Congress desperate for technological expertise

Recently, the House Committee on Science heard a panel of experts who urged them to create a new in-house, non-partisan support organization to keep them abreast of sci/tech issues and the policy questions they raise. This is great news because, since the Office of Technology Assessment was unfunded in 1995, the committee has relied on a patchwork of industry, universities, scientific societies and the AAAS for expertise on sci/tech issues. (This might explain that "series of tubes" comment by Senator Ted Stevens -- poor guy.) So basically since the Internet first sparked in the public consciousness, Congress hasn't had anyone on the inside dedicated to explaining to them what the Internet actually is and what all these pesky public issues that emanate from it like the green glow of kryptonite really mean. From among those informing Congress, I'm just going to go out on a limb and guess that highly paid tech-industry lobbyists are the ones most consistently knocking down doors when necessary to to get their messages heard.

Unless addressed with wisdom and foresight, these issues (e.g., DRM, P2P, identity theft, estalking and all the rest) are to the Internet as kryptonite is to Superman. This technology has already transformed the way people think about the world, communicate with others, learn, keep abreast of current affairs, entertain themselves, commit crime, find sex (even love) and so much more -- and that's just during its first dozen years in existence. The Internet, coupled with cell and satellite technology, is beginning to look like the collective unconscious of mankind. Tap into it anywhere and explore the dark recesses of your psyche, or your neighbor's. Or embody the Trickster archetype and release a worm, just to see. The Internet will keep evolving, and our lawmakers have the opportunity to guide it toward a productive future by protecting freedom of speech and supporting creativity and innovation, or they can take the blue pill and make it all about the revenue streams flowing to the right coffers. As a strategy, this will ultimately fail, but it'll be painful for everybody. That they understand they need help is the first step toward recovery. Contact the House Committee on Science and/or the Senate Committee to make sure they understand the stakes. I'm sure corporate lobbyists have done all they can to obfuscate the truth.

Used Smartphones and PDAs for Sale on eBay Reveal Massive Volume of Sensitive Data

Not unlike computers, deleting info from cell phones and PDAs is not as easy as it seems. A study released by Trust Digital, Inc details:

Trust Digital engineers recovered nearly 27,000 pages of personal, corporate, and device data from nine of 10 mobile devices purchased through eBay for the project, including a smartphone sold by an employee of a major corporation. The salvaged data included personal banking and tax information, corporate sales activity notes, corporate client records, product roadmaps, contact address books, phone and Web logs, calendar records, personal and business correspondence, computer passwords, user medication information, and other private, competitive or potentially damaging material.

Tipped to this by an almost lighthearted -- but worth reading -- AP article here.

Sweden's Pirate Party manifesto

Mick sez, "On August 28, the Pirate Party of Sweden made their election program official. An introduction stating the ideas and ideology behind their program."

The development of technology has made sure Sweden and Europe stand before a fork in the road. The new technology offers fantastic possibilities to spread culture and knowledge all over the world with almost no costs. But it also makes way for the building of a society monitored at a level unheard of up until now.

In no time, the monitoring state has advanced its positions strongly in Sweden. This development threatens equality and safety before the law, and nothing indicates that it even adds to security. The Pirate Party believes this is the wrong way to go.

The right to privacy is a corner stone in an open and democratic society. Each and everyone has the right to respect for one’s own private and family life, one’s home and one’s correspondence. If the constitutional freedom of information is to be more than empty words on a paper, we much defend the right for protected private communication.

Link

(Thanks, Mick!)

Amazing Slashdot discussion about DRM and the future of entertainment products

Slashdot, a voluminous nerd news-site, just ran one of its regular "Ask Slashdot" columns, this time about DRM and copyright:

"In a few weeks, our school will be hosting a panel on DRM with several respected individuals. In advance of the panel, I have been doing some research on the topic and thinking about it in my free time. In economics, we learn that the price of a product is determined essentially by supply and demand. Without a DRM in place, we are capable of making as many copies of a piece of content as we want and seeding it onto the net. How do you create a market for a product, and make money of a product that has a huge initial creative investment, but then no manufacturing cost, and is in infinite supply?"

The discussion that follows is erudite, exhilerating, frustrating and funny. Highly recommended.

Link

Record label that puts fans and artists first

Wired has a great article on Nettwerk, a Canadian label that puts out stars like Avril Lavigne, which has taken a fans-and-artists-first approach to the business that has them making tracks available from remix, fighting to defend fans who are being sued by other labels, and delivering unheard-of sweet deals to the artists they publish:

Terry McBride has an idea. Another idea. A good – no, a great idea. McBride, CEO of Nettwerk Music Group, is sitting in his Vancouver, British Columbia, office with his local marketing staff discussing strategy for the release of a new album by Barenaked Ladies. The marketing departments in three other cities are conferenced in. The conversation ping-pongs from Nascar promotions to placement in a Sims videogame. McBride is on a roll.

"This one's a real wingdinger," he says, leaning into the speakerphone so New York, Denver, and Los Angeles won't miss a word. "Let's give away the ProTools files on MySpace. Vocals, guitars, drums, and bass. We'll let the fans make their own mixes." The room falls quiet. Musicians usually record their instruments and vocals on separate tracks; the producer and mixer combine those tracks into a finished product. McBride wants to make the individual files available so that amateur DJs can use them like Lego bricks to create something all their own. The record industry likes control. McBride is proposing unfettered chaos.

A voice from LA breaks the silence: "For the single, you mean, right?" McBride's features screw up in concentration, then quickly expand into a grin. "What I'm proposing," he says, "is that we make all 29 songs available as ProTools files. In two weeks." The Internet marketers in Vancouver look worried. "But," he adds, "we'll get the files from the single up on MySpace by Monday." Libby White, a member of the department, shoots McBride a skeptical look. Can they make it? McBride asks. White sighs. "We'll make it," she says.

Link

More on Microsoft, high-def and anti-trust; Swiss DRM laws

Princeton's Ed Felten has written some great analysis of yesterday's post on Microsoft opting to leave high-def support out of the 32-bit flavor of Windows, looking at the potential reasons for this inanity:

The stupidity-ball explanation is always a contender in cases like this, but I wouldn’t rule out A or B either. Yes, the studios have tech consultants, but they had equally good consultants when they chose the horribly misdesigned CSS as the encryption scheme for first-gen DVDs, which suggests that they don’t always listen to the consultants.

There’s an interesting connection to antitrust policy here. Microsoft’s business strategy is apparently to tie Media Player to Windows. Antitrust authorities, in Europe at least, didn’t like this, and so Microsoft is claiming that Media Player is an Integral Part of Windows and not just a nice application that is designed to work well with Windows. (Recall that they tried the same argument for Internet Explorer in the U.S. antitrust case, and the U.S. courts didn’t buy it.)

This may affect the DVD cartel’s decisionmaking in at least two ways. First, if they fell for the line that Media Player is not just another pretty app, they may have concluded that it made sense to hold Media Player accountable for the Windows “bug” of allowing unsigned drivers. This makes no sense from a content security standpoint, but remember that these are the same people who thought CSS was a good idea.

Another possibility is that the DVD cartel is implementing its own antitrust policy, encouraging competition in the market for Windows-compatible DVD players by neutralizing Microsoft’s tying strategy. Having acquired quasi-governmental power to regulate the design of DVD players and the structure of DVD-related markets, the cartel would naturally want to prevent any player vendor from accumulating market power.

In that same post, Ed links to fascinating testimony on the Swiss DRM bill, which apparently takes a much more sensible approach:

...I would like to point to some of the characteristics of the bill that I find particularly commendable:

* The bill only prohibits the circumvention of effective technological protection measures aimed at protecting copyrighted materials.

* The bill includes a definition of the effectiveness criterion.

* The ban cannot be enforced against individuals who circumvent TPMs in order to make use of the work in a way that is traditionally permitted by the copyright act (e.g. making a private copy).

* In contrast to the EUCD, all the exceptions and limitations also apply to on-demand services.

* Although the bill creates civil and criminal liability, it adheres to the principle of proportionality with regard to sanctions and penalties. In the context of criminal sanctions in the case of circumvention of TPMs, intent (”Absicht”) is required.

Universities put Hollywood ahead of students

Draconian, indiscriminate measures against file-share are par for the course at USC, as is the black-hole treatment for people who get snared in the dragnet. Aram Sinnreich, a USC grad student studying file sharing, who was an expert witness at the Grokster court case, was censured for using BitTorrent, and never received a response to his letter, either.

USC's arch-rival UCLA is a somewhat better steward of its students' interests in the copyright wars, as reported by Cindy Mosqueda at Metroblogging LA, who notes that UCLA's approach is mostly one of warning students about the crazies down the raod in Hollywood and their willingness to destroy your life to prop up their business model, but does not extend to actively policing students on their behalf. This is affirmed in last spring's letter to students from the Dean and Archchancellor.

At the University of Michigan, the policy is not far off from USC's, but at least they've got the good sense not to describe the school's mission as "is to promote and foster the creation and lawful use of intellectual property," as USC did.

Australia's Queensland University of Technology, touted as Brisbane's answer to MIT, has sent out a completely bizarre letter to students warning them that even if you buy your music from iTunes, you can't play it on a university computer, thanks to Australia's out-of-date copyright laws (soon to be replaced with an even more out-of-date regime, thanks to the dumb Free Trade Deal the loathsome John Howard signed into law).

One thing that's becoming increasingly clear from these factors is that students often need as much protection from their universities as they do from the entertainment industry's slipshod copyright enforcer thugs. It might be time for activists to start delivering anonymous file-sharing tools that help students evade the campus cops so they can get their research done.