Sunday, November 20, 2005

Happy birthday, Robin! 4:14:10 PM    comment []

innovative Collaborative Knowledge Networks: http://www.ickn.org/ Swarm Creativity: Competitive Advantage through Collaborative Innovation Networks 9:33:38 AM    comment []

Cory's "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" concludes. I've been podcasting my short story "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" -- about the sysadmins surviving in data-centers after the apocalypse -- since Oct 27 and I've wrapped up the story today. You can download all six parts as MP3s or Oggs on my podcast page -- or just wait for the story to come out in the second issue of Baen's Astounding Stories, a DRM-free, pay-to-download science fiction mag. Link [Boing Boing] 9:29:49 AM    comment []

the "discussion": the morning after. It was a "lively" event, or so I was told. I'm not a good judge of what it was. But I awoke this morning more resolved about the wrongness in the rhetoric around this issue. And of course, mornings after then are always mornings of regret. The AAP and AG say they believe in "fair use." If that's so, then they must believe that someone has a right to make money using fairly the work of others. If that's so, then they must believe that someone has the right to fairly use the work of others without permission. And so if that's so, then if Google Book Search is fair use. not only is Google doing nothing wrong. Google is, from the perspective of the authors and publishers, doing something extra nice -- giving them the permission to opt out of the index. So the only question is whether Google's use is "fair." Now anyone who knows anything about the law knows that's a hard question. Reasonable people may differ about it. But the frustration I consistently feel with the position of the AAP and AG is that the reasons they offer for why Google's use is not fair would mean that practically no use would be fair. E.g., Nick Taylor's complaint was that Google was profiting on the work of others. But that's true with every commercial use that's also a fair use. If Taylor's theory were correct, you couldn't make money from a book that fairly quoted another author. Or a film that fairly included clips from another film. That would be a radical shrinkage of "fair use." Or, e.g., Allan Adler complained that Google hadn't asked permission. But again, you don't need to ask permission to use a work fairly. If Adler's theory were correct, that too would mean a radical shrinkage of "fair use." Or finally, in the part of the session closest to the actual law of fair use, Adler said the reasons this use was not fair was that there was a "potential" market that Google was just taking. What was that market? The market in licensing the use of building a fully searchable index of books. But you can always hypothesize a "potential" market. And if that's all that it took, again, there would be a radical shrinkage of "fair use." Adler's last point made me recognize something I hadn't seen before. Both sides of this debate have their own "potential" defense. They say this is not "fair use" because they can imagine a "potential" market within which this use could be licensed -- even though there's no such market just now, and neither had anyone thought of such a market even two years ago. (And don't start blathering about the market to search inside a book -- that's a very different functionality from what Google is offering. Google's is an index into the book; it doesn't give you a book to read.) We have our own favorite "potential" defense -- a technology "capable" of substantial non-infringing uses should be free of secondary liability. So we said Grokster was a such a technology, even if less than 10% of the uses were actually non-infringing. They said that's not enough of a potential. Both sides might learn something from the criticism of the other. If fair use is lost just because you can imagine a market, then there is no fair, or free use, in a digital age. Every use triggers copyright law, because every use is a copy. And there's no limit to the ability to imagine a market, so then every use would have to be with permission. That's the same point made against Sony -- if all it takes is imagining a non-infringing use, then there could be no such thing as secondary liability. Our side, I take it, is happy with the implication that there is no secondary liability. Their side, I take it, is happy with the implication that there is very little fair use. Both sides suggest to me that we need to rethink fundamentally how this system of speech regulation is regulating. [Lessig Blog] 9:28:58 AM    comment []

Brit backpackers take Indian call-centre jobs.  British backpackers in India are taking call-centre jobs for wages that are very low by UK standards, but which can bankroll an extension to a trekking holiday by a month or two. Among the first to land in the subcontinent was Kenny Rooney, a 28-year-old from Livingston in Scotland. He had worked in a call centre at home, but after nine months in India says he does not want to return. "This is an incredible country," he said, speaking from Bombay. "I have had a brilliant time and met people from all over the world..." Young Britons of Indian origin are also finding the jobs offer them a chance to rediscover their roots. Among them is Hasmita Patel, who is also working in Pune. "This has been the best thing I've ever done," said Ms Patel, from Leicester. "It has really allowed me to see the country and get to know people. I've learned so much about myself." Link [Boing Boing] 9:28:32 AM    comment []

Price as Signal. Forbes: “EMI Group boss Alain Levy said at press conference today that he believed Jobs would introduce multiple price points for iTunes music within the next year.” The story they're trying to tell you is that “older, less popular songs could be discounted, and in-demand singles could go for more than a dollar.” Let's think this through, because I think the recording industry is lying about why they want different prices.  . . . Here's the dream world for the EMI Group, Sony/BMG, etc.: there are two prices for songs on iTunes, say, $2.49 and $0.99. All the new releases come out at $2.49. Some classic rock (Sweet Home Alabama) is at $2.49. Unwanted, old, crap, like, say, Brandy (You're A Fine Girl) -- the crap we only know because it was pushed on us in the 70s by paid-off disk jockeys -- would be deliberately priced at $0.99 to send a clear message that $0.99 = crap. And now when a musician gets uppity, all the recording industry has to do is threaten to release their next single straight into the $0.99 category, which will kill it dead no matter how good it is. And suddenly the music industry has a lot more leverage over their artists in negotiations: the kind of leverage they are used to having. Their favorite kind of leverage. The “we won't promote your music if you don't let us put rootkits on your CDs” kind of leverage. [Joel on Software] 9:00:28 AM    comment []

RIAA prez: Lots of companies secretly install rootkits! It's no biggie!. RIAA President Cary Sherman gave a recent college press-conference where he addressed Sony's rootkit fiasco (among other things -- the whole trascript is worth reading for a quick visit to the planet greed). His take? Other companies do the same thing all the time! "They have apologized for their mistake, ceased manufacture of CDs with that technology,and pulled CDs with that technology from store shelves. Seems very responsible to me. How many times that software applications created the same problem? Lots. I wonder whether they've taken as aggressive steps as SonyBMG has when those vulnerabilities were discovered, or did they just post a patch on the Internet?" Um, Cary? We have a name for the kind of company that installs a rootkit on your computer. We call it "a criminal enterprise." It's hardly the kind of "bug" that your average software vendor has to patch. Link, Sony Rootkit Roundup Part I, Sony Rootkit Roundup Part II (Thanks, Robert!) [Boing Boing] 8:59:16 AM    comment []

Yale Alumni Strike Back at Tailgating Limits. Yale University alumni, for whom tailgating is a ritual, do not like the new rules on drinking at football games. By STACEY STOWE. [NYT > Education] 8:58:46 AM    comment []

Dave: Adam Green says that 2006 is the year the web will explode. Interesting theory, hope it's not true, because when Google tries to host my content, how much you want to bet they'll also change what I say by adding links to things they like (for example ads) and removing unnecssary links (for example, the ones I put there). And maybe if I write a post that talks about Eric Schmidt's hometown (I think it's Atherton) that somehow magically that post won't appear. Or, perhaps my site won't be included at all, by some mysterious algorithm (like Google News) not deemed worthy of inclusion. Hey it's just one guy writing it, after all. This would be a very bad development, so bad it should be made illegal, quickly, before they actually do it. and also: BTW, in case you were at the HBS conference yesterday and caught my panel, this is what I was trying to say about the lack of maturity and vision in Silicon Valley. First, an example outside the valley. In 2000, Microsoft made a play to be the identity system for the Internet. Not just "an" identity system, "the" system. Technically it was probably very good but no one even considered using it. Why? Because it involved a lot of trust, and Microsoft had blown it, totally. No one in their right mind would trust a company that tried to cut off the air supply of a developer, deliberately. They had been convictd of anti-trust. Now Google is probably going to try to do some hosting of our content, much like they're trying to host the content of the print industry. I suspect their arguments will be roughly the same as their defense of that program -- basically "who the hell are you to tell us what to do." They've left a trail of bullying behind them, they add ads to my content with no way to opt out, they shut off News.com for pointing out that Schmidt's address is in Google's database (for crying out loud), and have never bothered to have a conversation with bloggers at all. These are exactly the wrong people to host my content, and I'll fight them with everything I have to prevent them from doing that, and you should too. It's time to demand some respect from these companies we spawn. [Scripting News] See also 1998's Tailoring the Web for profit. 8:57:47 AM    comment []