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segunda-feira, janeiro 09, 2006
Lawrence Lessig: the “Read-Only” internet
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We are well on our way to perfecting the “Read-Only” internet – that network in which every bit of culture can be bought in a single click, but bought with the rights to consume only. 2006 will be a critical stage in this process.
Apple showed the world how it could be done with music. Now it is doing the same with television content. Video stores are learning how to sell DVDs more efficiently. Amazon is experimenting with pay-per-page models for selling books. Technology will increasingly make it simple for content owners to control how and when you get access to their material, and how you use it.
Intellectual property laws will support this Read-Only internet. Indeed, copyright in the digital world gives content owners more legal control over the use of their content than in the physical world. In the physical world, there are plenty of uses of creative work that are beyond the reach of copyright because these uses do not produce a copy – for example, reading a book. But in the digital world, as every use of creative work technically produces a copy, every use, in principle, requires the permission of the content owner. And thus, as technology better controls how content gets used, the law will back that control up. A perfectly controlled Read-Only internet will increasingly displace the messy freedom that defines cyberspace now. “Piracy” will be coded away, or at least reduced so significantly in the developed world as not to matter.
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It is hard for those of us from the couch potato generation to understand why the creativity of the Read-Write internet is important. But if you focus on something that we are likely to understand – market value – then the Read-Write internet, indeed, has a great deal to recommend it. The computers, bandwidth, software and storage media needed to enable an efficient Read-Only internet are but a fraction of the technology needed to support the Read-Write internet. The potential for growth with the Read-Write internet is extraordinary, if only the law were to allow it.
But to those building the Read-Write internet, economics is not what matters. Nor is it what matters to their parents. After a talk in which I presented some AMV work, a father said to me: “I don’t think you really realise just how important this is. My kid couldn’t get into college till we sent them his AMVs. Now he’s a freshman at a university he never dreamed he could attend.”
The father was right. We do not realise how significant the Read-Write internet could be. Nor can I even begin to imagine how policymakers could be made to see the harm that perfecting the Read-Only internet will have for this more vibrant and valuable alternative.
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FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - Creatives face a closed Net
We are well on our way to perfecting the “Read-Only” internet – that network in which every bit of culture can be bought in a single click, but bought with the rights to consume only. 2006 will be a critical stage in this process.
Apple showed the world how it could be done with music. Now it is doing the same with television content. Video stores are learning how to sell DVDs more efficiently. Amazon is experimenting with pay-per-page models for selling books. Technology will increasingly make it simple for content owners to control how and when you get access to their material, and how you use it.
Intellectual property laws will support this Read-Only internet. Indeed, copyright in the digital world gives content owners more legal control over the use of their content than in the physical world. In the physical world, there are plenty of uses of creative work that are beyond the reach of copyright because these uses do not produce a copy – for example, reading a book. But in the digital world, as every use of creative work technically produces a copy, every use, in principle, requires the permission of the content owner. And thus, as technology better controls how content gets used, the law will back that control up. A perfectly controlled Read-Only internet will increasingly displace the messy freedom that defines cyberspace now. “Piracy” will be coded away, or at least reduced so significantly in the developed world as not to matter.
...
It is hard for those of us from the couch potato generation to understand why the creativity of the Read-Write internet is important. But if you focus on something that we are likely to understand – market value – then the Read-Write internet, indeed, has a great deal to recommend it. The computers, bandwidth, software and storage media needed to enable an efficient Read-Only internet are but a fraction of the technology needed to support the Read-Write internet. The potential for growth with the Read-Write internet is extraordinary, if only the law were to allow it.
But to those building the Read-Write internet, economics is not what matters. Nor is it what matters to their parents. After a talk in which I presented some AMV work, a father said to me: “I don’t think you really realise just how important this is. My kid couldn’t get into college till we sent them his AMVs. Now he’s a freshman at a university he never dreamed he could attend.”
The father was right. We do not realise how significant the Read-Write internet could be. Nor can I even begin to imagine how policymakers could be made to see the harm that perfecting the Read-Only internet will have for this more vibrant and valuable alternative.
...
FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - Creatives face a closed Net
posted by CMT, 9:41 da tarde
