The first part of class was devoted to a lecture about DeCSS, CSS and the arguments of hacker cleverness, free speech and the Big Bad Wolf, aka the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). A Norwegian teenager, Jon Johansen, became famous for his involvement with the release of the DeCSS software, a program that reverse engineered the CSS algorithm, thus allowing decryption of DVDs without paying CSS licensing fees. When the MPAA found out about Johansen, they ordered cease and desist letters to remove the DeCSS codes, and contacted Norway to have Johansen and his father arrested.
Fellow hackers were infuriated by this, but only saw it as a scare tactic rather than a true threat, and in turn started the Free Jon Johansen Campaign and recreated DeCSS software in a new language, from C programming to Perl. These efforts were taken primarily because these hackers were furious for being called pirates, since this “war” was more about interoperability than about piracy.
Seth Schoen’s 456 stanza haiku (which was a usable code written in plain English) was written to Judge Kaplan, essentially accusing Kaplan of his absurd position that source code can be legally differentiated from other forms of written expression. He wrote the haiku for a number of reasons: to express fear of censorship directly and repeatedly, to show that form and function do match, to change cultural perceptions of hackers, F/OSS code, and programmers, and to highlight that those who can’t see the argument (i.e. Kaplan) simply lack any understanding of codes and have preconceived notions of coders/hackers as pirates and thieves.
So between 2001 and 2003, there were massive protests, continued claims that code equals speech, DeCSS lawsuits and the release of Dmitry (hacker arrested at DEFCON hacker convention).
After the powerpoint presentation, the discussion was turned to the matter of regulation vs. F/OSS, creative commons, ways of production, human nature/social norms, and full rights of ownership (personal and corporate) - all the topics from that day's readings, Lessig's "Open Code and Open Societies" and Grimmelmann's "Regulation by Software".
A number of students mentioned that they could easily see both sides of this argument; of course corporations/individuals want to stay in business and continue profiting from their products/craft, while at the same time, it would be ideal to have a creative commons where we could share things openly and freely without worrying about such things as loss of value/originality, theft, plagiarism, or lawsuits.
We discussed various ways that industries run their production. Max brought up in class that he worked for a small production company that leaked its artists’ songs before their release date, ultimately working in their favor. Still, there are larger corporations, like Universal, that strongly regulate and monitor the sharing of their clients’ crafts and who are also successful. So clearly, there are many different ways of doing things. Not only are ways of running a successful business flexible, but the ability to adapt to change is remarkable as well. Over the last decade, we have seen the music industry drastically change. During the 90s, we all listened to CDs, until Shawn Fanning created Napster at the end of the decade, allowing us to share our music online. From Napster came many other similar programs. This plethora of music available online meant less CDs, unless of course they were personally burned mixes of our favorite songs (that we downloaded of course). So for a while, artists lost a lot of money. But look where we are today: Napster is now a pay service, and iTunes has established itself as a leading digital media application (among many others) selling everything from songs and albums to movies and TV shows. And now, it’s impossible to walk down the street and not see an iPod or other mp3 player in someone’s hand. In this way, we are still getting exposed and introduced to our favorite artists without “stealing” the craft from its creator. So nevertheless, corporations DO have the ability to adapt to change and turn a threat/hindrance into something profitable.
This argument about ability to change/adapt was discussed in class for some time, in relation to the possibility of an entirely free and open creative commons, as Lessig desires. Rachel posed a great question about these creative commons and how its openness fosters creativity and growth. Her argument deals more with its practical implications than its theoretical ones: “How truly stifled is creativity today, and how great would its positive impact be without any structure in place to protect it? Can artists still profit from their ideas if they aren’t protected? It seems like the openness does foster innovation and growth as Lessig says, but I don’t see how this innovation and growth can be spread through society and utilized without corporate interest, especially in today’s society. This is really cynical, but I just don’t see how this call for the commons can revolutionize a society based on spending money, owning and possession” (Rachel).
Two excellent points are brought up here – first being the question of how far open these commons should be in order to work effectively/in the most utilitarian way, and second the nature of our society.
Consumption and materialism have become an integral part of our human nature. So much of our culture revolves around brand names/labels that we ultimately use as status symbols. Going further in this understanding of our human nature is our drive for competition, the need to always be better, do better, be the best we can possible be. Going back to Rachel’s question about the open creative commons’ practicality, this drive for competition would most likely diminish. If everything is put into the hands of everyone, where is the incentive to create to one’s fullest potential in order to stand out against the competition? We always want the newest, coolest, most unique thing out there, but things lose their value if everyone has them, like inflation.
So with all this being said, it is not easy to solve the argument of F/OSS vs. regulation, but it is clear that there needs to be some sort of middle ground, different from the one that is in place now. There should definitely be some more leniency for a creative commons. This comic (from our class handout 10/22) makes a very good point:
It immediately got me thinking about the legal drinking age in the United States, and how that has been questioned ad nauseum; the argument primarily being “if I can shoot a gun and fight for my country in battle, why can’t I drink a beer?”
Anyway, back to this new middle ground between F/OSS and regulation… I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal written by Lawrence Lessig. Titled In Defense of Piracy, Lessig discusses his issues with our copyright laws by telling a story of a mother (Stephanie Lenz) who posted a video on YouTube of her 13-month-old daughter (Holden) dancing to “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince; the only reason she posted this video was to share it with Holden’s grandmother. Eventually, someone from Universal saw the video and recognized the song in the background, then demanded that YouTube take it down for unauthorized “performance” of Prince’s music. Ms. Lenz was stunned and confused so she tried filing a “counter-notice”, arguing that this was a case of fair use and that no rights of Universal were violated by her daughter’s dance. Still, she was told that she could be fined up $150,000 for sharing 29 seconds of her daughter dancing.
It is a really interesting and enjoyable article, and I suggest that you read the whole thing. In case you don’t get a chance, Lessig made a great point in his reaction to this whole fiasco between Ms. Lenz, YouTube, and Universal: “It doesn’t have to be like this. We could craft copyright law to encourage a wide range of both professional and amateur creativity, without threatening Prince’s profits. We could reject the notion that Internet culture must oppose profit, or that profit must destroy Internet culture. But real change will be necessary if this is to be our future – changes in law, and changes in us.”
He goes on to suggest ways to change our copyright laws: 1) Deregulate amateur remix, 2) Deregulate “the copy”, 3) Simplify, 4) Restore efficiency, and 5) Decriminalize Gen-X
For descriptions of each of these suggestions, click here to read the article in its entirety.....
(if for some reason the link to the article doesn't work or is expired, and you do want to read the article, let me know and I can make copies of the one I printed.)