It is the 10th August 2006 and yet again another 'terrorist threat', yet again panic, confusion and ill-thought out security measures by the authorities. Does the government still not understand that it is the *threat* of a terror action that is aimed to cause maximum inconvenience and panic that is the aim, rather than any particular 'successful' action? You certainly wouldn't think so to judge from their ham-fisted and overblown reactions everytime a 'new' terror threat is found.
And yet again we have another populist Home Secretary, yet another string of rhetoric and confused thinking about the Human Rights legislation and yet more promised 'anti-terror' legislation. And, naturally, anybody who raises a critical voice or question is denounced as threatening the entire nation - and one thought one was living in a *democratic* nation!
I am rather concerned that the government has realised that secretly protecting the public through counterterrorism operations does not win it any brownie points. Rather, they now believe that PR management of announcing their 'successful' counter-terrorism operation is much better politically as it will scare the public witless into supporting the Labour government and their introduction of more bad legislation. Someone needs to be addressing this problem, as these continual attempts to legitimate legislation through fear is a very dangerous and undemocratic
road to travel down. I for one, have become increasingly disenchanted by the illiberal tone of the Labour government which puts political point scoring at a premium even in so-called emergencies - witness Reid's comment on the opposition parties.
The BBC even quotes the Police as stating that an attack is *not* thought to be imminent. So why on earth is the government acting like it is. Why the panic at Heathrow and the overblown security measures.
It is time for cool heads and critical reasoning by our elected representatives - who unfortunately are unable to voice any concerns as the UK Parliament remains in recess.
A Blog That Covers And Collects News Reports And Information On Artificial Intelligence, Robots, And Super Computers.
Sun and Open DRM
Lessig seems very naive to me here. The DRM instead of being embedded
is merely transferred to a rights server. Thus the client, although
open-source open-standards blah blah blah can only unlock the
presumably encrypted content using a key linked to the meta-DRM data
in the file. So how is this helping fair-use? How does this guarantee
an 'ecology for creativity'? It just means that DRM can be
implemented on open-source systems unproblematically and opens the
door to truly ubiquitous DRM-everywhere.
If anything this is the killer-app for wide ranging DRM systems as
now even free software/open-source will not stand in the way of DRM
implementation as the kernel of encryption/decryption has been moved
away from the client and placed safely within the boundaries of the
corporation licensing. It just seems to me like a public/private key
encryption system (similar to email) that allows the content industry
to convince open-source developers to get onboard.
I suppose the devil is in the detail, so the question is what stands
in the way of the open-source developers taking the now decrypted
content and just saving it off as an MP3 or whatever? Certainly the
level of invasion of privacy by this system which licenses to the
user identity and continually watches how they 'consume' content is a
bit weird.
I would be very interested to hear what other techies, experts and so
on think about this development.
is merely transferred to a rights server. Thus the client, although
open-source open-standards blah blah blah can only unlock the
presumably encrypted content using a key linked to the meta-DRM data
in the file. So how is this helping fair-use? How does this guarantee
an 'ecology for creativity'? It just means that DRM can be
implemented on open-source systems unproblematically and opens the
door to truly ubiquitous DRM-everywhere.
If anything this is the killer-app for wide ranging DRM systems as
now even free software/open-source will not stand in the way of DRM
implementation as the kernel of encryption/decryption has been moved
away from the client and placed safely within the boundaries of the
corporation licensing. It just seems to me like a public/private key
encryption system (similar to email) that allows the content industry
to convince open-source developers to get onboard.
I suppose the devil is in the detail, so the question is what stands
in the way of the open-source developers taking the now decrypted
content and just saving it off as an MP3 or whatever? Certainly the
level of invasion of privacy by this system which licenses to the
user identity and continually watches how they 'consume' content is a
bit weird.
I would be very interested to hear what other techies, experts and so
on think about this development.
IPR and DRM
On Tuesday 14th March 2006 I attended the Westminster Media eForum on IPR and DRM and unfortunately it was packed to the gills with silken-voiced lobbyists who drowned a lot of the debate droning on with comments like "I welcome the speaker's contribution to the wide-ranging leadership he has given over the use of Digital Rights Management meta-data distribution MI3P protocols and the MWLI and GRID over the past few years".... Like who actually speaks like that? Weird... Bill Thompson made a good intervention when he pointed this out on a panel at one point..
The news though is starting to leak out (PR out?) and one of the strangest speeches came from Derek Wyatt MP who asked the question "Who could be trusted with the DRM debate?", now I was expecting maybe Parliament, or perhaps a democratic discussion amongst citizens, but he actually recommended the British Library and the Oxford Internet Institute. Neither of which is exactly democratic, nor, let's face it, geared up to holding any form of democratic debate due to the lack of their legitimacy... So I was puzzled as to how when:
(a) The British Library is now talking in a weird Blairite public-private collaboration language (PFI/private partnerships etc etc) and seems pro-copyright.
(b) The OII is pretty much privately funded by non-governmental foundations and corporations (£10 Million from the Shirley Foundation, CISCO, Microsoft et al)
We can expect them to avoid being held to ransom by private interests? Are these really the places to trust to put the citizen before economic logics? I am personally rather sceptical. Although I think that academics and public institutions can have a lot of input into this process, we need to make sure that Parliament is setting the terms of the debate and perhaps a Select Committee is a better home for the inquiry?
Certainly when one sees that the recent Gower inquiry is already assuming a position (i.e. copyright good) it limits the extent to which it can think out of the box. I would like to see Parliament asking whether DRM's should be legally constrained to prevent some of the more extreme activities (such as limiting rights they have no right to limit) and to ensure that we do allow a de facto privatisation of copyright law...
Here is some news about the event..
And here is a great discussion i've been having with Gabriella Coleman, Samir Chopra and Scott Dexter
The news though is starting to leak out (PR out?) and one of the strangest speeches came from Derek Wyatt MP who asked the question "Who could be trusted with the DRM debate?", now I was expecting maybe Parliament, or perhaps a democratic discussion amongst citizens, but he actually recommended the British Library and the Oxford Internet Institute. Neither of which is exactly democratic, nor, let's face it, geared up to holding any form of democratic debate due to the lack of their legitimacy... So I was puzzled as to how when:
(a) The British Library is now talking in a weird Blairite public-private collaboration language (PFI/private partnerships etc etc) and seems pro-copyright.
(b) The OII is pretty much privately funded by non-governmental foundations and corporations (£10 Million from the Shirley Foundation, CISCO, Microsoft et al)
We can expect them to avoid being held to ransom by private interests? Are these really the places to trust to put the citizen before economic logics? I am personally rather sceptical. Although I think that academics and public institutions can have a lot of input into this process, we need to make sure that Parliament is setting the terms of the debate and perhaps a Select Committee is a better home for the inquiry?
Certainly when one sees that the recent Gower inquiry is already assuming a position (i.e. copyright good) it limits the extent to which it can think out of the box. I would like to see Parliament asking whether DRM's should be legally constrained to prevent some of the more extreme activities (such as limiting rights they have no right to limit) and to ensure that we do allow a de facto privatisation of copyright law...
Here is some news about the event..
And here is a great discussion i've been having with Gabriella Coleman, Samir Chopra and Scott Dexter
Performing Rights Society: What do they really think of us?
I was very suprised to read today in the MCPS/PRS magazine, 'M', (circulated to 44000 PRS members and publishers) that Estelle Morris (former Minister for the Arts and Education Secretary) now ennobled as Baroness Morris of Yardley has accepted a job as director the PRS board. It seems strange that one of her last acts as Minister was to authorise officials to engage in discussions with the music industry with a view to setting up a music council... and now she is part of the music industry (Brass 2006: 18).
The article also discusses the Creative Partnerships that are meant to bring education and ideas about creativity into schools:
So how happy are you to know that your children are being incorrectly told that you have to pay for other people's 'ideas' and that the music industry is such a saint in regard to respecting the copyrights of musicians and songwriters... Perhaps the schoolchildren and students would be better off reading Steve Albini when it comes to the 'risk-taking' of the music sector:
The complete PRS board is listed here.
Her bio is here.
References:
Albini, Steve. (1994). The Problem with Music. Retreived 17/03/06 from http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
Brass, Richard. (2006). What do they really think of us?. In M: MCPS/PRS Members Music Magazine. March 2006. Issue 19
The lack of a coherent voice has also meant that the [music] industry's most pressing issue has not always been adequately confronted. While a minister, Lady Morris heard anxious words from within the industry about copyright law, copyright enforcement and about how dramatic changes in the environment weren't being addressed, but people within government were telling her that they had the issue under control (Brass 2006: 21).
The Intellectual Property Rights Forum, which she jointly chaired in 2004, helped alert government to the urgency of the copyright challenge, as well as helping to overcome a climate of mistrust around this crucial issue. There was a lot of fear. People from the industry feared that this body was going to persuade the industry to give up its copyright without the consumer paying... (Brass 2006: 21)
The article also discusses the Creative Partnerships that are meant to bring education and ideas about creativity into schools:
Creative Partnerships have been the greatest success in doing this. If you can bring the wild creativity and risk-taking that there is in the music sector [sic] into schools, kids love it. That's how they'll learn about the music industry, about copyright, to respect someone else's ideas and know they have to pay for them, because they've been working after school or on Saturday mornings or in the holidays with Joe Bloggs who earns his living on the basis of selling his creative ideas (Brass 2006: 21).
So how happy are you to know that your children are being incorrectly told that you have to pay for other people's 'ideas' and that the music industry is such a saint in regard to respecting the copyrights of musicians and songwriters... Perhaps the schoolchildren and students would be better off reading Steve Albini when it comes to the 'risk-taking' of the music sector:
Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends, some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine a faceless industry lackey at the other end holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed (Albini 1994).
The complete PRS board is listed here.
Her bio is here.
References:
Albini, Steve. (1994). The Problem with Music. Retreived 17/03/06 from http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
Brass, Richard. (2006). What do they really think of us?. In M: MCPS/PRS Members Music Magazine. March 2006. Issue 19
On Reading Foucault's Order of Things
Until the end of the sixteenth century, the locus of meaning lay within the world and through a process of commentary and decoding signs it was thought that we might understand what was written by God. Language was seen not just within the sphere of text and learning but also diffusely distributed within the world of things, inscribing and marking all objects within the sensible world (Foucault, 2002). The theatre of life, or the mirror of nature was reflected in the signs and symbols that made possible knowledge of visible and invisible things, and controlled how they might be represented. Each object within the world had a mark that could make us aware of these things, that could tell us its use, what it was for and its relationships to other things, including humanity. There were visible marks for the invisible analogies, meanings and uses that were located beneath the surface of directly perceived reality. The world was a world of resemblance, similitude and codes and it could only be a world of signs, as Paracelsus said:
Knowledge was uncovered and founded by the unearthing and deciphering of the symbols that were distributed in the world, the signatures that were inscribed within. Rather than look at the bark of plants you were required to go to their marks. These symbols and signs were required in order to uncover the basic episteme of understanding that was bound within a system of resemblance. 'This is why the face of the world is covered with blazons, with characters, with ciphers and obscure words – with hieroglyphics' (Foucault, 2002: 30).
This system of thought used three variables that could be used to check the veracity of a sign. First, the certainty of the relation: a sign that remained constant was one that could be trusted for its accuracy (e.g. breathing could be used to denote life). Second, the type of relation: a part of the whole could be used to denote the whole itself (e.g. a rosy glow could denote a heathy individual) or the sign might be distinct from the whole (e.g. changes in the seaweed could denote the weather). Third, the origin of the sign: it could therefore be natural (e.g. a mirror's reflection and therefore denotation of reality) or part of a convention shared between men (e.g. a word may signify a particular idea amongst a group).
But this was a system of knowledge that was being replaced. The erudition that once could read nature and books as part of a single text was replaced by a field of knowledge which was constructed not around resemblance but identities and differences. The reading of signs and signatures was relegated to the realm of fantasy, to a world that had not yet attained the age of reason (Foucault, 2002:57). In its place was installed the steady march of reason, of rationality, through ordering and measurement of the natural world (Toulmin, 1992). No longer were signs and language located in the world, stamped onto things since the beginning of time. Truth was instead to be found in 'evident and distinct perception' (Foucault, 2002: 62), words could attempt to translate this truth if possible, but they were not the mark of truth itself.
It is not God's will that what he creates for man's benefit and what he has given us should remain hidden... And eventhough he has hidden certain things, he has allowed nothing to remain without exterior and visible signs in the form of special marks – just as a man who has buried a hoard of treasure marks the spot that he may find it again. (Foucault, 2002: 29)
Knowledge was uncovered and founded by the unearthing and deciphering of the symbols that were distributed in the world, the signatures that were inscribed within. Rather than look at the bark of plants you were required to go to their marks. These symbols and signs were required in order to uncover the basic episteme of understanding that was bound within a system of resemblance. 'This is why the face of the world is covered with blazons, with characters, with ciphers and obscure words – with hieroglyphics' (Foucault, 2002: 30).
This system of thought used three variables that could be used to check the veracity of a sign. First, the certainty of the relation: a sign that remained constant was one that could be trusted for its accuracy (e.g. breathing could be used to denote life). Second, the type of relation: a part of the whole could be used to denote the whole itself (e.g. a rosy glow could denote a heathy individual) or the sign might be distinct from the whole (e.g. changes in the seaweed could denote the weather). Third, the origin of the sign: it could therefore be natural (e.g. a mirror's reflection and therefore denotation of reality) or part of a convention shared between men (e.g. a word may signify a particular idea amongst a group).
But this was a system of knowledge that was being replaced. The erudition that once could read nature and books as part of a single text was replaced by a field of knowledge which was constructed not around resemblance but identities and differences. The reading of signs and signatures was relegated to the realm of fantasy, to a world that had not yet attained the age of reason (Foucault, 2002:57). In its place was installed the steady march of reason, of rationality, through ordering and measurement of the natural world (Toulmin, 1992). No longer were signs and language located in the world, stamped onto things since the beginning of time. Truth was instead to be found in 'evident and distinct perception' (Foucault, 2002: 62), words could attempt to translate this truth if possible, but they were not the mark of truth itself.
GPL v3
The current problems with the upgrade from GPLv2 to GPLv3 and the arguments between Torvalds and Stallman were exactly the kind of problem I was forecasting in a paper that I gave at the AHRB copyright conference where the purported benefits of commons-based peer production are destroyed if that commons is but a simulacra of a commons (see also Libre Commons for a similar critique).
The privatisation of a distributed collective project (i.e. ownership of copyright being dispersed through a community) will eventually run into problems when the project requires unpicking to move on for whatever reason. I think that Stallman is making some important and critical moves in the protection of the Free Software 'commons' by GPLv3 which Torvalds completely fails to understand or care about. Somehow the FSF need to address the fragmentation possible by license upgrades to prevent a balkanisation when threats to the integrity of the FSF commons are made (i.e. through DRM). This may well be an unforeseen and unintended consequence of the all-conquering power of the GPL copyleft clause that Moglen was so delighted about. I suggest that they think carefully about the future move to GPLv4 whilst drafting, as well as considering legacy code. Otherwise we'll all be going through this again in a few years.
In any case, Torvalds has for a long time tried to portray a 'sensible' or common-sense approach whilst harbouring a great dislike for Stallman (which I think sometimes verges on the pathological) but here the question really needs to be asked as to whether he is acting for the good of the community of Linux developers or to win some petty battle. One reason for suspicion is that he speaks as if he is king of the castle, and doesn't so far, seem to interested in the democratic voice of all the developers.
The privatisation of a distributed collective project (i.e. ownership of copyright being dispersed through a community) will eventually run into problems when the project requires unpicking to move on for whatever reason. I think that Stallman is making some important and critical moves in the protection of the Free Software 'commons' by GPLv3 which Torvalds completely fails to understand or care about. Somehow the FSF need to address the fragmentation possible by license upgrades to prevent a balkanisation when threats to the integrity of the FSF commons are made (i.e. through DRM). This may well be an unforeseen and unintended consequence of the all-conquering power of the GPL copyleft clause that Moglen was so delighted about. I suggest that they think carefully about the future move to GPLv4 whilst drafting, as well as considering legacy code. Otherwise we'll all be going through this again in a few years.
In any case, Torvalds has for a long time tried to portray a 'sensible' or common-sense approach whilst harbouring a great dislike for Stallman (which I think sometimes verges on the pathological) but here the question really needs to be asked as to whether he is acting for the good of the community of Linux developers or to win some petty battle. One reason for suspicion is that he speaks as if he is king of the castle, and doesn't so far, seem to interested in the democratic voice of all the developers.
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