IP Democracy: Can Two Visions of the Internet Co-Exist? I Think So.
David Smith has an interesting post on his Preoccupations blog that discusses DRM and, more broadly, the evolution of the web. In it, David cites posts by Julian Bond, Doc Searls, Rafael Behr and David Berlind, all of which echo a mix of idealism and pessimism as to the value and future of the web. I share and admire their idealism, but am not convinced that the pessimism reflected in some of their comments is justified.
The free and open Internet…built on an end-to-end, peer-to-peer architecture, is slowly being privatized and nationalized, one DRM file, one blocked port, one platform silo, one walled data garden, one legislative action, one regulatory decree, one Supreme Court decision and one national cyberwall after another…The open and free marketplace the Internet provides is shortly going to look like the best darn mess of few-to-many distribution systems for “content” the world has ever known. It will not be the free and open marketplace it was in the first place, and should remain. The end-state will [be] a vast matrix of national and private silos and walled gardens, each a contained or filtered distribution environment. And most of us won’t know what we missed, because it never quite happened.Observer Online editor Rafael Behr discusses the strategy of News Corp., starting with a quote from Rupert Murdoch:
“The digital native doesn’t send a letter to the editor any more. She goes online and starts a blog. We need to be the destination for those bloggers,” he said. The News Corp strategy can be simply pieced together: take possession of the web allotments that all but the most hardened geeks depend on to pitch their blogging tents, then rent them out; sweeten the deal with privileged access to music and movies. The goal must be to marshal the energy that bloggers currently expend on creating their own content into the consumption of industry-manufactured, pay-per-view content. Big Media want to retain the marketable frisson of Citizen Media and weed out the current culture of activism. The way to achieve this is by monopolising not only the copyright material that web users like to play with, but the tools that make it so easy for them to play.
As Rafael suggests, there are some elements of the online world that encourage people to flock to the walled gardens being developed by News Corp and others:
[F]or large media owners, fear of the poorly lit, sinister back alleys of the web is useful. It drives people into ‘walled gardens’, safe havens of manicured web content, provided on subscription; guaranteed free of bad guys; well stocked with familiar brands.
But, Rafael also raises questions about whether walled gardens will, in fact, “take over” the Internet:
The problem with walled gardens is that people get bored. They hanker for the vagaries of life on the frontier. Once there, they soon discover that the dark side does not leap out at you; you have to hunt it down. The medium isn’t to blame.
That is what makes the web a ‘pull’ medium. You make the show yourself, another reason why traditional media are flummoxed. They only know how to push stuff down the pipes. They keep building walls around the garden as fast as the web users breach them.
It seems to me that Rafael’s last statement can be flipped around to say that “Web users breach (or find ways to remain outside) the corporate-controlled gardens as fast as garden owners build walls around them.”
Yes, the push toward longer and more restrictive copyright terms delivered in often painfully restrictive DRM packages designed by corporate content owners does run counter to some of the core principles of the Internet as envisioned by Doc, Rafael and others. But, at the same time, more open alternatives continue to blossom—not only the illegal sharing of copyright material that gets so much attention because it represents the “breaching of the walls,” but more importantly in my view, developments like Creative Commons licensing, Wikipedia and blogging (just to name a few). These represent the strategy of “remaining outside the walls” of corporate-controlled content gardens.
As Rafael puts it:
In an era whose triumphant idea is capitalism, where success is generally measured in the accumulation of wealth, it is hard to conceive of a parallel society established and self-governed on principles of trust and common ownership. But it exists. The biggest aggregation of human experience and knowledge ever created belongs to everyone, it is available on demand and it is free.
I’d add that this parallel society continues to expand. I think Chris Anderson and others makes a compelling case regarding the economic ( and social and potentially political) impacts of the Long Tail, and that Umair Haque of Bubblegeneration does a good job of explaining (see Powerpoint slides) how the transition from Mass Media to Micromedia presents serious threats to today’s dominant media players, while opening up opportunities for new content creators and for new service providers that Umair refers to as “smart aggregators,” “micromedia platforms” and “reconstructors.”
Though the press tends to focus on piracy, legal manifestations of Long Tail markets are emerging on multiple fronts, with the music industry being one good example. Today’s New York Times reports on a company call the Orchard, which “hopes to sell hundreds of copies of thousands of albums” and has already “made deals to sell about 650,000 tracks from 72 countries to various services, including ring tone outlets.” And, on the video front, a range of companies (see IPD posts here and here) are helping to develop an economically sustainable ecosystem for Internet-delivered Long Tail video content. An important component of this is the increasingly low costs associated with broadcast-quality video production and editing.
And though I included a pessimistic-sounding Doc Searls near the top of this post, here’s what Doc had to say today:
As Neo said to the Architect, it’s about choice. If you don’t like what they give you, make some of your own. We need to do with video what we’ve started doing with music: building a new and independent industry. Yes, the next generation of PCs and Macs will have DRM cripplecrap in them…But current PCs already have DRM, truth be told. (Try getting a screen shot of a DVD frame on your Mac.) Yet you can still make music and movies that can be heard, watched, produced and distributed outside The System. That won’t change. And that’s what matters most. Because in the long run, the indies will win. That’s how we got the Net, folks. And that’s how we’ll keep it, too. Even if our dawn’s early light is years away, it will come. Meanwhile, we have to endure this winter of dissed content.
Of course, there’s also the issue of network neutrality and the question of how much control the owners of access networks will ultimately have on what is delivered on the web, and on what terms. Because they own the only widely available distribution pipes, cable and telephone companies have unique advantages when it comes to creating walled gardens and demanding a share of revenue generated within the walled gardens developed by other entities.
I think this remains a significant issue, but not yet one that merits pessimism about the future of the web. In a recent post, I argued that:
…market and regulatory dynamics seem likely to encourage alliances in which local communities join forces with private Internet-based companies like Google and Earthlink to design, build and finance Big Bypass networks that are extremely high capacity, symmetrical and “open access” in design and, especially if Google is involved, that leverage the power of “intention-based commercial information” (i.e., targeted advertising) as a source of revenue to finance construction and maintenance of these networks.
Trying to look at things from Google’s perspective, I’ve written that:
[If Google] felt that it wasn’t getting sufficient access to end-users, [it] could pursue deals with cities along the lines of its Wi-Fi proposal for San Francisco, or even more ambitious deals that involved investments in near-infinite-capacity fiber optic networks that could out-perform cable and telco networks…or work with cities to deploy and integrate the most cost-effective mix of wireless and fiber networks.
And, though the technology still faces challenges, there’s also broadband over powerline (BPL), which Google has invested in and which is starting to move into commercial deployments.
In terms of public policy, I’m inclined to think that issues related to Internet access and network neutrality will increase in visibility and potentially in terms of partisanship. One indication of both trends is the Washington Monthly’s recent publication of an essay entitled “Let There Be Wi-Fi,” which was co-authored by John Podesta, former Clinton Chief of Staff and now President and CEO of the Center for American Progress.
In another post I cite Michael Parekh and the Washington Monthly essay in arguing for:
“wholistic” public policy that takes into account the interrelationships between network neutrality issues, market competition, municipal broadband and spectrum policy…especially so with a big chunk of high-grade spectrum to be soon returned by broadcasters.
With small chunks of broadcast spectrum already auctioned off, one initial indicator of how this spectrum might be used is Qualcomm’s plan to apply its home-grown MediaFlo technology to a 6 MHz channel it won at auction, to “broadcast” video channels to cell phones through alliances with cellular operators that are already using their own spectrum to “unicast” video content to their customers. On this front, Qualcomm faces competition from Crown Castle International, a large owner of transmission towers, which is using spectrum up in the 1.6-1.7 GHz band and a competing technology based on the DVB-H standard.
Qualcomm’s plans seems to make sense from its perspective and that of today’s cellular providers. But when much larger chunks of prime broadcast spectrum are made available, the range of potential players and applications seems likely to expand.
It seems that prospects for a continued healthy “open Internet” model will improve if spectrum auction rules favor bidders that are not existing wired and wireless network operators. Otherwise the risk is that we end up with a handful of owners controlling the vast majority of both wired and wireless connections—Verizon; AT&T-BellSouth-Cingular; and cable operators working with Sprint/Nextel.
It also seems desirable to build on Wi-Fi’s still-limited but impressive success by carving out a significant chunk of broadcast spectrum for unlicensed use. As I said in an earlier post:
Given the impressive value that unlicensed Wi-Fi has squeezed out of tiny slices of “junk” spectrum bands, one would hope that the fate of large bands of high-grade broadcast spectrum are decided on grounds more strategic (from economic, social and geo-political perspectives) than the political expedience of paying down a small chunk of the federal government’s vast and irresponsibly-created deficit. To do less would only compound that irresponsibility.
As the date for the return of broadcast spectrum nears, it’ll be interesting to see whether companies like Intel (a strong Wi-Fi and WiMAX proponent) and the GYMAAAE Internet giants (or anyone else, for that matter) come up with proposals for unlicensed or licensed uses that create new broadband access pipes and spur competition and innovation.
Setting aside a significant portion of broadcast spectrum for unlicensed use strikes me as something worth pushing for in Washington, and a position that that can hopefully gain support from within the tech and consumer electronics communities, and perhaps some other influential quarters as well—and maybe even from one of the two major political parties.
So, all in all, I remain hopeful that, in the shift from mass media to micromedia, and from analog RF to digital IP, there will be enough distribution capacity, Web 2.0 (and 3.0, etc.) tools—and certainly enough creativity—to support both profitable walled gardens and a thriving commons on the next-generation Internet.
Posted by Mitch Shapiro on January 9, 2006 5:33 PM to IP Democracy