MediaSpace Wiki

Regulation Of Media Fall2004 Session13

Discussion of paper in preparation

• Review
  • Based on one of the previous papers

1. Rationale
   • What is the problem?
   • Why is it a problem?
2. Review of Relevant Literature and Cases
   • What have people already had to say about the problem?
   • What normative, legal, market, and architectural solutions have been proposed in the past?
     • Are there systematic problems with the solutions?
     • Why have they failed?
3. The Proposal
   • Your proposal.
4. Discussion of the Proposal
   • What would need to be done to implement the proposal?
     • Who would need to be involved for it to succeed?
   • What is the likely reaction to the proposal
     • Who would be for and against it
       • Review Relevant Stakeholders, including
         • Political Factions
         • The Media Industry
         • Government
         • The Public
         • Investors
         • Other relevant stakeholders
       • What kind of reaction are they likely to express?
       • What kind of resources can they bring to bear to support or oppose the proposal?
5. Conclusion
   • Evaluate the proposal
     • How practical is it
     • What would need to happen for the proposal to become real

Regulation, Content, and Creativity

Lessig 11-12, Zelezny 10.

File sharing as privacy

• The issue is balance
  • Both sides have at least part of it right; and at least part of it wrong
  • Sharing music with a few friends is no different than what we have done before, but sharing it with a lot of "friends" is not
  • Stealing an album really is stealing, but it isn't stealing as we have traditionally understood it.
• Any solution will require balance
  • Or, as Lessig puts it, any solution must be a Chimera
  • We cannot reasonably make every act of file sharing a felony
  • And as things stands, the penalties are completely out of balance for the penalties for other crimes.
  • Neither can we remove all copyright liability
  • We need to find balance ... and the reality of law is increasingly treating file sharing as a felony
• "Reversing our tradition of tolerance now will not merely quash piracy. It will sacrifice values that are important to this culture, and will kill opportunities that could be extraordinarily valuable."
• What kind of consequences are likely to follow from this extreme view
  1. Constraining creators
     • When you have to ask permission to innovate, you have to have the money to ask permission
     • The cost of permission culture is less creativity
     • Or at least less visible creativity
  2. Constraining innovators
     • Copyright is not just a protection of property, but regulation
     • It can be used to balance the rights of consumers and creators to mutual benefit
     • It can also be used to constrain new industries from happening
       • New media are often built, at least in part, on the content of old media
       • Preventing that repurposing (or making it prohibitively expensive) prevents new media from happening
     • Using content ownership to force changes in architecture prevents real innovation
  3. Corrupting citizens
     • Overregulation corrupts citizens and weakens the rule of law
     • When the law so differs with normal behavior that much of the population acts illegally, there is a problem
       • Respect for the law is diminished
       • Enforcing the law may require attacking other rights, including privacy