seem destined for a fatal +collision, right? + +Wrong. + +The idea that copyright confers the exclusive right to control copying, +performance, adaptation, and general use of a creative work is a polite fiction +that has been mostly harmless throughout its brief history, but which has been +laid bare by the Internet, and the disjoint is showing. + +Theoretically, if I sell you a copy of one of my novels, I'm conferring upon +you a property interest in a lump of atoms -- the pages of the book -- as well +as a license to make some reasonable use of the ethereal ideas embedded upon +the page, the copyrighted work. + +Copyright started with a dispute between Scottish and English publishers, and +the first copyright law, 1709's Statute of Anne, conferred the exclusive right +to publish new editions of a book on the copyright holder. It was a fair +competition statute, and it was silent on the rights that the copyright holder +had in respect of his customers: the readers. Publishers got a legal tool to +fight their competitors, a legal tool that made a distinction between the +corpus -- a physical book -- and the spirit -- the novel writ on its pages. But +this legal nicety was not "customer-facing." As far as a reader was concerned, +once she bought a book, she got the same rights to it as she got to any other +physical object, like a potato or a shovel. Of course, the reader couldn't +print a new edition, but this had as much to do with the realities of +technology as it did with the law. Printing presses were rare and expensive: +telling a 17th-century reader that he wasn't allowed to print a new edition of +a book you sold him was about as meaningful as telling him he wasn't allowed to +have it laser-etched on the surface of the moon. Publishing books wasn't +something readers did. + +Indeed, until the photocopier came along, it was practically impossible for a +member of the audience to infringe copyright in a way that would rise to legal +notice. Copyright was like a tank-mine, designed only to go off when a +publisher or record company or radio station rolled over it. We civilians +couldn't infringe copyright (many thanks to Jamie Boyle for this useful +analogy). + +It wasn't the same for commercial users of copyrighted works. For the most +part, a radio station that played a record was expected to secure permission to +do so (though this permission usually comes in the form of a +government-sanctioned blanket license that cuts through all the expense of +negotiating in favor of a single monthly payment that covers all radio play). +If you shot a movie, you were expected to get permission for the music you put +in it. Critically, there are many uses that commercial users never paid for. +Most workplaces don't pay for the music their employees enjoy while they work. +An ad agency that produces a demo reel of recent commercials to use as part of +a creative briefing to a designer doesn't pay for this extremely commercial +use. A film company whose set-designer clips and copies from magazines and +movies to produce a "mood book" never secures permission nor offers +compensation for these uses. + +Theoretically, the contours of what you may and may not do without permission +are covered under a legal doctrine called "fair use," which sets out the +factors a judge can use to weigh the question of whether an infringement should +be punished. While fair use is a vital part of the way that works get made and +used, it's very rare for an unauthorized use to get adjudicated on this basis. + +No, the realpolitik of unauthorized use is that users are not required to +secure permission for uses that the rights holder will never discover. If you +put some magazine clippings in your mood book, the magazine publisher will +never find out you did so. If you stick a Dilbert cartoon on your office-door, +Scott Adams will never know about it. + +So while technically the law has allowed rights holders to infinitely +discriminate among the offerings they want to make -- Special discounts on this +book, which may only be read on Wednesdays! This film half-price, if you agree +only to show it to people whose names start with D! -- practicality has +dictated that licenses could only be offered on enforceable terms. + +When it comes to retail customers for information goods -- readers, listeners, +watchers -- this whole license abstraction falls flat. No one wants to believe +that the book he's brought home is only partly his, and subject to the terms of +a license set out on the flyleaf. You'd be a flaming jackass if you showed up +at a con and insisted that your book may not be read aloud, nor photocopied in +part and marked up for a writers' workshop, nor made the subject of a piece of +fan-fiction. + +At the office, you might get a sweet deal on a coffee machine on the promise +that you'll use a certain brand of coffee, and even sign off on a deal to let +the coffee company check in on this from time to time. But no one does this at +home. We instinctively and rightly recoil from the idea that our personal, +private dealings in our homes should be subject to oversight from some company +from whom we've bought something. We bought it. It's ours. Even when we rent +things, like cars, we recoil from the idea that Hertz might track our +movements, or stick a camera in the steering wheel. + +When the Internet and the PC made it possible to sell a lot of purely digital +"goods" -- software, music, movies and books delivered as pure digits over the +wire, without a physical good changing hands, the copyright lawyers groped +about for a way to take account of this. It's in the nature of a computer that +it copies what you put on it. A computer is said to be working, and of high +quality, in direct proportion to the degree to which it swiftly and accurately +copies the information that it is presented with. + +The copyright lawyers had a versatile hammer in their toolbox: the copyright +license. These licenses had been presented to corporations for years. +Frustratingly (for the lawyers), these corporate customers had their own +counsel, and real bargaining power, which made it impossible to impose really +interesting conditions on them, like limiting the use of a movie such that it +couldn't be fast-forwarded, or preventing the company from letting more than +one employee review a journal at a time. + +Regular customers didn't have lawyers or negotiating leverage. They were a +natural for licensing regimes. Have a look at the next click-through +"agreement" you're provided with on purchasing a piece of software or an +electronic book or song. The terms set out in those agreements are positively +Dickensian in their marvelous idiocy. Sony BMG recently shipped over eight +million music CDs with an "agreement" that bound its purchasers to destroy +their music if they left the country or had a house-fire, and to promise not to +listen to their tunes while at work. + +But customers understand property -- you bought it, you own it -- and they +don't understand copyright. Practically no one understands copyright. I know +editors at multibillion-dollar publishing houses who don't know the difference +between copyright and trademark (if you've ever heard someone say, "You need to +defend a copyright or you lose it," you've found one of these people who +confuse copyright and trademark; what's more, this statement isn't particularly +true of trademark, either). I once got into an argument with a senior Disney TV +exec who truly believed that if you re-broadcasted an old program, it was +automatically re-copyrighted and got another 95 years of exclusive use (that's +wrong). + +So this is where copyright breaks: When copyright lawyers try to treat readers +and listeners and viewers as if they were (weak and unlucky) corporations who +could be strong-armed into license agreements you wouldn't wish on a dog. +There's no conceivable world in which people are going to tiptoe around the +property they've bought and paid for, re-checking their licenses to make sure +that they're abiding by the terms of an agreement they doubtless never read. +Why read something if it's non-negotiable, anyway? + +The answer is simple: treat your readers' property as property. What readers do +with their own equipment, as private, noncommercial actors, is not a fit +subject for copyright regulation or oversight. The Securities Exchange +Commission doesn't impose rules on you when you loan a friend five bucks for +lunch. Anti-gambling laws aren't triggered when you bet your kids an ice-cream +cone that you'll bicycle home before them. Copyright shouldn't come between an +end-user of a creative work and her property. + +Of course, this approach is made even simpler by the fact that practically +every customer for copyrighted works already operates on this assumption. Which +is not to say that this might make some business-models more difficult to +pursue. Obviously, if there was some way to ensure that a given publisher was +the only source for a copyrighted work, that publisher could hike up its +prices, devote less money to service, and still sell its wares. Having to +compete with free copies handed from user to user makes life harder -- hasn't +it always? + +But it is most assuredly possible. Look at Apple's wildly popular iTunes Music +Store, which has sold over one billion tracks since 2003. Every song on iTunes +is available as a free download from user-to-user, peer-to-peer networks like +Kazaa. Indeed, the P2P monitoring company Big Champagne reports that the +average time-lapse between a iTunes-exclusive song being offered by Apple and +that same song being offered on P2P networks is 180 seconds. + +Every iTunes customer could readily acquire every iTunes song for free, using +the fastest-adopted technology in history. Many of them do (just as many fans +photocopy their favorite stories from magazines and pass them around to +friends). But Apple has figured out how to compete well enough by offering a +better service and a better experience to realize a good business out of this. +(Apple also imposes ridiculous licensing restrictions, but that's a subject for +a future column). + +Science fiction is a genre of clear-eyed speculation about the future. It +should have no place for wishful thinking about a world where readers willingly +put up with the indignity of being treated as "licensees" instead of customers. + +$$$$ + +!_ And now a brief commercial interlude: + +If you're enjoying this book and have been thinking of buying a copy, here's a +chance to do so: + +http://craphound.com/content/buy + +$$$$ + +1~ In Praise of Fanfic + +(Originally published in Locus Magazine, May 2007) ~# + +I wrote my first story when I was six. It was 1977, and I had just had my mind +blown clean out of my skull by a new movie called Star Wars (the golden age of +science fiction is 12; the golden age of cinematic science fiction is six). I +rushed home and stapled a bunch of paper together, trimmed the sides down so +that it approximated the size and shape of a mass-market paperback, and set to +work. I wrote an elaborate, incoherent ramble about Star Wars, in which the +events of the film replayed themselves, tweaked to suit my tastes. + +I wrote a lot of Star Wars fanfic that year. By the age of 12, I'd graduated to +Conan. By the age of 18, it was Harlan Ellison. By the age of 26, it was +Bradbury, by way of Gibson. Today, I hope I write more or less like myself. + +Walk the streets of Florence and you'll find a copy of the David on practically +every corner. For centuries, the way to become a Florentine sculptor has been +to copy Michelangelo, to learn from the master. Not just the great Florentine +sculptors, either -- great or terrible, they all start with the master; it can +be the start of a lifelong passion, or a mere fling. The copy can be art, or it +can be crap -- the best way to find out which kind you've got inside you is to +try. + +Science fiction has the incredible good fortune to have attracted huge, social +groups of fan-fiction writers. Many pros got their start with fanfic (and many +of them still work at it in secret), and many fanfic writers are happy to +scratch their itch by working only with others' universes, for the sheer joy of +it. Some fanfic is great -- there's plenty of Buffy fanfic that trumps the +official, licensed tie-in novels -- and some is purely dreadful. + +Two things are sure about all fanfic, though: first, that people who write and +read fanfic are already avid readers of writers whose work they're paying +homage to; and second, that the people who write and read fanfic derive +fantastic satisfaction from their labors. This is great news for writers. + +Great because fans who are so bought into your fiction that they'll make it +their own are fans forever, fans who'll evangelize your work to their friends, +fans who'll seek out your work however you publish it. + +Great because fans who use your work therapeutically, to work out their own +creative urges, are fans who have a damned good reason to stick with the field, +to keep on reading even as our numbers dwindle. Even when the fandom revolves +around movies or TV shows, fanfic is itself a literary pursuit, something +undertaken in the world of words. The fanfic habit is a literary habit. + +In Japan, comic book fanfic writers publish fanfic manga called dojinshi -- +some of these titles dwarf the circulation of the work they pay tribute to, and +many of them are sold commercially. Japanese comic publishers know a good thing +when they see it, and these fanficcers get left alone by the commercial giants +they attach themselves to. + +And yet for all this, there are many writers who hate fanfic. Some argue that +fans have no business appropriating their characters and situations, that it's +disrespectful to imagine your precious fictional people into sexual scenarios, +or to retell their stories from a different point of view, or to snatch a +victorious happy ending from the tragic defeat the writer ended her book with. + +Other writers insist that fans who take without asking -- or against the +writer's wishes -- are part of an "entitlement culture" that has decided that +it has the moral right to lift scenarios and characters without permission, +that this is part of our larger postmodern moral crisis that is making the +world a worse place. + +Some writers dismiss all fanfic as bad art and therefore unworthy of +appropriation. Some call it copyright infringement or trademark infringement, +and every now and again, some loony will actually threaten to sue his readers +for having had the gall to tell his stories to each other. + +I'm frankly flabbergasted by these attitudes. Culture is a lot older than art +-- that is, we have had social storytelling for a lot longer than we've had a +notional class of artistes whose creativity is privileged and elevated to the +numinous, far above the everyday creativity of a kid who knows that she can +paint and draw, tell a story and sing a song, sculpt and invent a game. + +To call this a moral failing -- and a new moral failing at that! -- is to turn +your back on millions of years of human history. It's no failing that we +internalize the stories we love, that we rework them to suit our minds better. +The Pygmalion story didn't start with Shaw or the Greeks, nor did it end with +My Fair Lady. Pygmalion is at least thousands of years old -- think of Moses +passing for the Pharaoh's son! -- and has been reworked in a billion bedtime +stories, novels, D&D games, movies, fanfic stories, songs, and legends. + +Each person who retold Pygmalion did something both original -- no two tellings +are just alike -- and derivative, for there are no new ideas under the sun. +Ideas are easy. Execution is hard. That's why writers don't really get excited +when they're approached by people with great ideas for novels. We've all got +more ideas than we can use -- what we lack is the cohesive whole. + +Much fanfic -- the stuff written for personal consumption or for a small social +group -- isn't bad art. It's just not art. It's not written to make a +contribution to the aesthetic development of humanity. It's created to satisfy +the deeply human need to play with the stories that constitute our world. +There's nothing trivial about telling stories with your friends -- even if the +stories themselves are trivial. The act of telling stories to one another is +practically sacred -- and it's unquestionably profound. What's more, lots of +retellings are art: witness Pat Murphy's wonderful There and Back Again +(Tolkien) and Geoff Ryman's brilliant World Fantasy Award-winning Was (L. Frank +Baum). + +The question of respect is, perhaps, a little thornier. The dominant mode of +criticism in fanfic circles is to compare a work to the canon -- "Would Spock +ever say that, in 'real' life?" What's more, fanfic writers will sometimes +apply this test to works that are of the canon, as in "Spock never would have +said that, and Gene Roddenberry has no business telling me otherwise." + +This is a curious mix of respect and disrespect. Respect because it's hard to +imagine a more respectful stance than the one that says that your work is the +yardstick against which all other work is to be measured -- what could be more +respectful than having your work made into the gold standard? On the other +hand, this business of telling writers that they've given their characters the +wrong words and deeds can feel obnoxious or insulting. + +Writers sometimes speak of their characters running away from them, taking on a +life of their own. They say that these characters -- drawn from real people in +our lives and mixed up with our own imagination -- are autonomous pieces of +themselves. It's a short leap from there to mystical nonsense about protecting +our notional, fictional children from grubby fans who'd set them to screwing +each other or bowing and scraping before some thinly veiled version of the +fanfic writer herself. + +There's something to the idea of the autonomous character. Big chunks of our +wetware are devoted to simulating other people, trying to figure out if we are +likely to fight or fondle them. It's unsurprising that when you ask your brain +to model some other person, it rises to the task. But that's exactly what +happens to a reader when you hand your book over to him: he simulates your +characters in his head, trying to interpret that character's actions through +his own lens. + +Writers can't ask readers not to interpret their work. You can't enjoy a novel +that you haven't interpreted -- unless you model the author's characters in +your head, you can't care about what they do and why they do it. And once +readers model a character, it's only natural that readers will take pleasure in +imagining what that character might do offstage, to noodle around with it. This +isn't disrespect: it's active reading. + +Our field is incredibly privileged to have such an active fanfic writing +practice. Let's stop treating them like thieves and start treating them like +honored guests at a table that we laid just for them. + +$$$$ + +1~ Metacrap: Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia + +(Self-published, 26 August 2001) ~# + +group{ + +0. ToC: + + * 0. ToC + o 0.1 Version History + * 1. Introduction + * 2. The problems + o 2.1 People lie + o 2.2 People are lazy + o 2.3 People are stupid + o 2.4 Mission: Impossible -- know thyself + o 2.5 Schemas aren't neutral + o 2.6 Metrics influence results + o 2.7 There's more than one way to describe something + * 3. Reliable metadata + +}group + +2~x- 1. Introduction + +Metadata is "data about data" -- information like keywords, page-length, title, +word-count, abstract, location, SKU, ISBN, and so on. Explicit, human-generated +metadata has enjoyed recent trendiness, especially in the world of XML. A +typical scenario goes like this: a number of suppliers get together and agree +on a metadata standard -- a Document Type Definition or scheme -- for a given +subject area, say washing machines. They agree to a common vocabulary for +describing washing machines: size, capacity, energy consumption, water +consumption, price. They create machine-readable databases of their inventory, +which are available in whole or part to search agents and other databases, so +that a consumer can enter the parameters of the washing machine he's seeking +and query multiple sites simultaneously for an exhaustive list of the available +washing machines that meet his criteria. + +If everyone would subscribe to such a system and create good metadata for the +purposes of describing their goods, services and information, it would be a +trivial matter to search the Internet for highly qualified, context-sensitive +results: a fan could find all the downloadable music in a given genre, a +manufacturer could efficiently discover suppliers, travelers could easily +choose a hotel room for an upcoming trip. + +A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be a utopia. It's also a +pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated +market opportunities. + +2~x- 2. The problems + +There are at least seven insurmountable obstacles between the world as we know +it and meta-utopia. I'll enumerate them below:. + +3~x- 2.1 People lie + +Metadata exists in a competitive world. Suppliers compete to sell their goods, +cranks compete to convey their crackpot theories (mea culpa), artists compete +for audience. Attention-spans and wallets may not be zero-sum, but they're +damned close. + +That's why: + +_* A search for any commonly referenced term at a search-engine like Altavista +will often turn up at least one porn link in the first ten results. + +_* Your mailbox is full of spam with subject lines like "Re: The information +you requested." + +_* Publisher's Clearing House sends out advertisements that holler "You may +already be a winner!" + +_* Press-releases have gargantuan lists of empty buzzwords attached to them. + +Meta-utopia is a world of reliable metadata. When poisoning the well confers +benefits to the poisoners, the meta-waters get awfully toxic in short order. + +3~x- 2.2 People are lazy + +You and me are engaged in the incredibly serious business of creating +information. Here in the Info-Ivory-Tower, we understand the importance of +creating and maintaining excellent metadata for our information. + +But info-civilians are remarkably cavalier about their information. Your +clueless aunt sends you email with no subject line, half the pages on Geocities +are called "Please title this page" and your boss stores all of his files on +his desktop with helpful titles like "UNTITLED.DOC." + +This laziness is bottomless. No amount of ease-of-use will end it. To +understand the true depths of meta-laziness, download ten random MP3 files from +Napster. Chances are, at least one will have no title, artist or track +information -- this despite the fact that adding in this info merely requires +clicking the "Fetch Track Info from CDDB" button on every MP3-ripping +application. + +Short of breaking fingers or sending out squads of vengeful info-ninjas to add +metadata to the average user's files, we're never gonna get there. + +3~x- 2.3 People are stupid + +Even when there's a positive benefit to creating good metadata, people +steadfastly refuse to exercise care and diligence in their metadata creation. + +Take eBay: every seller there has a damned good reason for double-checking +their listings for typos and misspellings. Try searching for "plam" on eBay. +Right now, that turns up nine typoed listings for "Plam Pilots." Misspelled +listings don't show up in correctly-spelled searches and hence garner fewer +bids and lower sale-prices. You can almost always get a bargain on a Plam Pilot +at eBay. + +The fine (and gross) points of literacy -- spelling, punctuation, grammar -- +elude the vast majority of the Internet's users. To believe that J. Random +Users will suddenly and en masse learn to spell and punctuate -- let alone +accurately categorize their information according to whatever hierarchy they're +supposed to be using -- is self-delusion of the first water. + +3~x- 2.4 Mission: Impossible -- know thyself + +In meta-utopia, everyone engaged in the heady business of describing stuff +carefully weighs the stuff in the balance and accurately divines the stuff's +properties, noting those results. + +Simple observation demonstrates the fallacy of this assumption. When Nielsen +used log-books to gather information on the viewing habits of their sample +families, the results were heavily skewed to Masterpiece Theater and Sesame +Street. Replacing the journals with set-top boxes that reported what the set +was actually tuned to showed what the average American family was really +watching: naked midget wrestling, America's Funniest Botched Cosmetic Surgeries +and Jerry Springer presents: "My daughter dresses like a slut!" + +Ask a programmer how long it'll take to write a given module, or a contractor +how long it'll take to fix your roof. Ask a laconic Southerner how far it is to +the creek. Better yet, throw darts -- the answer's likely to be just as +reliable. + +People are lousy observers of their own behaviors. Entire religions are formed +with the goal of helping people understand themselves better; therapists rake +in billions working for this very end. + +Why should we believe that using metadata will help J. Random User get in touch +with her Buddha nature? + +3~x- 2.5 Schemas aren't neutral + +In meta-utopia, the lab-coated guardians of epistemology sit down and +rationally map out a hierarchy of ideas, something like this: + +group{ + +Nothing: + + Black holes + +Everything: + + Matter: + + Earth: + + Planets + + Washing Machines + + Wind: + + Oxygen + + Poo-gas + + Fire: + + Nuclear fission + + Nuclear fusion + + "Mean Devil Woman" Louisiana Hot-Sauce + +}group + +In a given sub-domain, say, Washing Machines, experts agree on sub-hierarchies, +with classes for reliability, energy consumption, color, size, etc. + +This presumes that there is a "correct" way of categorizing ideas, and that +reasonable people, given enough time and incentive, can agree on the proper +means for building a hierarchy. + +Nothing could be farther from the truth. Any hierarchy of ideas necessarily +implies the importance of some axes over others. A manufacturer of small, +environmentally conscious washing machines would draw a hierarchy that looks +like this: + +group{ + +Energy consumption: + + Water consumption: + + Size: + + Capacity: + + Reliability + +}group + +While a manufacturer of glitzy, feature-laden washing machines would want +something like this: + +group{ + +Color: + + Size: + + Programmability: + + Reliability + +}group + +The conceit that competing interests can come to easy accord on a common +vocabulary totally ignores the power of organizing principles in a marketplace. + +3~x- 2.6 Metrics influence results + +Agreeing to a common yardstick for measuring the important stuff in any domain +necessarily privileges the items that score high on that metric, regardless of +those items' overall suitability. IQ tests privilege people who are good at IQ +tests, Nielsen Ratings privilege 30- and 60-minute TV shows (which is why MTV +doesn't show videos any more -- Nielsen couldn't generate ratings for +three-minute mini-programs, and so MTV couldn't demonstrate the value of +advertising on its network), raw megahertz scores privilege Intel's CISC chips +over Motorola's RISC chips. + +Ranking axes are mutually exclusive: software that scores high for security +scores low for convenience, desserts that score high for decadence score low +for healthiness. Every player in a metadata standards body wants to emphasize +their high-scoring axes and de-emphasize (or, if possible, ignore altogether) +their low-scoring axes. + +It's wishful thinking to believe that a group of people competing to advance +their agendas will be universally pleased with any hierarchy of knowledge. The +best that we can hope for is a detente in which everyone is equally miserable. + +3~x- 2.7 There's more than one way to describe something + +"No, I'm not watching cartoons! It's cultural anthropology." + +"This isn't smut, it's art." + +"It's not a bald spot, it's a solar panel for a sex-machine." + +Reasonable people can disagree forever on how to describe something. Arguably, +your Self is the collection of associations and descriptors you ascribe to +ideas. Requiring everyone to use the same vocabulary to describe their material +denudes the cognitive landscape, enforces homogeneity in ideas. + +And that's just not right. + +2~x- 3. Reliable metadata + +Do we throw out metadata, then? + +Of course not. Metadata can be quite useful, if taken with a sufficiently large +pinch of salt. The meta-utopia will never come into being, but metadata is +often a good means of making rough assumptions about the information that +floats through the Internet. + +Certain kinds of implicit metadata is awfully useful, in fact. Google exploits +metadata about the structure of the World Wide Web: by examining the number of +links pointing at a page (and the number of links pointing at each linker), +Google can derive statistics about the number of Web-authors who believe that +that page is important enough to link to, and hence make extremely reliable +guesses about how reputable the information on that page is. + +This sort of observational metadata is far more reliable than the stuff that +human beings create for the purposes of having their documents found. It cuts +through the marketing bullshit, the self-delusion, and the vocabulary +collisions. + +Taken more broadly, this kind of metadata can be thought of as a pedigree: who +thinks that this document is valuable? How closely correlated have this +person's value judgments been with mine in times gone by? This kind of implicit +endorsement of information is a far better candidate for an +information-retrieval panacea than all the world's schema combined. + +$$$$ + +1~ Amish for QWERTY + +(Originally published on the O'Reilly Network, 07/09/2003) ~# + +I learned to type before I learned to write. The QWERTY keyboard layout is +hard-wired to my brain, such that I can't write anything of significance +without that I have a 101-key keyboard in front of me. This has always been a +badge of geek pride: unlike the creaking pen-and-ink dinosaurs that I grew up +reading, I'm well adapted to the modern reality of technology. There's a secret +elitist pride in touch-typing on a laptop while staring off into space, fingers +flourishing and caressing the keys. + +But last week, my pride got pricked. I was brung low by a phone. Some very nice +people from Nokia loaned me a very latest-and-greatest camera-phone, the kind +of gadget I've described in my science fiction stories. As I prodded at the +little 12-key interface, I felt like my father, a 60s-vintage computer +scientist who can't get his wireless network to work, must feel. Like a +creaking dino. Like history was passing me by. I'm 31, and I'm obsolete. Or at +least Amish. + +People think the Amish are technophobes. Far from it. They're ideologues. They +have a concept of what right-living consists of, and they'll use any technology +that serves that ideal -- and mercilessly eschew any technology that would +subvert it. There's nothing wrong with driving the wagon to the next farm when +you want to hear from your son, so there's no need to put a phone in the +kitchen. On the other hand, there's nothing right about your livestock dying +for lack of care, so a cellphone that can call the veterinarian can certainly +find a home in the horse barn. + +For me, right-living is the 101-key, QWERTY, computer-centric mediated +lifestyle. It's having a bulky laptop in my bag, crouching by the toilets at a +strange airport with my AC adapter plugged into the always-awkwardly-placed +power source, running software that I chose and installed, communicating over +the wireless network. I use a network that has no incremental cost for +communication, and a device that lets me install any software without +permission from anyone else. Right-living is the highly mutated, +commodity-hardware- based, public and free Internet. I'm QWERTY-Amish, in other +words. + +I'm the kind of perennial early adopter who would gladly volunteer to beta test +a neural interface, but I find myself in a moral panic when confronted with the +12-button keypad on a cellie, even though that interface is one that has been +greedily adopted by billions of people worldwide, from strap-hanging Japanese +schoolgirls to Kenyan electoral scrutineers to Filipino guerrillas in the bush. +The idea of paying for every message makes my hackles tumesce and evokes a +reflexive moral conviction that text-messaging is inherently undemocratic, at +least compared to free-as-air email. The idea of only running the software that +big-brother telco has permitted me on my handset makes me want to run for the +hills. + +The thumb-generation who can tap out a text-message under their desks while +taking notes with the other hand -- they're in for it, too. The pace of +accelerated change means that we're all of us becoming wed to interfaces -- +ways of communicating with our tools and our world -- that are doomed, doomed, +doomed. The 12-buttoners are marrying the phone company, marrying a centrally +controlled network that requires permission to use and improve, a Stalinist +technology whose centralized choke points are subject to regulation and the +vagaries of the telcos. Long after the phone companies have been out-competed +by the pure and open Internet (if such a glorious day comes to pass), the kids +of today will be bound by its interface and its conventions. + +The sole certainty about the future is its Amishness. We will all bend our +brains to suit an interface that we will either have to abandon or be left +behind. Choose your interface -- and the values it implies -- carefully, then, +before you wed your thought processes to your fingers' dance. It may be the one +you're stuck with. + +$$$$ + +1~ Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books + +(Paper for the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference, San Diego, February +12, 2004) ~# + +Forematter: + +This talk was initially given at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference [ +http://conferences.oreillynet.com/et2004/ ], along with a set of slides that, +for copyright reasons (ironic!) can't be released alongside of this file. +However, you will find, interspersed in this text, notations describing the +places where new slides should be loaded, in [square-brackets]. + +For starters, let me try to summarize the lessons and intuitions I've had about +ebooks from my release of two novels and most of a short story collection +online under a Creative Commons license. A parodist who published a list of +alternate titles for the presentations at this event called this talk, "eBooks +Suck Right Now," [eBooks suck right now] and as funny as that is, I don't think +it's true. + +No, if I had to come up with another title for this talk, I'd call it: "Ebooks: +You're Soaking in Them." [Ebooks: You're Soaking in Them] That's because I +think that the shape of ebooks to come is almost visible in the way that people +interact with text today, and that the job of authors who want to become rich +and famous is to come to a better understanding of that shape. + +I haven't come to a perfect understanding. I don't know what the future of the +book looks like. But I have ideas, and I'll share them with you: + +1. Ebooks aren't marketing. [Ebooks aren't marketing] OK, so ebooks *{are}* +marketing: that is to say that giving away ebooks sells more books. Baen Books, +who do a lot of series publishing, have found that giving away electronic +editions of the previous installments in their series to coincide with the +release of a new volume sells the hell out of the new book -- and the backlist. +And the number of people who wrote to me to tell me about how much they dug the +ebook and so bought the paper-book far exceeds the number of people who wrote +to me and said, "Ha, ha, you hippie, I read your book for free and now I'm not +gonna buy it." But ebooks *{shouldn't}* be just about marketing: ebooks are a +goal unto themselves. In the final analysis, more people will read more words +off more screens and fewer words off fewer pages and when those two lines +cross, ebooks are gonna have to be the way that writers earn their keep, not +the way that they promote the dead-tree editions. + +2. Ebooks complement paper books. [Ebooks complement paper books]. Having an +ebook is good. Having a paper book is good. Having both is even better. One +reader wrote to me and said that he read half my first novel from the bound +book, and printed the other half on scrap-paper to read at the beach. Students +write to me to say that it's easier to do their term papers if they can copy +and paste their quotations into their word-processors. Baen readers use the +electronic editions of their favorite series to build concordances of +characters, places and events. + +3. Unless you own the ebook, you don't 0wn the book [Unless you own the ebook, +you don't 0wn the book]. I take the view that the book is a "practice" -- a +collection of social and economic and artistic activities -- and not an +"object." Viewing the book as a "practice" instead of an object is a pretty +radical notion, and it begs the question: just what the hell is a book? Good +question. I write all of my books in a text-editor [TEXT EDITOR SCREENGRAB] +(BBEdit, from Barebones Software -- as fine a text-editor as I could hope for). +From there, I can convert them into a formatted two-column PDF [TWO-UP +SCREENGRAB]. I can turn them into an HTML file [BROWSER SCREENGRAB]. I can turn +them over to my publisher, who can turn them into galleys, advanced review +copies, hardcovers and paperbacks. I can turn them over to my readers, who can +convert them to a bewildering array of formats [DOWNLOAD PAGE SCREENGRAB]. +Brewster Kahle's Internet Bookmobile can convert a digital book into a +four-color, full-bleed, perfect-bound, laminated-cover, printed-spine paper +book in ten minutes, for about a dollar. Try converting a paper book to a PDF +or an html file or a text file or a RocketBook or a printout for a buck in ten +minutes! It's ironic, because one of the frequently cited reasons for +preferring paper to ebooks is that paper books confer a sense of ownership of a +physical object. Before the dust settles on this ebook thing, owning a paper +book is going to feel less like ownership than having an open digital edition +of the text. + +4. Ebooks are a better deal for writers. [Ebooks are a better deal for writers] +The compensation for writers is pretty thin on the ground. *{Amazing Stories}*, +Hugo Gernsback's original science fiction magazine, paid a couple cents a word. +Today, science fiction magazines pay...a couple cents a word. The sums involved +are so minuscule, they're not even insulting: they're *{quaint}* and +*{historical}*, like the WHISKEY 5 CENTS sign over the bar at a pioneer +village. Some writers do make it big, but they're *{rounding errors}* as +compared to the total population of sf writers earning some of their living at +the trade. Almost all of us could be making more money elsewhere (though we may +dream of earning a stephenkingload of money, and of course, no one would play +the lotto if there were no winners). The primary incentive for writing has to +be artistic satisfaction, egoboo, and a desire for posterity. Ebooks get you +that. Ebooks become a part of the corpus of human knowledge because they get +indexed by search engines and replicated by the hundreds, thousands or +millions. They can be googled. + +Even better: they level the playing field between writers and trolls. When +Amazon kicked off, many writers got their knickers in a tight and powerful knot +at the idea that axe-grinding yahoos were filling the Amazon message-boards +with ill-considered slams at their work -- for, if a personal recommendation is +the best way to sell a book, then certainly a personal condemnation is the best +way to *{not}* sell a book. Today, the trolls are still with us, but now, the +readers get to decide for themselves. Here's a bit of a review of Down and Out +in the Magic Kingdom that was recently posted to Amazon by "A reader from +Redwood City, CA": + +group{ + +[QUOTED TEXT] + +> I am really not sure what kind of drugs critics are > smoking, or what kind +of payola may be involved. But > regardless of what Entertainment Weekly says, +whatever > this newspaper or that magazine says, you shouldn't > waste your +money. Download it for free from Corey's > (sic) site, read the first page, and +look away in > disgust -- this book is for people who think Dan > Brown's Da +Vinci Code is great writing. + +}group + +Back in the old days, this kind of thing would have really pissed me off. +Axe-grinding, mouth-breathing yahoos, defaming my good name! My stars and +mittens! But take a closer look at that damning passage: + +group{ + +[PULL-QUOTE] + +> Download it for free from Corey's site, read the first > page + +}group + +You see that? Hell, this guy is *{working for me}*! [ADDITIONAL PULL QUOTES] +Someone accuses a writer I'm thinking of reading of paying off Entertainment +Weekly to say nice things about his novel, "a surprisingly bad writer," no +less, whose writing is "stiff, amateurish, and uninspired!" I wanna check that +writer out. And I can. In one click. And then I can make up my own mind. + +You don't get far in the arts without healthy doses of both ego and insecurity, +and the downside of being able to google up all the things that people are +saying about your book is that it can play right into your insecurities -- "all +these people will have it in their minds not to bother with my book because +they've read the negative interweb reviews!" But the flipside of that is the +ego: "If only they'd give it a shot, they'd see how good it is." And the more +scathing the review is, the more likely they are to give it a shot. Any press +is good press, so long as they spell your URL right (and even if they spell +your name wrong!). + +5. Ebooks need to embrace their nature. [Ebooks need to embrace their nature.] +The distinctive value of ebooks is orthogonal to the value of paper books, and +it revolves around the mix-ability and send-ability of electronic text. The +more you constrain an ebook's distinctive value propositions -- that is, the +more you restrict a reader's ability to copy, transport or transform an ebook +-- the more it has to be valued on the same axes as a paper-book. Ebooks +*{fail}* on those axes. Ebooks don't beat paper-books for sophisticated +typography, they can't match them for quality of paper or the smell of the +glue. But just try sending a paper book to a friend in Brazil, for free, in +less than a second. Or loading a thousand paper books into a little stick of +flash-memory dangling from your keychain. Or searching a paper book for every +instance of a character's name to find a beloved passage. Hell, try clipping a +pithy passage out of a paper book and pasting it into your sig-file. + +6. Ebooks demand a different attention span (but not a shorter one). [Ebooks +demand a different attention span (but not a shorter one).] Artists are always +disappointed by their audience's attention-spans. Go back far enough and you'll +find cuneiform etchings bemoaning the current Sumerian go-go lifestyle with its +insistence on myths with plotlines and characters and action, not like we had +in the old days. As artists, it would be a hell of a lot easier if our +audiences were more tolerant of our penchant for boring them. We'd get to +explore a lot more ideas without worrying about tarting them up with +easy-to-swallow chocolate coatings of entertainment. We like to think of +shortened attention spans as a product of the information age, but check this +out: + +group{ + +[Nietzsche quote] + +> To be sure one thing necessary above all: if one is to > practice reading as +an *art* in this way, something > needs to be un-learned most thoroughly in +these days. + +}group + +In other words, if my book is too boring, it's because you're not paying enough +attention. Writers say this stuff all the time, but this quote isn't from this +century or the last. [Nietzsche quote with attribution] It's from the preface +to Nietzsche's "Genealogy of Morals," published in *{1887}*. + +Yeah, our attention-spans are *{different}* today, but they aren't necessarily +*{shorter}*. Warren Ellis's fans managed to hold the storyline for +Transmetropolitan [Transmet cover] in their minds for *{five years}* while the +story trickled out in monthly funnybook installments. JK Rowlings's +installments on the Harry Potter series get fatter and fatter with each new +volume. Entire forests are sacrificed to long-running series fiction like +Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books, each of which is approximately 20,000 +pages long (I may be off by an order of magnitude one way or another here). +Sure, presidential debates are conducted in soundbites today and not the +days-long oratory extravaganzas of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, but people +manage to pay attention to the 24-month-long presidential campaigns from start +to finish. + +7. We need *{all}* the ebooks. [We need *{all}* the ebooks] The vast majority +of the words ever penned are lost to posterity. No one library collects all the +still-extant books ever written and no one person could hope to make a dent in +that corpus of written work. None of us will ever read more than the tiniest +sliver of human literature. But that doesn't mean that we can stick with just +the most popular texts and get a proper ebook revolution. + +For starters, we're all edge-cases. Sure, we all have the shared desire for the +core canon of literature, but each of us want to complete that collection with +different texts that are as distinctive and individualistic as fingerprints. If +we all look like we're doing the same thing when we read, or listen to music, +or hang out in a chatroom, that's because we're not looking closely enough. The +shared-ness of our experience is only present at a coarse level of measurement: +once you get into really granular observation, there are as many differences in +our "shared" experience as there are similarities. + +More than that, though, is the way that a large collection of electronic text +differs from a small one: it's the difference between a single book, a shelf +full of books and a library of books. Scale makes things different. Take the +Web: none of us can hope to read even a fraction of all the pages on the Web, +but by analyzing the link structures that bind all those pages together, Google +is able to actually tease out machine-generated conclusions about the relative +relevance of different pages to different queries. None of us will ever eat the +whole corpus, but Google can digest it for us and excrete the steaming nuggets +of goodness that make it the search-engine miracle it is today. + +8. Ebooks are like paper books. [Ebooks are like paper books]. To round out +this talk, I'd like to go over the ways that ebooks are more like paper books +than you'd expect. One of the truisms of retail theory is that purchasers need +to come into contact with a good several times before they buy -- seven +contacts is tossed around as the magic number. That means that my readers have +to hear the title, see the cover, pick up the book, read a review, and so +forth, seven times, on average, before they're ready to buy. + +There's a temptation to view downloading a book as comparable to bringing it +home from the store, but that's the wrong metaphor. Some of the time, maybe +most of the time, downloading the text of the book is like taking it off the +shelf at the store and looking at the cover and reading the blurbs (with the +advantage of not having to come into contact with the residual DNA and burger +king left behind by everyone else who browsed the book before you). Some +writers are horrified at the idea that three hundred thousand copies of my +first novel were downloaded and "only" ten thousand or so were sold so far. If +it were the case that for ever copy sold, thirty were taken home from the +store, that would be a horrifying outcome, for sure. But look at it another +way: if one out of every thirty people who glanced at the cover of my book +bought it, I'd be a happy author. And I am. Those downloads cost me no more +than glances at the cover in a bookstore, and the sales are healthy. + +We also like to think of physical books as being inherently *{countable}* in a +way that digital books aren't (an irony, since computers are damned good at +counting things!). This is important, because writers get paid on the basis of +the number of copies of their books that sell, so having a good count makes a +difference. And indeed, my royalty statements contain precise numbers for +copies printed, shipped, returned and sold. + +But that's a false precision. When the printer does a run of a book, it always +runs a few extra at the start and finish of the run to make sure that the setup +is right and to account for the occasional rip, drop, or spill. The actual +total number of books printed is approximately the number of books ordered, but +never exactly -- if you've ever ordered 500 wedding invitations, chances are +you received 500-and-a-few back from the printer and that's why. + +And the numbers just get fuzzier from there. Copies are stolen. Copies are +dropped. Shipping people get the count wrong. Some copies end up in the wrong +box and go to a bookstore that didn't order them and isn't invoiced for them +and end up on a sale table or in the trash. Some copies are returned as +damaged. Some are returned as unsold. Some come back to the store the next +morning accompanied by a whack of buyer's remorse. Some go to the place where +the spare sock in the dryer ends up. + +The numbers on a royalty statement are actuarial, not actual. They represent a +kind of best-guess approximation of the copies shipped, sold, returned and so +forth. Actuarial accounting works pretty well: well enough to run the +juggernaut banking, insurance, and gambling industries on. It's good enough for +divvying up the royalties paid by musical rights societies for radio airplay +and live performance. And it's good enough for counting how many copies of a +book are distributed online or off. + +Counts of paper books are differently precise from counts of electronic books, +sure: but neither one is inherently countable. + +And finally, of course, there's the matter of selling books. However an author +earns her living from her words, printed or encoded, she has as her first and +hardest task to find her audience. There are more competitors for our attention +than we can possibly reconcile, prioritize or make sense of. Getting a book +under the right person's nose, with the right pitch, is the hardest and most +important task any writer faces. + +# + +I care about books, a lot. I started working in libraries and bookstores at the +age of 12 and kept at it for a decade, until I was lured away by the siren song +of the tech world. I knew I wanted to be a writer at the age of 12, and now, 20 +years later, I have three novels, a short story collection and a nonfiction +book out, two more novels under contract, and another book in the works. [BOOK +COVERS] I've won a major award in my genre, science fiction, [CAMPBELL AWARD] +and I'm nominated for another one, the 2003 Nebula Award for best novelette. +[NEBULA] + +I own a *{lot}* of books. Easily more than 10,000 of them, in storage on both +coasts of the North American continent [LIBRARY LADDER]. I have to own them, +since they're the tools of my trade: the reference works I refer to as a +novelist and writer today. Most of the literature I dig is very short-lived, it +disappears from the shelf after just a few months, usually for good. Science +fiction is inherently ephemeral. [ACE DOUBLES] + +Now, as much as I love books, I love computers, too. Computers are +fundamentally different from modern books in the same way that printed books +are different from monastic Bibles: they are malleable. Time was, a "book" was +something produced by many months' labor by a scribe, usually a monk, on some +kind of durable and sexy substrate like foetal lambskin. [ILLUMINATED BIBLE] +Gutenberg's xerox machine changed all that, changed a book into something that +could be simply run off a press in a few minutes' time, on substrate more +suitable to ass-wiping than exaltation in a place of honor in the cathedral. +The Gutenberg press meant that rather than owning one or two books, a member of +the ruling class could amass a library, and that rather than picking only a few +subjects from enshrinement in print, a huge variety of subjects could be +addressed on paper and handed from person to person. [KAPITAL/TIJUANA BIBLE] + +Most new ideas start with a precious few certainties and a lot of speculation. +I've been doing a bunch of digging for certainties and a lot of speculating +lately, and the purpose of this talk is to lay out both categories of ideas. + +This all starts with my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom [COVER], +which came out on January 9, 2003. At that time, there was a lot of talk in my +professional circles about, on the one hand, the dismal failure of ebooks, and, +on the other, the new and scary practice of ebook "piracy." +[alt.binaries.e-books screengrab] It was strikingly weird that no one seemed to +notice that the idea of ebooks as a "failure" was at strong odds with the +notion that electronic book "piracy" was worth worrying about: I mean, if +ebooks are a failure, then who gives a rats if intarweb dweebs are trading them +on Usenet? + +A brief digression here, on the double meaning of "ebooks." One meaning for +that word is "legitimate" ebook ventures, that is to say, +rightsholder-authorized editions of the texts of books, released in a +proprietary, use-restricted format, sometimes for use on a general-purpose PC +and sometimes for use on a special-purpose hardware device like the nuvoMedia +Rocketbook [ROCKETBOOK]. The other meaning for ebook is a "pirate" or +unauthorized electronic edition of a book, usually made by cutting the binding +off of a book and scanning it a page at a time, then running the resulting +bitmaps through an optical character recognition app to convert them into ASCII +text, to be cleaned up by hand. These books are pretty buggy, full of errors +introduced by the OCR. A lot of my colleagues worry that these books also have +deliberate errors, created by mischievous book-rippers who cut, add or change +text in order to "improve" the work. Frankly, I have never seen any evidence +that any book-ripper is interested in doing this, and until I do, I think that +this is the last thing anyone should be worrying about. + +Back to Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom [COVER]. Well, not yet. I want to +convey to you the depth of the panic in my field over ebook piracy, or +"bookwarez" as it is known in book-ripper circles. Writers were joining the +discussion on alt.binaries.ebooks using assumed names, claiming fear of +retaliation from scary hax0r kids who would presumably screw up their +credit-ratings in retaliation for being called thieves. My editor, a blogger, +hacker and guy-in-charge-of-the-largest-sf-line-in-the-world named Patrick +Nielsen Hayden posted to one of the threads in the newsgroup, saying, in part +[SCREENGRAB]: + +group{ + +> Pirating copyrighted etext on Usenet and elsewhere is going to > happen more +and more, for the same reasons that everyday folks > make audio cassettes from +vinyl LPs and audio CDs, and > videocassette copies of store-bought videotapes. +Partly it's > greed; partly it's annoyance over retail prices; partly it's the +> desire to Share Cool Stuff (a motivation usually underrated by > the victims +of this kind of small-time hand-level piracy). > Instantly going to Defcon One +over it and claiming it's morally > tantamount to mugging little old ladies in +the street will make > it kind of difficult to move forward from that position +when it > doesn't work. In the 1970s, the record industry shrieked that > "home +taping is killing music." It's hard for ordinary folks to > avoid noticing that +music didn't die. But the record industry's > credibility on the subject wasn't +exactly enhanced. + +}group + +Patrick and I have a long relationship, starting when I was 18 years old and he +kicked in toward a scholarship fund to send me to a writers' workshop, +continuing to a fateful lunch in New York in the mid-Nineties when I showed him +a bunch of Project Gutenberg texts on my Palm Pilot and inspired him to start +licensing Tor's titles for PDAs [PEANUTPRESS SCREENGRAB], to the +turn-of-the-millennium when he bought and then published my first novel (he's +bought three more since -- I really like Patrick!). + +Right as bookwarez newsgroups were taking off, I was shocked silly by legal +action by one of my colleagues against AOL/Time-Warner for carrying the +alt.binaries.ebooks newsgroup. This writer alleged that AOL should have a duty +to remove this newsgroup, since it carried so many infringing files, and that +its failure to do so made it a contributory infringer, and so liable for the +incredibly stiff penalties afforded by our newly minted copyright laws like the +No Electronic Theft Act and the loathsome Digital Millennium Copyright Act or +DMCA. + +Now there was a scary thought: there were people out there who thought the +world would be a better place if ISPs were given the duty of actively policing +and censoring the websites and newsfeeds their customers had access to, +including a requirement that ISPs needed to determine, all on their own, what +was an unlawful copyright infringement -- something more usually left up to +judges in the light of extensive amicus briefings from esteemed copyright +scholars [WIND DONE GONE GRAPHIC]. + +This was a stupendously dumb idea, and it offended me down to my boots. Writers +are supposed to be advocates of free expression, not censorship. It seemed that +some of my colleagues loved the First Amendment, but they were reluctant to +share it with the rest of the world. + +Well, dammit, I had a book coming out, and it seemed to be an opportunity to +try to figure out a little more about this ebook stuff. On the one hand, ebooks +were a dismal failure. On the other hand, there were more books posted to +alt.binaries.ebooks every day. + +This leads me into the two certainties I have about ebooks: + +1. More people are reading more words off more screens every day [GRAPHIC] + +2. Fewer people are reading fewer words off fewer pages every day [GRAPHIC] + +These two certainties begged a lot of questions. + +[CHART: EBOOK FAILINGS] + +_* Screen resolutions are too low to effectively replace paper + +_* People want to own physical books because of their visceral appeal (often +this is accompanied by a little sermonette on how good books smell, or how good +they look on a bookshelf, or how evocative an old curry stain in the margin can +be) + +_* You can't take your ebook into the tub + +_* You can't read an ebook without power and a computer + +_* File-formats go obsolete, paper has lasted for a long time + +None of these seemed like very good explanations for the "failure" of ebooks to +me. If screen resolutions are too low to replace paper, then how come everyone +I know spends more time reading off a screen every year, up to and including my +sainted grandmother (geeks have a really crappy tendency to argue that certain +technologies aren't ready for primetime because their grandmothers won't use +them -- well, my grandmother sends me email all the time. She types 70 words +per minute, and loves to show off grandsonular email to her pals around the +pool at her Florida retirement condo)? + +The other arguments were a lot more interesting, though. It seemed to me that +electronic books are *{different}* from paper books, and have different virtues +and failings. Let's think a little about what the book has gone through in +years gone by. This is interesting because the history of the book is the +history of the Enlightenment, the Reformation, the Pilgrims, and, ultimately +the colonizing of the Americas and the American Revolution. + +Broadly speaking, there was a time when books were hand-printed on rare leather +by monks. The only people who could read them were priests, who got a regular +eyeful of the really cool cartoons the monks drew in the margins. The priests +read the books aloud, in Latin [LATIN BIBLE] (to a predominantly +non-Latin-speaking audience) in cathedrals, wreathed in pricey incense that +rose from censers swung by altar boys. + +Then Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. Martin Luther turned that +press into a revolution. [LUTHER BIBLE] He printed Bibles in languages that +non-priests could read, and distributed them to normal people who got to read +the word of God all on their own. The rest, as they say, is history. + +Here are some interesting things to note about the advent of the printing +press: + +[CHART: LUTHER VERSUS THE MONKS] + +_* Luther Bibles lacked the manufacturing quality of the illuminated Bibles. +They were comparatively cheap and lacked the typographical expressiveness that +a really talented monk could bring to bear when writing out the word of God + +_* Luther Bibles were utterly unsuited to the traditional use-case for Bibles. +A good Bible was supposed to reinforce the authority of the man at the pulpit. +It needed heft, it needed impressiveness, and most of all, it needed rarity. + +_* The user-experience of Luther Bibles sucked. There was no incense, no altar +boys, and who (apart from the priesthood) knew that reading was so friggin' +hard on the eyes? + +_* Luther Bibles were a lot less trustworthy than the illuminated numbers. +Anyone with a press could run one off, subbing in any apocryphal text he wanted +-- and who knew how accurate that translation was? Monks had an entire Papacy +behind them, running a quality-assurance operation that had stood Europe in +good stead for centuries. + +In the late nineties, I went to conferences where music execs patiently +explained that Napster was doomed, because you didn't get any cover-art or +liner-notes with it, you couldn't know if the rip was any good, and sometimes +the connection would drop mid-download. I'm sure that many Cardinals espoused +the points raised above with equal certainty. + +What the record execs and the cardinals missed was all the ways that Luther +Bibles kicked ass: + +[CHART: WHY LUTHER BIBLES KICKED ASS] + +_* They were cheap and fast. Loads of people could acquire them without having +to subject themselves to the authority and approval of the Church + +_* They were in languages that non-priests could read. You no longer had to +take the Church's word for it when its priests explained what God really meant + +_* They birthed a printing-press ecosystem in which lots of books flourished. +New kinds of fiction, poetry, politics, scholarship and so on were all enabled +by the printing presses whose initial popularity was spurred by Luther's ideas +about religion. + +Note that all of these virtues are orthogonal to the virtues of a monkish +Bible. That is, none of the things that made the Gutenberg press a success were +the things that made monk-Bibles a success. + +By the same token, the reasons to love ebooks have precious little to do with +the reasons to love paper books. + +[CHART: WHY EBOOKS KICK ASS] + +_* They are easy to share. Secrets of Ya-Ya Sisterhood went from a midlist +title to a bestseller by being passed from hand to hand by women in reading +circles. Slashdorks and other netizens have social life as rich as +reading-circlites, but they don't ever get to see each other face to face; the +only kind of book they can pass from hand to hand is an ebook. What's more, the +single factor most correlated with a purchase is a recommendation from a friend +-- getting a book recommended by a pal is more likely to sell you on it than +having read and enjoyed the preceding volume in a series! + +_* They are easy to slice and dice. This is where the Mac evangelist in me +comes out -- minority platforms matter. It's a truism of the Napsterverse that +most of the files downloaded are bog-standard top-40 tracks, like 90 percent or +so, and I believe it. We all want to popular music. That's why it's popular. +But the interesting thing is the other ten percent. Bill Gates told the New +York Times that Microsoft lost the search wars by doing "a good job on the 80 +percent of common queries and ignor[ing] the other stuff. But it's the +remaining 20 percent that counts, because that's where the quality perception +is." Why did Napster captivate so many of us? Not because it could get us the +top-40 tracks that we could hear just by snapping on the radio: it was because +80 percent of the music ever recorded wasn't available for sale anywhere in the +world, and in that 80 percent were all the songs that had ever touched us, all +the earworms that had been lodged in our hindbrains, all the stuff that made us +smile when we heard it. Those songs are different for all of us, but they share +the trait of making the difference between a compelling service and, well, +top-40 Clearchannel radio programming. It was the minority of tracks that +appealed to the majority of us. By the same token, the malleability of +electronic text means that it can be readily repurposed: you can throw it on a +webserver or convert it to a format for your favorite PDA; you can ask your +computer to read it aloud or you can search the text for a quotation to cite in +a book report or to use in your sig. In other words, most people who download +the book do so for the predictable reason, and in a predictable format -- say, +to sample a chapter in the HTML format before deciding whether to buy the book +-- but the thing that differentiates a boring e-text experience from an +exciting one is the minority use -- printing out a couple chapters of the book +to bring to the beach rather than risk getting the hardcopy wet and salty. + +Tool-makers and software designers are increasingly aware of the notion of +"affordances" in design. You can bash a nail into the wall with any heavy, +heftable object from a rock to a hammer to a cast-iron skillet. However, +there's something about a hammer that cries out for nail-bashing, it has +affordances that tilt its holder towards swinging it. And, as we all know, when +all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. + +The affordance of a computer -- the thing it's designed to do -- is to +slice-and-dice collections of bits. The affordance of the Internet is to move +bits at very high speed around the world at little-to-no cost. It follows from +this that the center of the ebook experience is going to involve slicing and +dicing text and sending it around. + +Copyright lawyers have a word for these activities: infringement. That's +because copyright gives creators a near-total monopoly over copying and +remixing of their work, pretty much forever (theoretically, copyright expires, +but in actual practice, copyright gets extended every time the early Mickey +Mouse cartoons are about to enter the public domain, because Disney swings a +very big stick on the Hill). + +This is a huge problem. The biggest possible problem. Here's why: + +[CHART: HOW BROKEN COPYRIGHT SCREWS EVERYONE] + +_* Authors freak out. Authors have been schooled by their peers that strong +copyright is the only thing that keeps them from getting savagely rogered in +the marketplace. This is pretty much true: it's strong copyright that often +defends authors from their publishers' worst excesses. However, it doesn't +follow that strong copyright protects you from your *{readers}*. + +_* Readers get indignant over being called crooks. Seriously. You're a small +businessperson. Readers are your customers. Calling them crooks is bad for +business. + +_* Publishers freak out. Publishers freak out, because they're in the business +of grabbing as much copyright as they can and hanging onto it for dear life +because, dammit, you never know. This is why science fiction magazines try to +trick writers into signing over improbable rights for things like theme park +rides and action figures based on their work -- it's also why literary agents +are now asking for copyright-long commissions on the books they represent: +copyright covers so much ground and takes to long to shake off, who wouldn't +want a piece of it? + +_* Liability goes through the roof. Copyright infringement, especially on the +Net, is a supercrime. It carries penalties of $150,000 per infringement, and +aggrieved rights-holders and their representatives have all kinds of special +powers, like the ability to force an ISP to turn over your personal information +before showing evidence of your alleged infringement to a judge. This means +that anyone who suspects that he might be on the wrong side of copyright law is +going to be terribly risk-averse: publishers non-negotiably force their authors +to indemnify them from infringement claims and go one better, forcing writers +to prove that they have "cleared" any material they quote, even in the case of +brief fair-use quotations, like song-titles at the opening of chapters. The +result is that authors end up assuming potentially life-destroying liability, +are chilled from quoting material around them, and are scared off of public +domain texts because an honest mistake about the public-domain status of a work +carries such a terrible price. + +_* Posterity vanishes. In the Eldred v. Ashcroft Supreme Court hearing last +year, the court found that 98 percent of the works in copyright are no longer +earning money for anyone, but that figuring out who these old works belong to +with the degree of certainty that you'd want when one mistake means total +economic apocalypse would cost more than you could ever possibly earn on them. +That means that 98 percent of works will largely expire long before the +copyright on them does. Today, the names of science fiction's ancestral +founders -- Mary Shelley, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, HG +Wells -- are still known, their work still a part of the discourse. Their +spiritual descendants from Hugo Gernsback onward may not be so lucky -- if +their work continues to be "protected" by copyright, it might just vanish from +the face of the earth before it reverts to the public domain. + +This isn't to say that copyright is bad, but that there's such a thing as good +copyright and bad copyright, and that sometimes, too much good copyright is a +bad thing. It's like chilis in soup: a little goes a long way, and too much +spoils the broth. + +From the Luther Bible to the first phonorecords, from radio to the pulps, from +cable to MP3, the world has shown that its first preference for new media is +its "democratic-ness" -- the ease with which it can reproduced. + +(And please, before we get any farther, forget all that business about how the +Internet's copying model is more disruptive than the technologies that +proceeded it. For Christ's sake, the Vaudeville performers who sued Marconi for +inventing the radio had to go from a regime where they had *{one hundred +percent}* control over who could get into the theater and hear them perform to +a regime where they had *{zero}* percent control over who could build or +acquire a radio and tune into a recording of them performing. For that matter, +look at the difference between a monkish Bible and a Luther Bible -- next to +that phase-change, Napster is peanuts) + +Back to democratic-ness. Every successful new medium has traded off its +artifact-ness -- the degree to which it was populated by bespoke hunks of +atoms, cleverly nailed together by master craftspeople -- for ease of +reproduction. Piano rolls weren't as expressive as good piano players, but they +scaled better -- as did radio broadcasts, pulp magazines, and MP3s. Liner +notes, hand illumination and leather bindings are nice, but they pale in +comparison to the ability of an individual to actually get a copy of her own. + +Which isn't to say that old media die. Artists still hand-illuminate books; +master pianists still stride the boards at Carnegie Hall, and the shelves burst +with tell-all biographies of musicians that are richer in detail than any +liner-notes booklet. The thing is, when all you've got is monks, every book +takes on the character of a monkish Bible. Once you invent the printing press, +all the books that are better-suited to movable type migrate into that new +form. What's left behind are those items that are best suited to the old +production scheme: the plays that *{need}* to be plays, the books that are +especially lovely on creamy paper stitched between covers, the music that is +most enjoyable performed live and experienced in a throng of humanity. + +Increased democratic-ness translates into decreased control: it's a lot harder +to control who can copy a book once there's a photocopier on every corner than +it is when you need a monastery and several years to copy a Bible. And that +decreased control demands a new copyright regime that rebalances the rights of +creators with their audiences. + +For example, when the VCR was invented, the courts affirmed a new copyright +exemption for time-shifting; when the radio was invented, the Congress granted +an anti-trust exemption to the record labels in order to secure a blanket +license; when cable TV was invented, the government just ordered the +broadcasters to sell the cable-operators access to programming at a fixed rate. + +Copyright is perennially out of date, because its latest rev was generated in +response to the last generation of technology. The temptation to treat +copyright as though it came down off the mountain on two stone tablets (or +worse, as "just like" real property) is deeply flawed, since, by definition, +current copyright only considers the last generation of tech. + +So, are bookwarez in violation of copyright law? Duh. Is this the end of the +world? *{Duh}*. If the Catholic church can survive the printing press, science +fiction will certainly weather the advent of bookwarez. + +# + +Lagniappe [Lagniappe] + +We're almost done here, but there's one more thing I'd like to do before I get +off the stage. [Lagniappe: an unexpected bonus or extra] Think of it as a +"lagniappe" -- a little something extra to thank you for your patience. + +About a year ago, I released my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, +on the net, under the terms of the most restrictive Creative Commons license +available. All it allowed my readers to do was send around copies of the book. +I was cautiously dipping my toe into the water, though at the time, it felt +like I was taking a plunge. + +Now I'm going to take a plunge. Today, I will re-license the text of Down and +Out in the Magic Kingdom under a Creative Commons +"Attribution-ShareAlike-Derivs-Noncommercial" license [HUMAN READABLE LICENSE], +which means that as of today, you have my blessing to create derivative works +from my first book. You can make movies, audiobooks, translations, fan-fiction, +slash fiction (God help us) [GEEK HIERARCHY], furry slash fiction [GEEK +HIERARCHY DETAIL], poetry, translations, t-shirts, you name it, with two +provisos: that one, you have to allow everyone else to rip, mix and burn your +creations in the same way you're hacking mine; and on the other hand, you've +got to do it noncommercially. + +The sky didn't fall when I dipped my toe in. Let's see what happens when I get +in up to my knees. + +The text with the new license will be online before the end of the day. Check +craphound.com/down for details. + +Oh, and I'm also releasing the text of this speech under a Creative Commons +Public Domain dedication, [Public domain dedication] giving it away to the +world to do with as it see fits. It'll be linked off my blog, Boing Boing, +before the day is through. + +$$$$ + +1~ Free(konomic) E-books + +(Originally published in Locus Magazine, September 2007) ~# + +Can giving away free electronic books really sell printed books? I think so. As +I explained in my March column ("You Do Like Reading Off a Computer Screen"), I +don't believe that most readers want to read long-form works off a screen, and +I don't believe that they will ever want to read long-form works off a screen. +As I say in the column, the problem with reading off a screen isn't resolution, +eyestrain, or compatibility with reading in the bathtub: it's that computers +are seductive, they tempt us to do other things, making concentrating on a +long-form work impractical. + +Sure, some readers have the cognitive quirk necessary to read full-length works +off screens, or are motivated to do so by other circumstances (such as being so +broke that they could never hope to buy the printed work). The rational +question isn't, "Will giving away free e-books cost me sales?" but rather, +"Will giving away free e-books win me more sales than it costs me?" + +This is a very hard proposition to evaluate in a quantitative way. Books aren't +lattes or cable-knit sweaters: each book sells (or doesn't) due to factors that +are unique to that title. It's hard to imagine an empirical, controlled study +in which two "equivalent" books are published, and one is also available as a +free download, the other not, and the difference calculated as a means of +"proving" whether e-books hurt or help sales in the long run. + +I've released all of my novels as free downloads simultaneous with their print +publication. If I had a time machine, I could re-release them without the free +downloads and compare the royalty statements. Lacking such a device, I'm forced +to draw conclusions from qualitative, anecdotal evidence, and I've collected +plenty of that: + +_* Many writers have tried free e-book releases to tie in with the print +release of their works. To the best of my knowledge, every writer who's tried +this has repeated the experiment with future works, suggesting a high degree of +satisfaction with the outcomes + +_* A writer friend of mine had his first novel come out at the same time as +mine. We write similar material and are often compared to one another by +critics and reviewers. My first novel had a free download, his didn't. We +compared sales figures and I was doing substantially better than him -- he +subsequently convinced his publisher to let him follow suit + +_* Baen Books has a pretty good handle on expected sales for new volumes in +long-running series; having sold many such series, they have lots of data to +use in sales estimates. If Volume N sells X copies, we expect Volume N+1 to +sell Y copies. They report that they have seen a measurable uptick in sales +following from free e-book releases of previous and current volumes + +_* David Blackburn, a Harvard PhD candidate in economics, published a paper in +2004 in which he calculated that, for music, "piracy" results in a net increase +in sales for all titles in the 75th percentile and lower; negligible change in +sales for the "middle class" of titles between the 75th percentile and the 97th +percentile; and a small drag on the "super-rich" in the 97th percentile and +higher. Publisher Tim O'Reilly describes this as "piracy's progressive +taxation," apportioning a small wealth-redistribution to the vast majority of +works, no net change to the middle, and a small cost on the richest few + +_* Speaking of Tim O'Reilly, he has just published a detailed, quantitative +study of the effect of free downloads on a single title. O'Reilly Media +published Asterisk: The Future of Telephony, in November 2005, simultaneously +releasing the book as a free download. By March 2007, they had a pretty +detailed picture of the sales-cycle of this book -- and, thanks to industry +standard metrics like those provided by Bookscan, they could compare it, +apples-to-apples style, against the performance of competing books treating +with the same subject. O'Reilly's conclusion: downloads didn't cause a decline +in sales, and appears to have resulted in a lift in sales. This is particularly +noteworthy because the book in question is a technical reference work, +exclusively consumed by computer programmers who are by definition disposed to +read off screens. Also, this is a reference work and therefore is more likely +to be useful in electronic form, where it can be easily searched + +_* In my case, my publishers have gone back to press repeatedly for my books. +The print runs for each edition are modest -- I'm a midlist writer in a world +with a shrinking midlist -- but publishers print what they think they can sell, +and they're outselling their expectations + +_* The new opportunities arising from my free downloads are so numerous as to +be uncountable -- foreign rights deals, comic book licenses, speaking +engagements, article commissions -- I've made more money in these secondary +markets than I have in royalties + +_* More anecdotes: I've had literally thousands of people approach me by e-mail +and at signings and cons to say, "I found your work online for free, got +hooked, and started buying it." By contrast, I've had all of five e-mails from +people saying, "Hey, idiot, thanks for the free book, now I don't have to buy +the print edition, ha ha!" + +Many of us have assumed, a priori, that electronic books substitute for print +books. While I don't have controlled, quantitative data to refute the +proposition, I do have plenty of experience with this stuff, and all that +experience leads me to believe that giving away my books is selling the hell +out of them. + +More importantly, the free e-book skeptics have no evidence to offer in support +of their position -- just hand-waving and dark muttering about a mythological +future when book-lovers give up their printed books for electronic book-readers +(as opposed to the much more plausible future where book lovers go on buying +their fetish objects and carry books around on their electronic devices). + +I started giving away e-books after I witnessed the early days of the +"bookwarez" scene, wherein fans cut the binding off their favorite books, +scanned them, ran them through optical character recognition software, and +manually proofread them to eliminate the digitization errors. These fans were +easily spending 80 hours to rip their favorite books, and they were only +ripping their favorite books, books they loved and wanted to share. (The +80-hour figure comes from my own attempt to do this -- I'm sure that rippers +get faster with practice.) + +I thought to myself that 80 hours' free promotional effort would be a good +thing to have at my disposal when my books entered the market. What if I gave +my readers clean, canonical electronic editions of my works, saving them the +bother of ripping them, and so freed them up to promote my work to their +friends? + +After all, it's not like there's any conceivable way to stop people from +putting books on scanners if they really want to. Scanners aren't going to get +more expensive or slower. The Internet isn't going to get harder to use. Better +to confront this challenge head on, turn it into an opportunity, than to rail +against the future (I'm a science fiction writer -- tuning into the future is +supposed to be my metier). + +The timing couldn't have been better. Just as my first novel was being +published, a new, high-tech project for promoting sharing of creative works +launched: the Creative Commons project (CC). CC offers a set of tools that make +it easy to mark works with whatever freedoms the author wants to give away. CC +launched in 2003 and today, more than 160,000,000 works have been released +under its licenses. + +My next column will go into more detail on what CC is, what licenses it offers, +and how to use them -- but for now, check them out online at +creativecommons.org. + +$$$$ + +1~ The Progressive Apocalypse and Other Futurismic Delights + +(Originally published in Locus Magazine, July 2007) ~# + +Of course, science fiction is a literature of the present. Many's the science +fiction writer who uses the future as a warped mirror for reflecting back the +present day, angled to illustrate the hidden strangeness buried by our +invisible assumptions: Orwell turned 1948 into Nineteen Eighty-Four. But even +when the fictional future isn't a parable about the present day, it is +necessarily a creation of the present day, since it reflects the present day +biases that infuse the author. Hence Asimov's Foundation, a New Deal-esque +project to think humanity out of its tribulations though social +interventionism. + +Bold SF writers eschew the future altogether, embracing a futuristic account of +the present day. William Gibson's forthcoming Spook Country is an act of +"speculative presentism," a book so futuristic it could only have been set in +2006, a book that exploits retrospective historical distance to let us glimpse +just how alien and futuristic our present day is. + +Science fiction writers aren't the only people in the business of predicting +the future. Futurists -- consultants, technology columnists, analysts, venture +capitalists, and entrepreneurial pitchmen -- spill a lot of ink, phosphors, and +caffeinated hot air in describing a vision for a future where we'll get more +and more of whatever it is they want to sell us or warn us away from. Tomorrow +will feature faster, cheaper processors, more Internet users, ubiquitous RFID +tags, radically democratic political processes dominated by bloggers, massively +multiplayer games whose virtual economies dwarf the physical economy. + +There's a lovely neologism to describe these visions: "futurismic." Futurismic +media is that which depicts futurism, not the future. It is often self-serving +-- think of the antigrav Nikes in Back to the Future III -- and it generally +doesn't hold up well to scrutiny. + +SF films and TV are great fonts of futurismic imagery: R2D2 is a fully +conscious AI, can hack the firewall of the Death Star, and is equipped with a +range of holographic projectors and antipersonnel devices -- but no one has +installed a $15 sound card and some text-to-speech software on him, so he has +to whistle like Harpo Marx. Or take the Starship Enterprise, with a transporter +capable of constituting matter from digitally stored plans, and radios that can +breach the speed of light. + +The non-futurismic version of NCC-1701 would be the size of a softball (or +whatever the minimum size for a warp drive, transporter, and subspace radio +would be). It would zip around the galaxy at FTL speeds under remote control. +When it reached an interesting planet, it would beam a stored copy of a landing +party onto the surface, and when their mission was over, it would beam them +back into storage, annihilating their physical selves until they reached the +next stopping point. If a member of the landing party were eaten by a +green-skinned interspatial hippie or giant toga-wearing galactic tyrant, that +member would be recovered from backup by the transporter beam. Hell, the entire +landing party could consist of multiple copies of the most effective crewmember +onboard: no redshirts, just a half-dozen instances of Kirk operating in clonal +harmony. + +Futurism has a psychological explanation, as recounted in Harvard clinical +psych prof Daniel Gilbert's 2006 book, Stumbling on Happiness. Our memories and +our projections of the future are necessarily imperfect. Our memories consist +of those observations our brains have bothered to keep records of, woven +together with inference and whatever else is lying around handy when we try to +remember something. Ask someone who's eating a great lunch how breakfast was, +and odds are she'll tell you it was delicious. Ask the same question of someone +eating rubbery airplane food, and he'll tell you his breakfast was awful. We +weave the past out of our imperfect memories and our observable present. + +We make the future in much the same way: we use reasoning and evidence to +predict what we can, and whenever we bump up against uncertainty, we fill the +void with the present day. Hence the injunction on women soldiers in the future +of Starship Troopers, or the bizarre, glassed-over "Progressland" city diorama +at the end of the 1964 World's Fair exhibit The Carousel of Progress, which +Disney built for GE. + +Lapsarianism -- the idea of a paradise lost, a fall from grace that makes each +year worse than the last -- is the predominant future feeling for many people. +It's easy to see why: an imperfectly remembered golden childhood gives way to +the worries of adulthood and physical senescence. Surely the world is getting +worse: nothing tastes as good as it did when we were six, everything hurts all +the time, and our matured gonads drive us into frenzies of bizarre, +self-destructive behavior. + +Lapsarianism dominates the Abrahamic faiths. I have an Orthodox Jewish friend +whose tradition holds that each generation of rabbis is necessarily less +perfect than the rabbis that came before, since each generation is more removed +from the perfection of the Garden. Therefore, no rabbi is allowed to overturn +any of his forebears' wisdom, since they are all, by definition, smarter than +him. + +The natural endpoint of Lapsarianism is apocalypse. If things get worse, and +worse, and worse, eventually they'll just run out of worseness. Eventually, +they'll bottom out, a kind of rotten death of the universe when Lapsarian +entropy hits the nadir and takes us all with it. + +Running counter to Lapsarianism is progressivism: the Enlightenment ideal of a +world of great people standing on the shoulders of giants. Each of us +contributes to improving the world's storehouse of knowledge (and thus its +capacity for bringing joy to all of us), and our descendants and proteges take +our work and improve on it. The very idea of "progress" runs counter to the +idea of Lapsarianism and the fall: it is the idea that we, as a species, are +falling in reverse, combing back the wild tangle of entropy into a neat, tidy +braid. + +Of course, progress must also have a boundary condition -- if only because we +eventually run out of imaginary ways that the human condition can improve. And +science fiction has a name for the upper bound of progress, a name for the +progressive apocalypse: + +We call it the Singularity. + +Vernor Vinge's Singularity takes place when our technology reaches a stage that +allows us to "upload" our minds into software, run them at faster, hotter +speeds than our neurological wetware substrate allows for, and create multiple, +parallel instances of ourselves. After the Singularity, nothing is predictable +because everything is possible. We will cease to be human and become (as the +title of Rudy Rucker's next novel would have it) Postsingular. + +The Singularity is what happens when we have so much progress that we run out +of progress. It's the apocalypse that ends the human race in rapture and joy. +Indeed, Ken MacLeod calls the Singularity "the rapture of the nerds," an apt +description for the mirror-world progressive version of the Lapsarian +apocalypse. + +At the end of the day, both progress and the fall from grace are illusions. The +central thesis of Stumbling on Happiness is that human beings are remarkably +bad at predicting what will make us happy. Our predictions are skewed by our +imperfect memories and our capacity for filling the future with the present +day. + +The future is gnarlier than futurism. NCC-1701 probably wouldn't send out +transporter-equipped drones -- instead, it would likely find itself on missions +whose ethos, mores, and rationale are largely incomprehensible to us, and so +obvious to its crew that they couldn't hope to explain them. + +Science fiction is the literature of the present, and the present is the only +era that we can hope to understand, because it's the only era that lets us +check our observations and predictions against reality. + +$$$$ + +1~ When the Singularity is More Than a Literary Device: An Interview with +Futurist-Inventor Ray Kurzweil + +(Originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, June 2005) ~# + +It's not clear to me whether the Singularity is a technical belief system or a +spiritual one. + +The Singularity -- a notion that's crept into a lot of skiffy, and whose most +articulate in-genre spokesmodel is Vernor Vinge -- describes the black hole in +history that will be created at the moment when human intelligence can be +digitized. When the speed and scope of our cognition is hitched to the +price-performance curve of microprocessors, our "progress" will double every +eighteen months, and then every twelve months, and then every ten, and +eventually, every five seconds. + +Singularities are, literally, holes in space from whence no information can +emerge, and so SF writers occasionally mutter about how hard it is to tell a +story set after the information Singularity. Everything will be different. What +it means to be human will be so different that what it means to be in danger, +or happy, or sad, or any of the other elements that make up the +squeeze-and-release tension in a good yarn will be unrecognizable to us +pre-Singletons. + +It's a neat conceit to write around. I've committed Singularity a couple of +times, usually in collaboration with gonzo Singleton Charlie Stross, the mad +antipope of the Singularity. But those stories have the same relation to +futurism as romance novels do to love: a shared jumping-off point, but +radically different morphologies. + +Of course, the Singularity isn't just a conceit for noodling with in the pages +of the pulps: it's the subject of serious-minded punditry, futurism, and even +science. + +Ray Kurzweil is one such pundit-futurist-scientist. He's a serial entrepreneur +who founded successful businesses that advanced the fields of optical character +recognition (machine-reading) software, text-to-speech synthesis, synthetic +musical instrument simulation, computer-based speech recognition, and +stock-market analysis. He cured his own Type-II diabetes through a careful +review of the literature and the judicious application of first principles and +reason. To a casual observer, Kurzweil appears to be the star of some kind of +Heinlein novel, stealing fire from the gods and embarking on a quest to bring +his maverick ideas to the public despite the dismissals of the establishment, +getting rich in the process. + +Kurzweil believes in the Singularity. In his 1990 manifesto, "The Age of +Intelligent Machines," Kurzweil persuasively argued that we were on the brink +of meaningful machine intelligence. A decade later, he continued the argument +in a book called The Age of Spiritual Machines, whose most audacious claim is +that the world's computational capacity has been slowly doubling since the +crust first cooled (and before!), and that the doubling interval has been +growing shorter and shorter with each passing year, so that now we see it +reflected in the computer industry's Moore's Law, which predicts that +microprocessors will get twice as powerful for half the cost about every +eighteen months. The breathtaking sweep of this trend has an obvious +conclusion: computers more powerful than people; more powerful than we can +comprehend. + +Now Kurzweil has published two more books, The Singularity Is Near, When Humans +Transcend Biology (Viking, Spring 2005) and Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough +to Live Forever (with Terry Grossman, Rodale, November 2004). The former is a +technological roadmap for creating the conditions necessary for ascent into +Singularity; the latter is a book about life-prolonging technologies that will +assist baby-boomers in living long enough to see the day when technological +immortality is achieved. + +See what I meant about his being a Heinlein hero? + +I still don't know if the Singularity is a spiritual or a technological belief +system. It has all the trappings of spirituality, to be sure. If you are pure +and kosher, if you live right and if your society is just, then you will live +to see a moment of Rapture when your flesh will slough away leaving nothing +behind but your ka, your soul, your consciousness, to ascend to an immortal and +pure state. + +I wrote a novel called Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom where characters could +make backups of themselves and recover from them if something bad happened, +like catching a cold or being assassinated. It raises a lot of existential +questions: most prominently: are you still you when you've been restored from +backup? + +The traditional AI answer is the Turing Test, invented by Alan Turing, the gay +pioneer of cryptography and artificial intelligence who was forced by the +British government to take hormone treatments to "cure" him of his +homosexuality, culminating in his suicide in 1954. Turing cut through the +existentialism about measuring whether a machine is intelligent by proposing a +parlor game: a computer sits behind a locked door with a chat program, and a +person sits behind another locked door with his own chat program, and they both +try to convince a judge that they are real people. If the computer fools a +human judge into thinking that it's a person, then to all intents and purposes, +it's a person. + +So how do you know if the backed-up you that you've restored into a new body -- +or a jar with a speaker attached to it -- is really you? Well, you can ask it +some questions, and if it answers the same way that you do, you're talking to a +faithful copy of yourself. + +Sounds good. But the me who sent his first story into Asimov's seventeen years +ago couldn't answer the question, "Write a story for Asimov's" the same way the +me of today could. Does that mean I'm not me anymore? + +Kurzweil has the answer. + +"If you follow that logic, then if you were to take me ten years ago, I could +not pass for myself in a Ray Kurzweil Turing Test. But once the requisite +uploading technology becomes available a few decades hence, you could make a +perfect-enough copy of me, and it would pass the Ray Kurzweil Turing Test. The +copy doesn't have to match the quantum state of my every neuron, either: if you +meet me the next day, I'd pass the Ray Kurzweil Turing Test. Nevertheless, none +of the quantum states in my brain would be the same. There are quite a few +changes that each of us undergo from day to day, we don't examine the +assumption that we are the same person closely. + +"We gradually change our pattern of atoms and neurons but we very rapidly +change the particles the pattern is made up of. We used to think that in the +brain -- the physical part of us most closely associated with our identity -- +cells change very slowly, but it turns out that the components of the neurons, +the tubules and so forth, turn over in only days. I'm a completely different +set of particles from what I was a week ago. + +"Consciousness is a difficult subject, and I'm always surprised by how many +people talk about consciousness routinely as if it could be easily and readily +tested scientifically. But we can't postulate a consciousness detector that +does not have some assumptions about consciousness built into it. + +"Science is about objective third party observations and logical deductions +from them. Consciousness is about first-person, subjective experience, and +there's a fundamental gap there. We live in a world of assumptions about +consciousness. We share the assumption that other human beings are conscious, +for example. But that breaks down when we go outside of humans, when we +consider, for example, animals. Some say only humans are conscious and animals +are instinctive and machinelike. Others see humanlike behavior in an animal and +consider the animal conscious, but even these observers don't generally +attribute consciousness to animals that aren't humanlike. + +"When machines are complex enough to have responses recognizable as emotions, +those machines will be more humanlike than animals." + +The Kurzweil Singularity goes like this: computers get better and smaller. Our +ability to measure the world gains precision and grows ever cheaper. +Eventually, we can measure the world inside the brain and make a copy of it in +a computer that's as fast and complex as a brain, and voila, intelligence. + +Here in the twenty-first century we like to view ourselves as ambulatory +brains, plugged into meat-puppets that lug our precious grey matter from place +to place. We tend to think of that grey matter as transcendently complex, and +we think of it as being the bit that makes us us. + +But brains aren't that complex, Kurzweil says. Already, we're starting to +unravel their mysteries. + +"We seem to have found one area of the brain closely associated with +higher-level emotions, the spindle cells, deeply embedded in the brain. There +are tens of thousands of them, spanning the whole brain (maybe eighty thousand +in total), which is an incredibly small number. Babies don't have any, most +animals don't have any, and they likely only evolved over the last million +years or so. Some of the high-level emotions that are deeply human come from +these. + +"Turing had the right insight: base the test for intelligence on written +language. Turing Tests really work. A novel is based on language: with language +you can conjure up any reality, much more so than with images. Turing almost +lived to see computers doing a good job of performing in fields like math, +medical diagnosis and so on, but those tasks were easier for a machine than +demonstrating even a child's mastery of language. Language is the true +embodiment of human intelligence." + +If we're not so complex, then it's only a matter of time until computers are +more complex than us. When that comes, our brains will be model-able in a +computer and that's when the fun begins. That's the thesis of Spiritual +Machines, which even includes a (Heinlein-style) timeline leading up to this +day. + +Now, it may be that a human brain contains n logic-gates and runs at x cycles +per second and stores z petabytes, and that n and x and z are all within reach. +It may be that we can take a brain apart and record the position and +relationships of all the neurons and sub-neuronal elements that constitute a +brain. + +But there are also a nearly infinite number of ways of modeling a brain in a +computer, and only a finite (or possibly nonexistent) fraction of that space +will yield a conscious copy of the original meat-brain. Science fiction writers +usually hand-wave this step: in Heinlein's "Man Who Sold the Moon," the gimmick +is that once the computer becomes complex enough, with enough "random numbers," +it just wakes up. + +Computer programmers are a little more skeptical. Computers have never been +known for their skill at programming themselves -- they tend to be no smarter +than the people who write their software. + +But there are techniques for getting computers to program themselves, based on +evolution and natural selection. A programmer creates a system that spits out +lots -- thousands or even millions -- of randomly generated programs. Each one +is given the opportunity to perform a computational task (say, sorting a list +of numbers from greatest to least) and the ones that solve the problem best are +kept aside while the others are erased. Now the survivors are used as the basis +for a new generation of randomly mutated descendants, each based on elements of +the code that preceded them. By running many instances of a randomly varied +program at once, and by culling the least successful and regenerating the +population from the winners very quickly, it is possible to evolve effective +software that performs as well or better than the code written by human +authors. + +Indeed, evolutionary computing is a promising and exciting field that's +realizing real returns through cool offshoots like "ant colony optimization" +and similar approaches that are showing good results in fields as diverse as +piloting military UAVs and efficiently provisioning car-painting robots at +automotive plants. + +So if you buy Kurzweil's premise that computation is getting cheaper and more +plentiful than ever, then why not just use evolutionary algorithms to evolve +the best way to model a scanned-in human brain such that it "wakes up" like +Heinlein's Mike computer? + +Indeed, this is the crux of Kurzweil's argument in Spiritual Machines: if we +have computation to spare and a detailed model of a human brain, we need only +combine them and out will pop the mechanism whereby we may upload our +consciousness to digital storage media and transcend our weak and bothersome +meat forever.Indeed, this is the crux of Kurzweil's argument in Spiritual +Machines: if we have computation to spare and a detailed model of a human +brain, we need only combine them and out will pop the mechanism whereby we may +upload our consciousness to digital storage media and transcend our weak and +bothersome meat forever. + +But it's a cheat. Evolutionary algorithms depend on the same mechanisms as +real-world evolution: heritable variation of candidates and a system that culls +the least-suitable candidates. This latter -- the fitness-factor that +determines which individuals in a cohort breed and which vanish -- is the key +to a successful evolutionary system. Without it, there's no pressure for the +system to achieve the desired goal: merely mutation and more mutation. + +But how can a machine evaluate which of a trillion models of a human brain is +"most like" a conscious mind? Or better still: which one is most like the +individual whose brain is being modeled? + +"It is a sleight of hand in Spiritual Machines," Kurzweil admits. "But in The +Singularity Is Near, I have an in-depth discussion about what we know about the +brain and how to model it. Our tools for understanding the brain are subject to +the Law of Accelerating Returns, and we've made more progress in +reverse-engineering the human brain than most people realize." This is a tasty +Kurzweilism that observes that improvements in technology yield tools for +improving technology, round and round, so that the thing that progress begets +more than anything is more and yet faster progress. + +"Scanning resolution of human tissue -- both spatial and temporal -- is +doubling every year, and so is our knowledge of the workings of the brain. The +brain is not one big neural net, the brain is several hundred different +regions, and we can understand each region, we can model the regions with +mathematics, most of which have some nexus with chaos and self-organizing +systems. This has already been done for a couple dozen regions out of the +several hundred. + +"We have a good model of a dozen or so regions of the auditory and visual +cortex, how we strip images down to very low-resolution movies based on pattern +recognition. Interestingly, we don't actually see things, we essentially +hallucinate them in detail from what we see from these low resolution cues. +Past the early phases of the visual cortex, detail doesn't reach the brain. + +"We are getting exponentially more knowledge. We can get detailed scans of +neurons working in vivo, and are beginning to understand the chaotic algorithms +underlying human intelligence. In some cases, we are getting comparable +performance of brain regions in simulation. These tools will continue to grow +in detail and sophistication. + +"We can have confidence of reverse-engineering the brain in twenty years or so. +The reason that brain reverse engineering has not contributed much to +artificial intelligence is that up until recently we didn't have the right +tools. If I gave you a computer and a few magnetic sensors and asked you to +reverse-engineer it, you might figure out that there's a magnetic device +spinning when a file is saved, but you'd never get at the instruction set. Once +you reverse-engineer the computer fully, however, you can express its +principles of operation in just a few dozen pages. + +"Now there are new tools that let us see the interneuronal connections and +their signaling, in vivo, and in real-time. We're just now getting these tools +and there's very rapid application of the tools to obtain the data. + +"Twenty years from now we will have realistic simulations and models of all the +regions of the brain and [we will] understand how they work. We won't blindly +or mindlessly copy those methods, we will understand them and use them to +improve our AI toolkit. So we'll learn how the brain works and then apply the +sophisticated tools that we will obtain, as we discover how the brain works. + +"Once we understand a subtle science principle, we can isolate, amplify, and +expand it. Air goes faster over a curved surface: from that insight we +isolated, amplified, and expanded the idea and invented air travel. We'll do +the same with intelligence. + +"Progress is exponential -- not just a measure of power of computation, number +of Internet nodes, and magnetic spots on a hard disk -- the rate of paradigm +shift is itself accelerating, doubling every decade. Scientists look at a +problem and they intuitively conclude that since we've solved 1 percent over +the last year, it'll therefore be one hundred years until the problem is +exhausted: but the rate of progress doubles every decade, and the power of the +information tools (in price-performance, resolution, bandwidth, and so on) +doubles every year. People, even scientists, don't grasp exponential growth. +During the first decade of the human genome project, we only solved 2 percent +of the problem, but we solved the remaining 98 percent in five years." + +But Kurzweil doesn't think that the future will arrive in a rush. As William +Gibson observed, "The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed." + +"Sure, it'd be interesting to take a human brain, scan it, reinstantiate the +brain, and run it on another substrate. That will ultimately happen." + +"But the most salient scenario is that we'll gradually merge with our +technology. We'll use nanobots to kill pathogens, then to kill cancer cells, +and then they'll go into our brain and do benign things there like augment our +memory, and very gradually they'll get more and more sophisticated. There's no +single great leap, but there is ultimately a great leap comprised of many small +steps. + +"In The Singularity Is Near, I describe the radically different world of 2040, +and how we'll get there one benign change at a time. The Singularity will be +gradual, smooth. + +"Really, this is about augmenting our biological thinking with nonbiological +thinking. We have a capacity of 1026 to 1029 calculations per second (cps) in +the approximately 1010 biological human brains on Earth and that number won't +change much in fifty years, but nonbiological thinking will just crash through +that. By 2049, nonbiological thinking capacity will be on the order of a +billion times that. We'll get to the point where bio thinking is relatively +insignificant. + +"People didn't throw their typewriters away when word-processing started. +There's always an overlap -- it'll take time before we realize how much more +powerful nonbiological thinking will ultimately be." + +It's well and good to talk about all the stuff we can do with technology, but +it's a lot more important to talk about the stuff we'll be allowed to do with +technology. Think of the global freak-out caused by the relatively trivial +advent of peer-to-peer file-sharing tools: Universities are wiretapping their +campuses and disciplining computer science students for writing legitimate, +general purpose software; grandmothers and twelve-year-olds are losing their +life savings; privacy and due process have sailed out the window without so +much as a by-your-leave. + +Even P2P's worst enemies admit that this is a general-purpose technology with +good and bad uses, but when new tech comes along it often engenders a response +that countenances punishing an infinite number of innocent people to get at the +guilty. + +What's going to happen when the new technology paradigm isn't song-swapping, +but transcendent super-intelligence? Will the reactionary forces be justified +in razing the whole ecosystem to eliminate a few parasites who are doing +negative things with the new tools? + +"Complex ecosystems will always have parasites. Malware [malicious software] is +the most important battlefield today. + +"Everything will become software -- objects will be malleable, we'll spend lots +of time in VR, and computhought will be orders of magnitude more important than +biothought. + +"Software is already complex enough that we have an ecological terrain that has +emerged just as it did in the bioworld. + +"That's partly because technology is unregulated and people have access to the +tools to create malware and the medicine to treat it. Today's software viruses +are clever and stealthy and not simpleminded. Very clever. + +"But here's the thing: you don't see people advocating shutting down the +Internet because malware is so destructive. I mean, malware is potentially more +than a nuisance -- emergency systems, air traffic control, and nuclear reactors +all run on vulnerable software. It's an important issue, but the potential +damage is still a tiny fraction of the benefit we get from the Internet. + +"I hope it'll remain that way -- that the Internet won't become a regulated +space like medicine. Malware's not the most important issue facing human +society today. Designer bioviruses are. People are concerted about WMDs, but +the most daunting WMD would be a designed biological virus. The means exist in +college labs to create destructive viruses that erupt and spread silently with +long incubation periods. + +"Importantly, a would-be bio-terrorist doesn't have to put malware through the +FDA's regulatory approval process, but scientists working to fix bio-malware +do. + +"In Huxley's Brave New World, the rationale for the totalitarian system was +that technology was too dangerous and needed to be controlled. But that just +pushes technology underground where it becomes less stable. Regulation gives +the edge of power to the irresponsible who won't listen to the regulators +anyway. + +"The way to put more stones on the defense side of the scale is to put more +resources into defensive technologies, not create a totalitarian regime of +Draconian control. + +"I advocate a one hundred billion dollar program to accelerate the development +of anti-biological virus technology. The way to combat this is to develop broad +tools to destroy viruses. We have tools like RNA interference, just discovered +in the past two years to block gene expression. We could develop means to +sequence the genes of a new virus (SARS only took thirty-one days) and respond +to it in a matter of days. + +"Think about it. There's no FDA for software, no certification for programmers. +The government is thinking about it, though! The reason the FCC is +contemplating Trusted Computing mandates," -- a system to restrict what a +computer can do by means of hardware locks embedded on the motherboard -- "is +that computing technology is broadening to cover everything. So now you have +communications bureaucrats, biology bureaucrats, all wanting to regulate +computers. + +"Biology would be a lot more stable if we moved away from regulation -- which +is extremely irrational and onerous and doesn't appropriately balance risks. +Many medications are not available today even though they should be. The FDA +always wants to know what happens if we approve this and will it turn into a +thalidomide situation that embarrasses us on CNN? + +"Nobody asks about the harm that will certainly accrue from delaying a +treatment for one or more years. There's no political weight at all, people +have been dying from diseases like heart disease and cancer for as long as +we've been alive. Attributable risks get 100-1000 times more weight than +unattributable risks." + +Is this spirituality or science? Perhaps it is the melding of both -- more +shades of Heinlein, this time the weird religions founded by people who took +Stranger in a Strange Land way too seriously. + +After all, this is a system of belief that dictates a means by which we can +care for our bodies virtuously and live long enough to transcend them. It is a +system of belief that concerns itself with the meddling of non-believers, who +work to undermine its goals through irrational systems predicated on their +disbelief. It is a system of belief that asks and answers the question of what +it means to be human. + +It's no wonder that the Singularity has come to occupy so much of the science +fiction narrative in these years. Science or spirituality, you could hardly ask +for a subject better tailored to technological speculation and drama. + +$$$$ + +1~ Wikipedia: a genuine Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy -- minus the editors + +(Originally published in The Anthology at the End of the Universe, April 2005) +~# + +"Mostly Harmless" -- a phrase so funny that Adams actually titled a book after +it. Not that there's a lot of comedy inherent in those two words: rather, +they're the punchline to a joke that anyone who's ever written for publication +can really get behind. + +Ford Prefect, a researcher for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, has been +stationed on Earth for years, painstakingly compiling an authoritative, +insightful entry on Terran geography, science and culture, excerpts from which +appear throughout the H2G2 books. His entry improved upon the old one, which +noted that Earth was, simply, "Harmless." + +However, the Guide has limited space, and when Ford submits his entry to his +editors, it is trimmed to fit: + +group{ + + "What? Harmless? Is that all it's got to say? Harmless! One + word!" + + Ford shrugged. "Well, there are a hundred billion stars in the + Galaxy, and only a limited amount of space in the book's + microprocessors," he said, "and no one knew much about the Earth + of course." + + "Well for God's sake I hope you managed to rectify that a bit." + + "Oh yes, well I managed to transmit a new entry off to the editor. + He had to trim it a bit, but it's still an improvement." + + "And what does it say now?" asked Arthur. + + "Mostly harmless," admitted Ford with a slightly embarrassed + cough. + +}group + +[fn: My lifestyle is as gypsy and fancy-free as the characters in H2G2, and as +a result my copies of the Adams books are thousands of miles away in storages +in other countries, and this essay was penned on public transit and cheap hotel +rooms in Chile, Boston, London, Geneva, Brussels, Bergen, Geneva (again), +Toronto, Edinburgh, and Helsinki. Luckily, I was able to download a dodgy, +re-keyed version of the Adams books from a peer-to-peer network, which network +I accessed via an open wireless network on a random street-corner in an +anonymous city, a fact that I note here as testimony to the power of the +Internet to do what the Guide does for Ford and Arthur: put all the information +I need at my fingertips, wherever I am. However, these texts *{are}* a little +on the dodgy side, as noted, so you might want to confirm these quotes before, +say, uttering them before an Adams truefan.] + +And there's the humor: every writer knows the pain of laboring over a piece for +days, infusing it with diverse interesting factoids and insights, only to have +it cut to ribbons by some distant editor (I once wrote thirty drafts of a +5,000-word article for an editor who ended up running it in three paragraphs as +accompaniment for what he decided should be a photo essay with minimal +verbiage.) + +Since the dawn of the Internet, H2G2 geeks have taken it upon themselves to +attempt to make a Guide on the Internet. Volunteers wrote and submitted essays +on various subjects as would be likely to appear in a good encyclopedia, +infusing them with equal measures of humor and thoughtfulness, and they were +edited together by the collective effort of the contributors. These projects -- +Everything2, H2G2 (which was overseen by Adams himself), and others -- are like +a barn-raising in which a team of dedicated volunteers organize the labors of +casual contributors, piecing together a free and open user-generated +encyclopedia. + +These encyclopedias have one up on Adams's Guide: they have no shortage of +space on their "microprocessors" (the first volume of the Guide was clearly +written before Adams became conversant with PCs!). The ability of humans to +generate verbiage is far outstripped by the ability of technologists to +generate low-cost, reliable storage to contain it. For example, Brewster +Kahle's Internet Archive project (archive.org) has been making a copy of the +Web -- the *{whole}* Web, give or take -- every couple of days since 1996. +Using the Archive's Wayback Machine, you can now go and see what any page +looked like on a given day. + +The Archive doesn't even bother throwing away copies of pages that haven't +changed since the last time they were scraped: with storage as cheap as it is +-- and it is *{very}* cheap for the Archive, which runs the largest database in +the history of the universe off of a collection of white-box commodity PCs +stacked up on packing skids in the basement of a disused armory in San +Francisco's Presidio -- there's no reason not to just keep them around. In +fact, the Archive has just spawned two "mirror" Archives, one located under the +rebuilt Library of Alexandria and the other in Amsterdam. [fn: Brewster Kahle +says that he was nervous about keeping his only copy of the "repository of all +human knowledge" on the San Andreas fault, but keeping your backups in a +censorship-happy Amnesty International watchlist state and/or in a floodplain +below sea level is probably not such a good idea either!] + +So these systems did not see articles trimmed for lack of space; for on the +Internet, the idea of "running out of space" is meaningless. But they *{were}* +trimmed, by editorial cliques, and rewritten for clarity and style. Some +entries were rejected as being too thin, while others were sent back to the +author for extensive rewrites. + +This traditional separation of editor and writer mirrors the creative process +itself, in which authors are exhorted to concentrate on *{either}* composing +*{or}* revising, but not both at the same time, for the application of the +critical mind to the creative process strangles it. So you write, and then you +edit. Even when you write for your own consumption, it seems you have to answer +to an editor. + +The early experimental days of the Internet saw much experimentation with +alternatives to traditional editor/author divisions. Slashdot, a nerdy +news-site of surpassing popularity [fn: Having a link to one's website posted +to Slashdot will almost inevitably overwhelm your server with traffic, knocking +all but the best-provisioned hosts offline within minutes; this is commonly +referred to as "the Slashdot Effect."], has a baroque system for "community +moderation" of the responses to the articles that are posted to its front +pages. Readers, chosen at random, are given five "moderator points" that they +can use to raise or lower the score of posts on the Slashdot message boards. +Subsequent readers can filter their views of these boards to show only highly +ranked posts. Other readers are randomly presented with posts and their +rankings and are asked to rate the fairness of each moderator's moderation. +Moderators who moderate fairly are given more opportunities to moderate; +likewise message-board posters whose messages are consistently highly rated. + +It is thought that this system rewards good "citizenship" on the Slashdot +boards through checks and balances that reward good messages and fair editorial +practices. And in the main, the Slashdot moderation system works [fn: as do +variants on it, like the system in place at Kur5hin.org (pronounced +"corrosion")]. If you dial your filter up to show you highly scored messages, +you will generally get well-reasoned, or funny, or genuinely useful posts in +your browser. + +This community moderation scheme and ones like it have been heralded as a good +alternative to traditional editorship. The importance of the Internet to "edit +itself" is best understood in relation to the old shibboleth, "On the Internet, +everyone is a slushreader." [fn: "Slush" is the term for generally execrable +unsolicited manuscripts that fetch up in publishers' offices -- these are +typically so bad that the most junior people on staff are drafted into reading +(and, usually, rejecting) them]. When the Internet's radical transformative +properties were first bandied about in publishing circles, many reassured +themselves that even if printing's importance was de-emphasized, that good +editors would always been needed, and doubly so online, where any +mouth-breather with a modem could publish his words. Someone would need to +separate the wheat from the chaff and help keep us from drowning in +information. + +One of the best-capitalized businesses in the history of the world, Yahoo!, +went public on the strength of this notion, proposing to use an army of +researchers to catalog every single page on the Web even as it was created, +serving as a comprehensive guide to all human knowledge. Less than a decade +later, Yahoo! is all but out of that business: the ability of the human race to +generate new pages far outstrips Yahoo!'s ability to read, review, rank and +categorize them. + +Hence Slashdot, a system of distributed slushreading. Rather than +professionalizing the editorship role, Slashdot invites contributors to +identify good stuff when they see it, turning editorship into a reward for good +behavior. + +But as well as Slashdot works, it has this signal failing: nearly every +conversation that takes place on Slashdot is shot through with discussion, +griping and gaming *{on the moderation system itself}*. The core task of +Slashdot has *{become}* editorship, not the putative subjects of Slashdot +posts. The fact that the central task of Slashdot is to rate other Slashdotters +creates a tenor of meanness in the discussion. Imagine if the subtext of every +discussion you had in the real world was a kind of running, pedantic nitpickery +in which every point was explicitly weighed and judged and commented upon. +You'd be an unpleasant, unlikable jerk, the kind of person that is sometimes +referred to as a "slashdork." + +As radical as Yahoo!'s conceit was, Slashdot's was more radical. But as radical +as Slashdot's is, it is still inherently conservative in that it presumes that +editorship is necessary, and that it further requires human judgment and +intervention. + +Google's a lot more radical. Instead of editors, it has an algorithm. Not the +kind of algorithm that dominated the early search engines like Altavista, in +which laughably bad artificial intelligence engines attempted to automatically +understand the content, context and value of every page on the Web so that a +search for "Dog" would turn up the page more relevant to the query. + +Google's algorithm is predicated on the idea that people are good at +understanding things and computers are good at counting things. Google counts +up all the links on the Web and affords more authority to those pages that have +been linked to by the most other pages. The rationale is that if a page has +been linked to by many web-authors, then they must have seen some merit in that +page. This system works remarkably well -- so well that it's nearly +inconceivable that any search-engine would order its rankings by any other +means. What's more, it doesn't pervert the tenor of the discussions and pages +that it catalogs by turning each one into a performance for a group of ranking +peers. [fn: Or at least, it *{didn't}*. Today, dedicated web-writers, such as +bloggers, are keenly aware of the way that Google will interpret their choices +about linking and page-structure. One popular sport is "googlebombing," in +which web-writers collude to link to a given page using a humorous keyword so +that the page becomes the top result for that word -- which is why, for a time, +the top result for "more evil than Satan" was Microsoft.com. Likewise, the +practice of "blogspamming," in which unscrupulous spammers post links to their +webpages in the message boards on various blogs, so that Google will be tricked +into thinking that a wide variety of sites have conferred some authority onto +their penis-enlargement page.] + +But even Google is conservative in assuming that there is a need for editorship +as distinct from composition. Is there a way we can dispense with editorship +altogether and just use composition to refine our ideas? Can we merge +composition and editorship into a single role, fusing our creative and critical +selves? + +You betcha. + +"Wikis" [fn: Hawai'ian for "fast"] are websites that can be edited by anyone. +They were invented by Ward Cunningham in 1995, and they have become one of the +dominant tools for Internet collaboration in the present day. Indeed, there is +a sort of Internet geek who throws up a Wiki in the same way that ants make +anthills: reflexively, unconsciously. + +Here's how a Wiki works. You put up a page: + +group{ + + Welcome to my Wiki. It is rad. + + There are OtherWikis that inspired me. + +}group + +Click "publish" and bam, the page is live. The word "OtherWikis" will be +underlined, having automatically been turned into a link to a blank page titled +"OtherWikis" (Wiki software recognizes words with capital letters in the middle +of them as links to other pages. Wiki people call this "camel-case," because +the capital letters in the middle of words make them look like humped camels.) +At the bottom of it appears this legend: "Edit this page." + +Click on "Edit this page" and the text appears in an editable field. Revise the +text to your heart's content and click "Publish" and your revisions are live. +Anyone who visits a Wiki can edit any of its pages, adding to it, improving on +it, adding camel-cased links to new subjects, or even defacing or deleting it. + +It is authorship without editorship. Or authorship fused with editorship. +Whichever, it works, though it requires effort. The Internet, like all human +places and things, is fraught with spoilers and vandals who deface whatever +they can. Wiki pages are routinely replaced with obscenities, with links to +spammers' websites, with junk and crap and flames. + +But Wikis have self-defense mechanisms, too. Anyone can "subscribe" to a Wiki +page, and be notified when it is updated. Those who create Wiki pages generally +opt to act as "gardeners" for them, ensuring that they are on hand to undo the +work of the spoilers. + +In this labor, they are aided by another useful Wiki feature: the "history" +link. Every change to every Wiki page is logged and recorded. Anyone can page +back through every revision, and anyone can revert the current version to a +previous one. That means that vandalism only lasts as long as it takes for a +gardener to come by and, with one or two clicks, set things to right. + +This is a powerful and wildly successful model for collaboration, and there is +no better example of this than the Wikipedia, a free, Wiki-based encyclopedia +with more than one million entries, which has been translated into 198 +languages [fn: That is, one or more Wikipedia entries have been translated into +198 languages; more than 15 languages have 10,000 or more entries translated] + +Wikipedia is built entirely out of Wiki pages created by self-appointed +experts. Contributors research and write up subjects, or produce articles on +subjects that they are familiar with. + +This is authorship, but what of editorship? For if there is one thing a Guide +or an encyclopedia must have, it is authority. It must be vetted by +trustworthy, neutral parties, who present something that is either The Truth or +simply A Truth, but truth nevertheless. + +The Wikipedia has its skeptics. Al Fasoldt, a writer for the Syracuse +Post-Standard, apologized to his readers for having recommended that they +consult Wikipedia. A reader of his, a librarian, wrote in and told him that his +recommendation had been irresponsible, for Wikipedia articles are often defaced +or worse still, rewritten with incorrect information. When another journalist +from the Techdirt website wrote to Fasoldt to correct this impression, Fasoldt +responded with an increasingly patronizing and hysterical series of messages in +which he described Wikipedia as "outrageous," "repugnant" and "dangerous," +insulting the Techdirt writer and storming off in a huff. [fn: see +http://techdirt.com/articles/20040827/0132238_F.shtml for more] + +Spurred on by this exchange, many of Wikipedia's supporters decided to +empirically investigate the accuracy and resilience of the system. Alex +Halavais made changes to 13 different pages, ranging from obvious to subtle. +Every single change was found and corrected within hours. [fn: see +http://alex.halavais.net/news/index.php?p=794 for more] Then legendary +Princeton engineer Ed Felten ran side-by-side comparisons of Wikipedia entries +on areas in which he had deep expertise with their counterparts in the current +electronic edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. His conclusion? "Wikipedia's +advantage is in having more, longer, and more current entries. If it weren't +for the Microsoft-case entry, Wikipedia would have been the winner hands down. +Britannica's advantage is in having lower variance in the quality of its +entries." [fn: see http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000675.html for +more] Not a complete win for Wikipedia, but hardly "outrageous," "repugnant" +and "dangerous." (Poor Fasoldt -- his idiotic hyperbole will surely haunt him +through the whole of his career -- I mean, "repugnant?!") + +There has been one very damning and even frightening indictment of Wikipedia, +which came from Ethan Zuckerman, the founder of the GeekCorps group, which +sends volunteers to poor countries to help establish Internet Service Providers +and do other good works through technology. + +Zuckerman, a Harvard Berkman Center Fellow, is concerned with the "systemic +bias" in a collaborative encyclopedia whose contributors must be conversant +with technology and in possession of same in order to improve on the work +there. Zuckerman reasonably observes that Internet users skew towards wealth, +residence in the world's richest countries, and a technological bent. This +means that the Wikipedia, too, is skewed to subjects of interest to that group +-- subjects where that group already has expertise and interest. + +The result is tragicomical. The entry on the Congo Civil War, the largest +military conflict the world has seen since WWII, which has claimed over three +million lives, has only a fraction of the verbiage devoted to the War of the +Ents, a fictional war fought between sentient trees in JRR Tolkien's *{Lord of +the Rings}*. + +Zuckerman issued a public call to arms to rectify this, challenging Wikipedia +contributors to seek out information on subjects like Africa's military +conflicts, nursing and agriculture and write these subjects up in the same +loving detail given over to science fiction novels and contemporary youth +culture. His call has been answered well. What remains is to infiltrate the +Wikipedia into the academe so that term papers, Masters and Doctoral theses on +these subjects find themselves in whole or in part on the Wikipedia. [fn See +http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Xed/CROSSBOW for more on this] + +But if Wikipedia is authoritative, how does it get there? What alchemy turns +the maunderings of "mouth-breathers with modems" into valid, useful +encyclopedia entries? + +It all comes down to the way that disputes are deliberated over and resolved. +Take the entry on Israel. At one point, it characterized Israel as a +beleaguered state set upon by terrorists who would drive its citizens into the +sea. Not long after, the entry was deleted holus-bolus and replaced with one +that described Israel as an illegal state practicing Apartheid on an oppressed +ethnic minority. + +Back and forth the editors went, each overwriting the other's with his or her +own doctrine. But eventually, one of them blinked. An editor moderated the +doctrine just a little, conceding a single point to the other. And the other +responded in kind. In this way, turn by turn, all those with a strong opinion +on the matter negotiated a kind of Truth, a collection of statements that +everyone could agree represented as neutral a depiction of Israel as was likely +to emerge. Whereupon, the joint authors of this marvelous document joined +forces and fought back to back to resist the revisions of other doctrinaires +who came later, preserving their hard-won peace. [fn: This process was just +repeated in microcosm in the Wikipedia entry on the author of this paper, which +was replaced by a rather disparaging and untrue entry that characterized his +books as critical and commercial failures -- there ensued several editorial +volleys, culminating in an uneasy peace that couches the anonymous detractor's +skepticism in context and qualifiers that make it clear what the facts are and +what is speculation] + +What's most fascinating about these entries isn't their "final" text as +currently present on Wikipedia. It is the history page for each, blow-by-blow +revision lists that make it utterly transparent where the bodies were buried on +the way to arriving at whatever Truth has emerged. This is a neat solution to +the problem of authority -- if you want to know what the fully rounded view of +opinions on any controversial subject look like, you need only consult its +entry's history page for a blistering eyeful of thorough debate on the subject. + +And here, finally, is the answer to the "Mostly harmless" problem. Ford's +editor can trim his verbiage to two words, but they need not stay there -- +Arthur, or any other user of the Guide as we know it today [fn: that is, in the +era where we understand enough about technology to know the difference between +a microprocessor and a hard-drive] can revert to Ford's glorious and exhaustive +version. + +Think of it: a Guide without space restrictions and without editors, where any +Vogon can publish to his heart's content. + +Lovely. + +$$$$ + +1~ Warhol is Turning in His Grave + +(Originally published in The Guardian, November 13, 2007) ~# + +The excellent little programmer book for the National Portrait Gallery's +current show POPARTPORTRAITS has a lot to say about the pictures hung on the +walls, about the diverse source material the artists drew from in producing +their provocative works. They cut up magazines, copied comic books, drew in +trademarked cartoon characters like Minnie Mouse, reproduced covers from +*{Time}* magazine, made ironic use of the cartoon figure of Charles Atlas, +painted over an iconic photo of James Dean or Elvis Presley -- and that's just +in the first room of seven. + +The programmer book describes the aesthetic experience of seeing these +repositioned icons of culture high and low, the art created by the celebrated +artists Poons, Rauschenberg, Warhol, et al by nicking the work of others, +without permission, and remaking it to make statements and evoke emotions never +countenanced by the original creators. + +However, the book does not say a word about copyright. Can you blame it? A +treatise on the way that copyright and trademark were -- *{had to be}* -- +trammeled to make these works could fill volumes. Reading the programmer book, +you have to assume that the curators' only message about copyright is that +where free expression is concerned, the rights of the creators of the original +source material appropriated by the pop school take a back seat. + +There is, however, another message about copyright in the National Portrait +Gallery: it's implicit in the "No Photography" signs prominently placed +throughout the halls, including one right by the entrance of the +POPARTPORTRAITS exhibition. This isn't intended to protect the works from the +depredations of camera-flashes (it would read NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY if this were +so). No, the ban on pictures is in place to safeguard the copyright in the +works hung on the walls -- a fact that every gallery staffer I spoke to +instantly affirmed when I asked about the policy. + +Indeed, it seems that every square centimeter of the Portrait Gallery is under +some form of copyright. I wasn't even allowed to photograph the NO PHOTOGRAPHS +sign. A museum staffer explained that she'd been told that the typography and +layout of the NO PHOTOGRAPHS legend was, itself, copyrighted. If this is true, +then presumably, the same rules would prevent anyone from taking any pictures +in any public place -- unless you could somehow contrive to get a shot of +Leicester Square without any writing, logos, architectural facades, or images +in it. I doubt Warhol could have done it. + +What's the message of the show, then? Is it a celebration of remix culture, +reveling in the endless possibilities opened up by appropriating and re-using +without permission? + +Or is it the epitaph on the tombstone of the sweet days before the UN's +chartering of the World Intellectual Property Organization and the ensuing +mania for turning everything that can be sensed and recorded into someone's +property? + +Does this show -- paid for with public money, with some works that are +themselves owned by public institutions -- seek to inspire us to become 21st +century pops, armed with cameraphones, websites and mixers, or is it supposed +to inform us that our chance has passed, and we'd best settle for a life as +information serfs, who can't even make free use of what our eyes see, our ears +hear, of the streets we walk upon? + +Perhaps, just perhaps, it's actually a Dadaist show *{masquerading}* as a pop +art show! Perhaps the point is to titillate us with the delicious irony of +celebrating copyright infringement while simultaneously taking the view that +even the NO PHOTOGRAPHY sign is a form of property, not to be reproduced +without the permission that can never be had. + +$$$$ + +1~ The Future of Ignoring Things + +(Originally published on InformationWeek's Internet Evolution, October 3, 2007) +~# + +For decades, computers have been helping us to remember, but now it's time for +them to help us to ignore. + +Take email: Endless engineer-hours are poured into stopping spam, but virtually +no attention is paid to our interaction with our non-spam messages. Our mailer +may strive to learn from our ratings what is and is not spam, but it expends +practically no effort on figuring out which of the non-spam emails are +important and which ones can be safely ignored, dropped into archival folders, +or deleted unread. + +For example, I'm forever getting cc'd on busy threads by well-meaning +colleagues who want to loop me in on some discussion in which I have little +interest. Maybe the initial group invitation to a dinner (that I'll be out of +town for) was something I needed to see, but now that I've declined, I really +don't need to read the 300+ messages that follow debating the best place to +eat. + +I could write a mail-rule to ignore the thread, of course. But mail-rule +editors are clunky, and once your rule-list grows very long, it becomes +increasingly unmanageable. Mail-rules are where bookmarks were before the +bookmark site del.icio.us showed up -- built for people who might want to +ensure that messages from the boss show up in red, but not intended to be used +as a gigantic storehouse of a million filters, a crude means for telling the +computers what we don't want to see. + +Rael Dornfest, the former chairman of the O'Reilly Emerging Tech conference and +founder of the startup IWantSandy, once proposed an "ignore thread" feature for +mailers: Flag a thread as uninteresting, and your mailer will start to hide +messages with that subject-line or thread-ID for a week, unless those messages +contain your name. The problem is that threads mutate. Last week's dinner plans +become this week's discussion of next year's group holiday. If the thread is +still going after a week, the messages flow back into your inbox -- and a +single click takes you back through all the messages you missed. + +We need a million measures like this, adaptive systems that create a gray zone +between "delete on sight" and "show this to me right away." + +RSS readers are a great way to keep up with the torrent of new items posted on +high-turnover sites like Digg, but they're even better at keeping up with sites +that are sporadic, like your friend's brilliant journal that she only updates +twice a year. But RSS readers don't distinguish between the rare and miraculous +appearance of a new item in an occasional journal and the latest click-fodder +from Slashdot. They don't even sort your RSS feeds according to the sites that +you click-through the most. + +There was a time when I could read the whole of Usenet -- not just because I +was a student looking for an excuse to avoid my assignments, but because Usenet +was once tractable, readable by a single determined person. Today, I can't even +keep up with a single high-traffic message-board. I can't read all my email. I +can't read every item posted to every site I like. I certainly can't plough +through the entire edit-history of every Wikipedia entry I read. I've come to +grips with this -- with acquiring information on a probabilistic basis, instead +of the old, deterministic, cover-to-cover approach I learned in the offline +world. + +It's as though there's a cognitive style built into TCP/IP. Just as the network +only does best-effort delivery of packets, not worrying so much about the bits +that fall on the floor, TCP/IP users also do best-effort sweeps of the +Internet, focusing on learning from the good stuff they find, rather than +lamenting the stuff they don't have time to see. + +The network won't ever become more tractable. There will never be fewer things +vying for our online attention. The only answer is better ways and new +technology to ignore stuff -- a field that's just being born, with plenty of +room to grow. + +$$$$ + +1~ Facebook's Faceplant + +(Originally published as "How Your Creepy Ex-Co-Workers Will Kill Facebook," in +InformationWeek, November 26, 2007) ~# + +Facebook's "platform" strategy has sparked much online debate and controversy. +No one wants to see a return to the miserable days of walled gardens, when you +couldn't send a message to an AOL subscriber unless you, too, were a +subscriber, and when the only services that made it were the ones that AOL +management approved. Those of us on the "real" Internet regarded AOL with a +species of superstitious dread, a hive of clueless noobs waiting to swamp our +beloved Usenet with dumb flamewars (we fiercely guarded our erudite flamewars +as being of a palpably superior grade), the wellspring of an + +Facebook is no paragon of virtue. It bears the hallmarks of the kind of +pump-and-dump service that sees us as sticky, monetizable eyeballs in need of +pimping. The clue is in the steady stream of emails you get from Facebook: +"So-and-so has sent you a message." Yeah, what is it? Facebook isn't telling -- +you have to visit Facebook to find out, generate a banner impression, and read +and write your messages using the halt-and-lame Facebook interface, which lags +even end-of-lifed email clients like Eudora for composing, reading, filtering, +archiving and searching. Emails from Facebook aren't helpful messages, they're +eyeball bait, intended to send you off to the Facebook site, only to discover +that Fred wrote "Hi again!" on your "wall." Like other "social" apps (cough +eVite cough), Facebook has all the social graces of a nose-picking, hyperactive +six-year-old, standing at the threshold of your attention and chanting, "I know +something, I know something, I know something, won't tell you what it is!" + +If there was any doubt about Facebook's lack of qualification to displace the +Internet with a benevolent dictatorship/walled garden, it was removed when +Facebook unveiled its new advertising campaign. Now, Facebook will allow its +advertisers use the profile pictures of Facebook users to advertise their +products, without permission or compensation. Even if you're the kind of person +who likes the sound of a "benevolent dictatorship," this clearly isn't one. + +Many of my colleagues wonder if Facebook can be redeemed by opening up the +platform, letting anyone write any app for the service, easily exporting and +importing their data, and so on (this is the kind of thing Google is doing with +its OpenSocial Alliance). Perhaps if Facebook takes on some of the +characteristics that made the Web work -- openness, decentralization, +standardization -- it will become like the Web itself, but with the added pixie +dust of "social," the indefinable characteristic that makes Facebook into pure +crack for a significant proportion of Internet users. + +The debate about redeeming Facebook starts from the assumption that Facebook is +snowballing toward critical mass, the point at which it begins to define "the +Internet" for a large slice of the world's netizens, growing steadily every +day. But I think that this is far from a sure thing. Sure, networks generally +follow Metcalfe's Law: "the value of a telecommunications network is +proportional to the square of the number of users of the system." This law is +best understood through the analogy of the fax machine: a world with one fax +machine has no use for faxes, but every time you add a fax, you square the +number of possible send/receive combinations (Alice can fax Bob or Carol or +Don; Bob can fax Alice, Carol and Don; Carol can fax Alice, Bob and Don, etc). + +But Metcalfe's law presumes that creating more communications pathways +increases the value of the system, and that's not always true (see Brook's Law: +"Adding manpower to a late softer project makes it later"). + +Having watched the rise and fall of SixDegrees, Friendster, and the many other +proto-hominids that make up the evolutionary chain leading to Facebook, +MySpace, et al, I'm inclined to think that these systems are subject to a +Brook's-law parallel: "Adding more users to a social network increases the +probability that it will put you in an awkward social circumstance." Perhaps we +can call this "boyd's Law" [NOTE TO EDITOR: "boyd" is always lower-case] for +danah [TO EDITOR: "danah" too!] boyd, the social scientist who has studied many +of these networks from the inside as a keen-eyed net-anthropologist and who has +described the many ways in which social software does violence to sociability +in a series of sharp papers. + +Here's one of boyd's examples, a true story: a young woman, an elementary +school teacher, joins Friendster after some of her Burning Man buddies send her +an invite. All is well until her students sign up and notice that all the +friends in her profile are sunburnt, drug-addled techno-pagans whose own +profiles are adorned with digital photos of their painted genitals flapping +over the Playa. The teacher inveigles her friends to clean up their profiles, +and all is well again until her boss, the school principal, signs up to the +service and demands to be added to her friends list. The fact that she doesn't +like her boss doesn't really matter: in the social world of Friendster and its +progeny, it's perfectly valid to demand to be "friended" in an explicit fashion +that most of us left behind in the fourth grade. Now that her boss is on her +friends list, our teacher-friend's buddies naturally assume that she is one of +the tribe and begin to send her lascivious Friendster-grams, inviting her to +all sorts of dirty funtimes. + +In the real world, we don't articulate our social networks. Imagine how creepy +it would be to wander into a co-worker's cubicle and discover the wall covered +with tiny photos of everyone in the office, ranked by "friend" and "foe," with +the top eight friends elevated to a small shrine decorated with Post-It roses +and hearts. And yet, there's an undeniable attraction to corralling all your +friends and friendly acquaintances, charting them and their relationship to +you. Maybe it's evolutionary, some quirk of the neocortex dating from our +evolution into social animals who gained advantage by dividing up the work of +survival but acquired the tricky job of watching all the other monkeys so as to +be sure that everyone was pulling their weight and not, e.g., napping in the +treetops instead of watching for predators, emerging only to eat the fruit the +rest of us have foraged. + +Keeping track of our social relationships is a serious piece of work that runs +a heavy cognitive load. It's natural to seek out some neural prosthesis for +assistance in this chore. My fiancee once proposed a "social scheduling" +application that would watch your phone and email and IM to figure out who your +pals were and give you a little alert if too much time passed without your +reaching out to say hello and keep the coals of your relationship aglow. By the +time you've reached your forties, chances are you're out-of-touch with more +friends than you're in-touch with, old summer-camp chums, high-school mates, +ex-spouses and their families, former co-workers, college roomies, dot-com +veterans... Getting all those people back into your life is a full-time job and +then some. + +You'd think that Facebook would be the perfect tool for handling all this. It's +not. For every long-lost chum who reaches out to me on Facebook, there's a guy +who beat me up on a weekly basis through the whole seventh grade but now wants +to be my buddy; or the crazy person who was fun in college but is now kind of +sad; or the creepy ex-co-worker who I'd cross the street to avoid but who now +wants to know, "Am I your friend?" yes or no, this instant, please. + +It's not just Facebook and it's not just me. Every "social networking service" +has had this problem and every user I've spoken to has been frustrated by it. I +think that's why these services are so volatile: why we're so willing to flee +from Friendster and into MySpace's loving arms; from MySpace to Facebook. It's +socially awkward to refuse to add someone to your friends list -- but +*{removing}* someone from your friend-list is practically a declaration of war. +The least-awkward way to get back to a friends list with nothing but friends on +it is to reboot: create a new identity on a new system and send out some +invites (of course, chances are at least one of those invites will go to +someone who'll groan and wonder why we're dumb enough to think that we're +pals). + +That's why I don't worry about Facebook taking over the net. As more users +flock to it, the chances that the person who precipitates your exodus will find +you increases. Once that happens, poof, away you go -- and Facebook joins +SixDegrees, Friendster and their pals on the scrapheap of net.history. + +$$$$ + +1~ The Future of Internet Immune Systems + +(Originally published on InformationWeek's Internet Evolution, November 19, +2007) ~# + +Bunhill Cemetery is just down the road from my flat in London. It’s a handsome +old boneyard, a former plague pit (“Bone hill” -- as in, there are so many +bones under there that the ground is actually kind of humped up into a hill). +There are plenty of luminaries buried there -- John “Pilgrim’s Progress” +Bunyan, William Blake, Daniel Defoe, and assorted Cromwells. But my favorite +tomb is that of Thomas Bayes, the 18th-century statistician for whom Bayesian +filtering is named. + +Bayesian filtering is plenty useful. Here’s a simple example of how you might +use a Bayesian filter. First, get a giant load of non-spam emails and feed them +into a Bayesian program that counts how many times each word in their +vocabulary appears, producing a statistical breakdown of the word-frequency in +good emails. + +Then, point the filter at a giant load of spam (if you’re having a hard time +getting a hold of one, I have plenty to spare), and count the words in it. Now, +for each new message that arrives in your inbox, have the filter count the +relative word-frequencies and make a statistical prediction about whether the +new message is spam or not (there are plenty of wrinkles in this formula, but +this is the general idea). + +The beauty of this approach is that you needn’t dream up “The Big Exhaustive +List of Words and Phrases That Indicate a Message Is/Is Not Spam.” The filter +naively calculates a statistical fingerprint for spam and not-spam, and checks +the new messages against them. + +This approach -- and similar ones -- are evolving into an immune system for the +Internet, and like all immune systems, a little bit goes a long way, and too +much makes you break out in hives. + +ISPs are loading up their network centers with intrusion detection systems and +tripwires that are supposed to stop attacks before they happen. For example, +there’s the filter at the hotel I once stayed at in Jacksonville, Fla. Five +minutes after I logged in, the network locked me out again. After an hour on +the phone with tech support, it transpired that the network had noticed that +the videogame I was playing systematically polled the other hosts on the +network to check if they were running servers that I could join and play on. +The network decided that this was a malicious port-scan and that it had better +kick me off before I did anything naughty. + +It only took five minutes for the software to lock me out, but it took well +over an hour to find someone in tech support who understood what had happened +and could reset the router so that I could get back online. + +And right there is an example of the autoimmune disorder. Our network defenses +are automated, instantaneous, and sweeping. But our fallback and oversight +systems are slow, understaffed, and unresponsive. It takes a millionth of a +second for the Transportation Security Administration’s body-cavity-search +roulette wheel to decide that you’re a potential terrorist and stick you on a +no-fly list, but getting un-Tuttle-Buttled is a nightmarish, months-long +procedure that makes Orwell look like an optimist. + +The tripwire that locks you out was fired-and-forgotten two years ago by an +anonymous sysadmin with root access on the whole network. The outsourced +help-desk schlub who unlocks your account can’t even spell "tripwire." The same +goes for the algorithm that cut off your credit card because you got on an +airplane to a different part of the world and then had the audacity to spend +your money. (I’ve resigned myself to spending $50 on long-distance calls with +Citibank every time I cross a border if I want to use my debit card while +abroad.) + +This problem exists in macro- and microcosm across the whole of our +technologically mediated society. The “spamigation bots” run by the Business +Software Alliance and the Music and Film Industry Association of America +(MAFIAA) entertainment groups send out tens of thousands of automated copyright +takedown notices to ISPs at a cost of pennies, with little or no human +oversight. The people who get erroneously fingered as pirates (as a Recording +Industry Association of America (RIAA) spokesperson charmingly puts it, “When +you go fishing with a dragnet, sometimes you catch a dolphin.”) spend days or +weeks convincing their ISPs that they had the right to post their videos, +music, and text-files. + +We need an immune system. There are plenty of bad guys out there, and +technology gives them force-multipliers (like the hackers who run 250,000-PC +botnets). Still, there’s a terrible asymmetry in a world where defensive +takedowns are automatic, but correcting mistaken takedowns is done by hand. + +$$$$ + +1~ All Complex Ecosystems Have Parasites + +(Paper delivered at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, San Diego, +California, 16 March 2005) ~# + +AOL hates spam. AOL could eliminate nearly 100 percent of its subscribers' spam +with one easy change: it could simply shut off its internet gateway. Then, as +of yore, the only email an AOL subscriber could receive would come from another +AOL subscriber. If an AOL subscriber sent a spam to another AOL subscriber and +AOL found out about it, they could terminate the spammer's account. Spam costs +AOL millions, and represents a substantial disincentive for AOL customers to +remain with the service, and yet AOL chooses to permit virtually anyone who can +connect to the Internet, anywhere in the world, to send email to its customers, +with any software at all. + +Email is a sloppy, complicated ecosystem. It has organisms of sufficient +diversity and sheer number as to beggar the imagination: thousands of SMTP +agents, millions of mail-servers, hundreds of millions of users. That richness +and diversity lets all kinds of innovative stuff happen: if you go to +nytimes.com and "send a story to a friend," the NYT can convincingly spoof your +return address on the email it sends to your friend, so that it appears that +the email originated on your computer. Also: a spammer can harvest your email +and use it as a fake return address on the spam he sends to your friend. +Sysadmins have server processes that send them mail to secret pager-addresses +when something goes wrong, and GPLed mailing-list software gets used by +spammers and people running high-volume mailing lists alike. + +You could stop spam by simplifying email: centralize functions like identity +verification, limit the number of authorized mail agents and refuse service to +unauthorized agents, even set up tollbooths where small sums of money are +collected for every email, ensuring that sending ten million messages was too +expensive to contemplate without a damned high expectation of return on +investment. If you did all these things, you'd solve spam. + +By breaking email. + +Small server processes that mail a logfile to five sysadmins every hour just in +case would be prohibitively expensive. Convincing the soviet that your +bulk-mailer was only useful to legit mailing lists and not spammers could take +months, and there's no guarantee that it would get their stamp of approval at +all. With verified identity, the NYTimes couldn't impersonate you when it +forwarded stories on your behalf -- and Chinese dissidents couldn't send out +their samizdata via disposable gmail accounts. + +An email system that can be controlled is an email system without complexity. +Complex ecosystems are influenced, not controlled. + +The Hollywood studios are conniving to create a global network of regulatory +mandates over entertainment devices. Here they call it the Broadcast Flag; in +Europe, Asia, Australia and Latinamerica it's called DVB Copy Protection +Content Management. These systems purport to solve the problem of +indiscriminate redistribution of broadcast programming via the Internet, but +their answer to the problem, such as it is, is to require that everyone who +wants to build a device that touches video has to first get permission. + +If you want to make a TV, a screen, a video-card, a high-speed bus, an +analog-to-digital converter, a tuner card, a DVD burner -- any tool that you +hope to be lawful for use in connection with digital TV signals -- you'll have +to go on bended knee to get permission to deploy it. You'll have to convince +FCC bureaucrats or a panel of Hollywood companies and their sellout IT and +consumer electronics toadies that the thing you're going to bring to market +will not disrupt their business models. + +That's how DVD works today: if you want to make a DVD player, you need to ask +permission from a shadowy organization called the DVD-CCA. They don't give +permission if you plan on adding new features -- that's why they're suing +Kaleidascape for building a DVD jukebox that can play back your movies from a +hard-drive archive instead of the original discs. + +CD has a rich ecosystem, filled with parasites -- entrepreneurial organisms +that move to fill every available niche. If you spent a thousand bucks on CDs +ten years ago, the ecosystem for CDs would reward you handsomely. In the +intervening decade, parasites who have found an opportunity to suck value out +of the products on offer from the labels and the dupe houses by offering you +the tools to convert your CDs to ring-tones, karaoke, MP3s, MP3s on iPods and +other players, MP3s on CDs that hold a thousand percent more music -- and on +and on. + +DVDs live in a simpler, slower ecosystem, like a terrarium in a bottle where a +million species have been pared away to a manageable handful. DVDs pay no such +dividend. A thousand dollars' worth of ten-year old DVDs are good for just what +they were good for ten years ago: watching. You can't put your kid into her +favorite cartoon, you can't downsample the video to something that plays on +your phone, and you certainly can't lawfully make a hard-drive-based jukebox +from your discs. + +The yearning for simple ecosystems is endemic among people who want to "fix" +some problem of bad actors on the networks. + +Take interoperability: you might sell me a database in the expectation that +I'll only communicate with it using your authorized database agents. That way +you can charge vendors a license fee in exchange for permission to make a +client, and you can ensure that the clients are well-behaved and don't trigger +any of your nasty bugs. + +But you can't meaningfully enforce that. EDS and other titanic software +companies earn their bread and butter by producing fake database clients that +impersonate the real thing as they iterate through every record and write it to +a text file -- or simply provide a compatibility layer through systems provided +by two different vendors. These companies produce software that lies -- +parasite software that fills niches left behind by other organisms, sometimes +to those organisms' detriment. + +So we have "Trusted Computing," a system that's supposed to let software detect +other programs' lies and refuse to play with them if they get caught out +fibbing. It's a system that's based on torching the rainforest with all its +glorious anarchy of tools and systems and replacing it with neat rows of tame +and planted trees, each one approved by The Man as safe for use with his +products. + +For Trusted Computing to accomplish this, everyone who makes a video-card, +keyboard, or logic-board must receive a key from some certifying body that will +see to it that the key is stored in a way that prevents end-users from +extracting it and using it to fake signatures. + +But if one keyboard vendor doesn't store his keys securely, the system will be +useless for fighting keyloggers. If one video-card vendor lets a key leak, the +system will be no good for stopping screenlogging. If one logic-board vendor +lets a key slip, the whole thing goes out the window. That's how DVD DRM got +hacked: one vendor, Xing, left its keys in a place where users could get at +them, and then anyone could break the DRM on any DVD. + +Not only is the Trusted Computing advocates' goal -- producing a simpler +software ecosystem -- wrongheaded, but the methodology is doomed. Fly-by-night +keyboard vendors in distant free trade zones just won't be 100 percent +compliant, and Trusted Computing requires no less than perfect compliance. + +The whole of DRM is a macrocosm for Trusted Computing. The DVB Copy Protection +system relies on a set of rules for translating every one of its restriction +states -- such as "copy once" and "copy never" -- to states in other DRM +systems that are licensed to receive its output. That means that they're +signing up to review, approve and write special rules for every single +entertainment technology now invented and every technology that will be +invented in the future. + +Madness: shrinking the ecosystem of everything you can plug into your TV down +to the subset that these self-appointed arbiters of technology approve is a +recipe for turning the electronics, IT and telecoms industries into something +as small and unimportant as Hollywood. Hollywood -- which is a tenth the size +of IT, itself a tenth the size of telecoms. + +In Hollywood, your ability to make a movie depends on the approval of a few +power-brokers who have signing authority over the two-hundred-million-dollar +budgets for making films. As far as Hollywood is concerned, this is a feature, +not a bug. Two weeks ago, I heard the VP of Technology for Warners give a +presentation in Dublin on the need to adopt DRM for digital TV, and his +money-shot, his big convincer of a slide went like this: + +"With advances in processing power, storage capacity and broadband access... +EVERYBODY BECOMES A BROADCASTER!" + +Heaven forfend. + +Simple ecosystems are the goal of proceedings like CARP, the panel that set out +the ruinously high royalties for webcasters. The recording industry set the +rates as high as they did so that the teeming millions of webcasters would be +rendered economically extinct, leaving behind a tiny handful of giant companies +that could be negotiated with around a board room table, rather than dealt with +by blanket legislation. + +The razing of the rainforest has a cost. It's harder to send a legitimate email +today than it ever was -- thanks to a world of closed SMTP relays. The cries +for a mail-server monoculture grow more shrill with every passing moment. Just +last week, it was a call for every mail-administrator to ban the "vacation" +program that sends out automatic responses informing senders that the recipient +is away from email for a few days, because mailboxes that run vacation can +cause "spam blowback" where accounts send their vacation notices to the hapless +individuals whose email addresses the spammers have substituted on the email's +Reply-To line. + +And yet there is more spam than there ever was. All the costs we've paid for +fighting spam have added up to no benefit: the network is still overrun and +sometimes even overwhelmed by spam. We've let the network's neutrality and +diversity be compromised, without receiving the promised benefit of spam-free +inboxes. + +Likewise, DRM has exacted a punishing toll wherever it has come into play, +costing us innovation, free speech, research and the public's rights in +copyright. And likewise, DRM has not stopped infringement: today, infringement +is more widespread than ever. All those costs borne by society in the name of +protecting artists and stopping infringement, and not a penny put into an +artist's pocket, not a single DRM-restricted file that can't be downloaded for +free and without encumbrance from a P2P network. + +Everywhere we look, we find people who should know better calling for a +parasite-free Internet. Science fiction writers are supposed to be forward +looking, but they're wasting their time demanding that Amazon and Google make +it harder to piece together whole books from the page-previews one can get via +the look-inside-the-book programs. They're even cooking up programs to spoof +deliberately corrupted ebooks into the P2P networks, presumably to assure the +few readers the field has left that reading science fiction is a mug's game. + +The amazing thing about the failure of parasite-elimination programs is that +their proponents have concluded that the problem is that they haven't tried +hard enough -- with just a few more species eliminated, a few more policies +imposed, paradise will spring into being. Their answer to an unsuccessful +strategy for fixing the Internet is to try the same strategy, only moreso -- +only fill those niches in the ecology that you can sanction. Hunt and kill more +parasites, no matter what the cost. + +We are proud parasites, we Emerging Techers. We're engaged in perl whirling, +pythoneering, lightweight javarey -- we hack our cars and we hack our PCs. +We're the rich humus carpeting the jungle floor and the tiny frogs living in +the bromeliads. + +The long tail -- Chris Anderson's name for the 95% of media that isn't top +sellers, but which, in aggregate, accounts for more than half the money on the +table for media vendors -- is the tail of bottom-feeders and improbable +denizens of the ocean's thermal vents. We're unexpected guests at the dinner +table and we have the nerve to demand a full helping. + +Your ideas are cool and you should go and make them real, even if they demand +that the kind of ecological diversity that seems to be disappearing around us. + +You may succeed -- provided that your plans don't call for a simple ecosystem +where only you get to provide value and no one else gets to play. + +$$$ + +1~ READ CAREFULLY + +(Originally published as "Shrinkwrap Licenses: An Epidemic Of Lawsuits Waiting +To Happen" in InformationWeek, February 3, 2007) ~# + +*{READ CAREFULLY. By reading this article, you agree, on behalf of your +employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and +all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, +clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and +acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your +employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without +prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you +have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your +employer.}* + +READ CAREFULLY -- all in caps, and what it means is, "IGNORE THIS." That's +because the small print in the clickwrap, shrinkwrap, browsewrap and other +non-negotiated agreements is both immutable and outrageous. + +Why read the "agreement" if you know that: + +1) No sane person would agree to its text, and + +2) Even if you disagree, no one will negotiate a better agreement with you? + +We seem to have sunk to a kind of playground system of forming contracts. There +are those who will tell you that you can form a binding agreement just by +following a link, stepping into a store, buying a product, or receiving an +email. By standing there, shaking your head, shouting "NO NO NO I DO NOT +AGREE," you agree to let me come over to your house, clean out your fridge, +wear your underwear and make some long-distance calls. + +If you buy a downloadable movie from Amazon Unbox, you agree to let them +install spyware on your computer, delete any file they don't like on your +hard-drive, and cancel your viewing privileges for any reason. Of course, it +goes without saying that Amazon reserves the right to modify the agreement at +any time. + +The worst offenders are people who sell you movies and music. They're a close +second to people who sell you software, or provide services over the Internet. +There's a rubric to this -- you're getting a discount in exchange for signing +onto an abusive agreement, but just try and find the software that *{doesn't}* +come with one of these "agreements" -- at any price. + +For example, Vista, Microsoft's new operating system, comes in a rainbow of +flavors varying in price from $99 to $399, but all of them come with the same +crummy terms of service, which state that "you may not work around any +technical limitations in the software," and that Windows Defender, the bundled +anti-malware program, can delete any program from your hard drive that +Microsoft doesn't like, even if it breaks your computer. + +It's bad enough when this stuff comes to us through deliberate malice, but it +seems that bogus agreements can spread almost without human intervention. +Google any obnoxious term or phrase from a EULA, and you'll find that the same +phrase appears in a dozens -- perhaps thousands -- of EULAs around the +Internet. Like snippets of DNA being passed from one virus to another as they +infect the world's corporations in a pandemic of idiocy, terms of service are +semi-autonomous entities. + +Indeed, when rocker Billy Bragg read the fine print on the MySpace user +agreement, he discovered that it appeared that site owner Rupert Murdoch was +laying claim to copyrights in every song uploaded to the site, in a silent, +sinister land-grab that turned the media baron into the world's most prolific +and indiscriminate hoarder of garage-band tunes. + +However, the EULA that got Bragg upset wasn't a Murdoch innovation -- it dates +back to the earliest days of the service. It seems to have been posted at a +time when the garage entrepreneurs who built MySpace were in no position to +hire pricey counsel -- something borne out by the fact that the old MySpace +EULA appears nearly verbatim on many other services around the Internet. It's +not going out very far on a limb to speculate that MySpace's founders merely +copied a EULA they found somewhere else, without even reading it, and that when +Murdoch's due diligence attorneys were preparing to give these lucky fellows +$600,000,000, that they couldn't be bothered to read the terms of service +anyway. + +In their defense, EULAese is so mind-numbingly boring that it's a kind of +torture to read these things. You can hardly blame them. + +But it does raise the question -- why are we playing host to these infectious +agents? If they're not read by customers *{or}* companies, why bother with +them? + +If you wanted to really be careful about this stuff, you'd prohibit every +employee at your office from clicking on any link, installing any program, +creating accounts, signing for parcels -- even doing a run to Best Buy for some +CD blanks, have you *{seen}* the fine-print on their credit-card slips? After +all, these people are entering into "agreements" on behalf of their employer -- +agreements to allow spyware onto your network, to not "work around any +technical limitations in their software," to let malicious software delete +arbitrary files from their systems. + +So far, very few of us have been really bitten in the ass by EULAs, but that's +because EULAs are generally associated with companies who have products or +services they're hoping you'll use, and enforcing their EULAs could cost them +business. + +But that was the theory with patents, too. So long as everyone with a huge +portfolio of unexamined, overlapping, generous patents was competing with +similarly situated manufacturers, there was a mutually assured destruction -- a +kind of detente represented by cross-licensing deals for patent portfolios. + +But the rise of the patent troll changed all that. Patent trolls don't make +products. They make lawsuits. They buy up the ridiculous patents of failed +companies and sue the everloving hell out of everyone they can find, building +up a war-chest from easy victories against little guys that can be used to fund +more serious campaigns against larger organizations. Since there are no +products to disrupt with a countersuit, there's no mutually assured +destruction. + +If a shakedown artist can buy up some bogus patents and use them to put the +screws to you, then it's only a matter of time until the same grifters latch +onto the innumerable "agreements" that your company has formed with a desperate +dot-bomb looking for an exit strategy. + +More importantly, these "agreements" make a mockery of the law and of the very +*{idea}* of forming agreements. Civilization starts with the idea of a real +agreement -- for example, "We crap *{here}* and we sleep *{there}*, OK?" -- and +if we reduce the noble agreement to a schoolyard game of no-takebacks, we erode +the bedrock of civilization itself. + +$$$$ + +1~ World of Democracycraft + +(Originally published as "Why Online Games Are Dictatorships," InformationWeek, +April 16, 2007) ~# + +Can you be a citizen of a virtual world? That's the question that I keep asking +myself, whenever anyone tells me about the wonder of multiplayer online games, +especially Second Life, the virtual world that is more creative playground than +game. + +These worlds invite us to take up residence in them, to invest time (and +sometimes money) in them. Second Life encourages you to make stuff using their +scripting engine and sell it in the game. You Own Your Own Mods -- it's the +rallying cry of the new generation of virtual worlds, an updated version of the +old BBS adage from the WELL: You Own Your Own Words. + +I spend a lot of time in Disney parks. I even own a share of Disney stock. But +I don't flatter myself that I'm a citizen of Disney World. I know that when I +go to Orlando, the Mouse is going to fingerprint me and search my bags, because +the Fourth Amendment isn't a "Disney value." + +Disney even has its own virtual currency, symbolic tokens called Disney Dollars +that you can spend or exchange at any Disney park. I'm reasonably confident +that if Disney refused to turn my Mickeybucks back into US Treasury +Department-issue greenbacks that I could make life unpleasant for them in a +court of law. + +But is the same true of a game? The money in your real-world bank-account and +in your in-game bank-account is really just a pointer in a database. But if the +bank moves the pointer around arbitrarily (depositing a billion dollars in your +account, or wiping you out), they face a regulator. If a game wants to wipe you +out, well, you probably agreed to let them do that when you signed up. + +Can you amass wealth in such a world? Well, sure. There are rich people in +dictatorships all over the world. Stalin's favorites had great big dachas and +drove fancy cars. You don't need democratic rights to get rich. + +But you *{do}* need democratic freedoms to *{stay}* rich. In-world wealth is +like a Stalin-era dacha, or the diamond fortunes of Apartheid South Africa: +valuable, even portable (to a limited extent), but not really *{yours}*, not in +any stable, long-term sense. + +Here are some examples of the difference between being a citizen and a +customer: + +In January, 2006 a World of Warcraft moderator shut down an advertisement for a +"GBLT-friendly" guild. This was a virtual club that players could join, whose +mission was to be "friendly" to "Gay/Bi/Lesbian/Transgendered" players. The WoW +moderator -- and Blizzard management -- cited a bizarre reason for the +shut-down: + +"While we appreciate and understand your point of view, we do feel that the +advertisement of a 'GLBT friendly' guild is very likely to result in harassment +for players that may not have existed otherwise. If you will look at our +policy, you will notice the suggested penalty for violating the Sexual +Orientation Harassment Policy is to 'be temporarily suspended from the game.' +However, as there was clearly no malicious intent on your part, this penalty +was reduced to a warning." + +Sara Andrews, the guild's creator, made a stink and embarrassed Blizzard (the +game's parent company) into reversing the decision. + +In 2004, a player in the MMO EVE Online declared that the game's creators had +stacked the deck against him, called EVE, "a poorly designed game which rewards +the greedy and violent, and punishes the hardworking and honest." He was upset +over a change in the game dynamics which made it easier to play a pirate and +harder to play a merchant. + +The player, "Dentara Rask," wrote those words in the preamble to a tell-all +memoir detailing an elaborate Ponzi scheme that he and an accomplice had +perpetrated in EVE. The two of them had bilked EVE's merchants out of a +substantial fraction of the game's total GDP and then resigned their accounts. +The objective was to punish the game's owners for their gameplay decisions by +crashing the game's economy. + +In both of these instances, players -- residents of virtual worlds -- resolved +their conflicts with game management through customer activism. That works in +the real world, too, but when it fails, we have the rule of law. We can sue. We +can elect new leaders. When all else fails, we can withdraw all our money from +the bank, sell our houses, and move to a different country. + +But in virtual worlds, these recourses are off-limits. Virtual worlds can and +do freeze players' wealth for "cheating" (amassing gold by exploiting loopholes +in the system), for participating in real-world gold-for-cash exchanges (eBay +recently put an end to this practice on its service), or for violating some +other rule. The rules of virtual worlds are embodied in EULAs, not +Constitutions, and are always "subject to change without notice." + +So what does it mean to be "rich" in Second Life? Sure, you can have a thriving +virtual penis business in game, one that returns a healthy sum of cash every +month. You can even protect your profits by regularly converting them to real +money. But if you lose an argument with Second Life's parent company, your +business vanishes. In other worlds, the only stable in-game wealth is the +wealth you take out of the game. Your virtual capital investments are totally +contingent. Piss off the wrong exec at Linden Labs, Blizzard, Sony Online +Entertainment, or Sularke and your little in-world business could disappear for +good. + +Well, what of it? Why not just create a "democratic" game that has a +constitution, full citizenship for players, and all the prerequisites for +stable wealth? Such a game would be open source (so that other, interoperable +"nations" could be established for you to emigrate to if you don't like the +will of the majority in one game-world), and run by elected representatives who +would instruct the administrators and programmers as to how to run the virtual +world. In the real world, the TSA sets the rules for aviation -- in a virtual +world, the equivalent agency would determine the physics of flight. + +The question is, would this game be any *{fun}*? Well, democracy itself is +pretty fun -- where "fun" means "engrossing and engaging." Lots of people like +to play the democracy game, whether by voting every four years or by moving to +K Street and setting up a lobbying operation. + +But video games aren't quite the same thing. Gameplay conventions like +"grinding" (repeating a task), "leveling up" (attaining a higher level of +accomplishment), "questing" and so on are functions of artificial scarcity. The +difference between a character with 10,000,000 gold pieces and a giant, rare, +terrifying crossbow and a newbie player is which pointers are associated with +each character's database entry. If the elected representatives direct that +every player should have the shiniest armor, best space-ships, and largest +bank-balances possible (this sounds like a pretty good election platform to +me!), then what's left to do? + +Oh sure, in Second Life they have an interesting crafting economy based on +creating and exchanging virtual objects. But these objects are *{also}* +artificially scarce -- that is, the ability of these objects to propagate +freely throughout the world is limited only by the software that supports them. +It's basically the same economics of the music industry, but applied to every +field of human endeavor in the entire (virtual) world. + +Fun matters. Real world currencies rise and fall based, in part, by the +economic might of the nations that issue them. Virtual world currencies are +more strongly tied to whether there's any reason to spend the virtual currency +on the objects that are denominated in it. 10,000 EverQuest golds might trade +for $100 on a day when that same sum will buy you a magic EQ sword that enables +you to play alongside the most interesting people online, running the most fun +missions online. But if all those players out-migrate to World of Warcraft, and +word gets around that Warlord's Command is way more fun than anything in poor +old creaky EverQuest, your EverQuest gold turns into Weimar Deutschemarks, a +devalued currency that you can't even give away. + +This is where the plausibility of my democratic, co-operative, open source +virtual world starts to break down. Elected governments can field armies, run +schools, provide health care (I'm a Canadian), and bring acid lakes back to +health. But I've never done anything run by a government agency that was a lot +of *{fun}*. It's my sneaking suspicion that the only people who'd enjoy playing +World of Democracycraft would be the people running for office there. The +players would soon find themselves playing IRSQuest, Second Notice of Proposed +Rulemaking Life, and Caves of 27 Stroke B. + +Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe customership is enough of a rock to build a platform of +sustainable industry upon. It's not like entrepreneurs in Dubai have a lot of +recourse if they get on the wrong side of the Emir; or like Singaporeans get to +appeal the decisions of President Nathan, and there's plenty of industry there. + +And hell, maybe bureaucracies have hidden reserves of fun that have been +lurking there, waiting for the chance to bust out and surprise us all. + +I sure hope so. These online worlds are endlessly diverting places. It'd be a +shame if it turned out that cyberspace was a dictatorship -- benevolent or +otherwise. + +$$$$ + +1~ Snitchtown + +(Originally published in Forbes.com, June 2007) ~# + +The 12-story Hotel Torni was the tallest building in central Helsinki during +the Soviet occupation of Finland, making it a natural choice to serve as KGB +headquarters. Today, it bears a plaque testifying to its checkered past, and +also noting the curious fact that the Finns pulled 40 kilometers of wiretap +cable out of the walls after the KGB left. The wire was solid evidence of each +operative's mistrustful surveillance of his fellow agents. + +The East German Stasi also engaged in rampant surveillance, using a network of +snitches to assemble secret files on every resident of East Berlin. They knew +who was telling subversive jokes--but missed the fact that the Wall was about +to come down. + +When you watch everyone, you watch no one. + +This seems to have escaped the operators of the digital surveillance +technologies that are taking over our cities. In the brave new world of +doorbell cams, wi-fi sniffers, RFID passes, bag searches at the subway and +photo lookups at office security desks, universal surveillance is seen as the +universal solution to all urban ills. But the truth is that ubiquitous cameras +only serve to violate the social contract that makes cities work. + +The key to living in a city and peacefully co-existing as a social animal in +tight quarters is to set a delicate balance of seeing and not seeing. You take +care not to step on the heels of the woman in front of you on the way out of +the subway, and you might take passing note of her most excellent handbag. But +you don't make eye contact and exchange a nod. Or even if you do, you make sure +that it's as fleeting as it can be. + +Checking your mirrors is good practice even in stopped traffic, but staring and +pointing at the schmuck next to you who's got his finger so far up his nostril +he's in danger of lobotomizing himself is bad form--worse form than picking +your nose, even. + +I once asked a Japanese friend to explain why so many people on the Tokyo +subway wore surgical masks. Are they extreme germophobes? Conscientious folks +getting over a cold? Oh, yes, he said, yes, of course, but that's only the +rubric. The real reason to wear the mask is to spare others the discomfort of +seeing your facial expression, to make your face into a disengaged, unreadable +blank--to spare others the discomfort of firing up their mirror neurons in +order to model your mood based on your outward expression. To make it possible +to see without seeing. + +There is one city dweller that doesn't respect this delicate social contract: +the closed-circuit television camera. Ubiquitous and demanding, CCTVs don't +have any visible owners. They ... occur. They exist in the passive voice, the +"mistakes were made" voice: "The camera recorded you." + +They are like an emergent property of the system, of being afraid and looking +for cheap answers. And they are everywhere: In London, residents are +photographed more than 300 times a day. + +The irony of security cameras is that they watch, but nobody cares that they're +looking. Junkies don't worry about CCTVs. Crazed rapists and other purveyors of +sudden, senseless violence aren't deterred. I was mugged twice on my old block +in San Francisco by the crack dealers on my corner, within sight of two CCTVs +and a police station. My rental car was robbed by a junkie in a Gastown garage +in Vancouver in sight of a CCTV. + +Three mad kids followed my friend out of the Tube in London last year and +murdered him on his doorstep. + +Crazy, desperate, violent people don't make rational calculus in regards to +their lives. Anyone who becomes a junkie, crack dealer, or cellphone-stealing +stickup artist is obviously bad at making life decisions. They're not deterred +by surveillance. + +Yet the cameras proliferate, and replace human eyes. The cops on my block in +San Francisco stayed in their cars and let the cameras do the watching. The +Tube station didn't have any human guards after dark, just a CCTV to record the +fare evaders. + +Now London city councils are installing new CCTVs with loudspeakers, operated +by remote coppers who can lean in and make a speaker bark at you, "Citizen, +pick up your litter." "Stop leering at that woman." "Move along." + +Yeah, that'll work. + +Every day the glass-domed cameras proliferate, and the gate-guarded mentality +of the deep suburbs threatens to invade our cities. More doorbell webcams, more +mailbox cams, more cams in our cars. + +The city of the future is shaping up to be a neighborly Panopticon, leeched of +the cosmopolitan ability to see, and not be seen, where every nose pick is +noted and logged and uploaded to the Internet. You don't have anything to hide, +sure, but there's a reason we close the door to the bathroom before we drop our +drawers. Everyone poops, but it takes a special kind of person to want to do it +in public. + +The trick now is to contain the creeping cameras of the law. When the city +surveils its citizens, it legitimizes our mutual surveillance--what's the +difference between the cops watching your every move, or the mall owners +watching you, or you doing it to the guy next door? + +I'm an optimist. I think our social contracts are stronger than our technology. +They're the strongest bonds we have. We don't aim telescopes through each +others' windows, because only creeps do that. + +But we need to reclaim the right to record our own lives as they proceed. We +need to reverse decisions like the one that allowed the New York Metropolitan +Transit Authority to line subway platforms with terrorism cameras, but said +riders may not take snapshots in the station. We need to win back the right to +photograph our human heritage in museums and galleries, and we need to beat +back the snitch-cams rent-a-cops use to make our cameras stay in our pockets. + +They're our cities and our institutions. And we choose the future we want to +live in. + +$$$$ + +1~ Hope you enjoyed it! The actual, physical object that corresponds to this +book is superbly designed, portable, and makes a great gift: + +http://craphound.com/content/buy + +If you would rather make a donation, you can buy a copy of the book for a +worthy school, library or other institution of your choosing: + +http://craphound.com/content/donate + +$$$$ + +1~ About the Author + +Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is an award-winning novelist, activist, blogger +and journalist. He is the co-editor of Boing Boing (boingboing.net), one of the +most popular blogs in the world, and has contributed to The New York Times +Sunday Magazine, The Economist, Forbes, Popular Science, Wired, Make, +InformationWeek, Locus, Salon, Radar, and many other magazines, newspapers and +websites. + +His novels and short story collections include *{Someone Comes to Town, Someone +Leaves Town}*, *{Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom}*, *{Overclocked: Stories of +the Future Present}* and his most recent novel, a political thriller for young +adults called *{Little Brother}*, published by Tor Books in May, 2008. All of +his novels and short story collections are available as free downloads under +the terms of various Creative Commons licenses. + +Doctorow is the former European Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation +(eff.org) and has participated in many treaty-making, standards-setting and +regulatory and legal battles in countries all over the world. In 2006/2007, he +was the inaugural Canada/US Fulbright Chair in Public Diplomacy at the +Annenberg Center at the University of Southern California. In 2007, he was also +named one of the World Economic Forum's "Young Global Leaders" and one of +Forbes Magazine's top 25 "Web Celebrities." + +Born in Toronto, Canada in 1971, he is a four-time university dropout. He now +resides in London, England with his wife and baby daughter, where he does his +best to avoid the ubiquitous surveillance cameras while roaming the world, +speaking on copyright, freedom and the future. + +$$$$ -- cgit v1.2.3