I recently finished reading Daniel M. Kimmel entertaining new history of the rise of the Fox television network entitled The Fourth Network: How Fox Broke the Rules and Reinvented Television. While many younger Americans can’t remember a time when multiple networks and cable channels were not at their disposal, for most of television’s history, citizens had only three primary commercial options from which to choose. After inept regulatory policies caused the demise of the DuMont Television Network in the 1950s, no one thought a fourth network was feasible in America. Perhaps that explains why it took a non-American to think outside the box and roll the dice on the launch of a new network in the U.S.
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Eugene Volokh has an important post up on his excellent site about Australia’s new effort to crackdown on online porn by requiring nationwide filtering. As with so many other countries that have already been down this road, one has to wonder: Do they really think they can successfully block all offshore sites? If the history of human civilization has proven anything to us it is that human beings have a seemingly insatiable appetite for prurient material; people will find a way to get what they desire. So the real question in debates like this: Just how far are governments willing to go to enforce moral codes? In an age of seemless, borderless communications, it boggles the mind how ANY regulatory regime (even a “UN for the Net“) could ever shut down the free flow of information (including porn) no matter how hard they tried. Anyway, if you’re interested, these issues are explored in greater detail in a book I co-edited last year with Wayne Crews entitled “Who Rules the Net?”
An interesting story ran in the Economist a few weeks ago on France’s attempt to create a French 24-news channel (my apologies to you who aren’t weeks behind in reading Economist issues as I am.) Apparently, during the invasion of Iraq last year, Jacques Chirac grew frustrated with what he saw as a pro-US slant on war reporting by CNN and Fox. So he called for creation of a French rival to these networks, calling it “essential” to French global influence. The new venture of course, while partly privately owned, would be almost entirely taxpayer-financed.
The plan ran into problems, not surprisingly. First, it was decided that the new network would not operate in France . After all, French TV doesn’t need more competition, does it? Then, it was decided the initial programming would be
only in French. Seems France’s desire to influence public opinion was outweighed by an aversion to using languages that the vast majority of the world actually speaks, such as English. Of course, that left potential audiences in parts of Belgium, Canada and West Africa, but even to the French government it was clear that would hardly create a rival to CNN. Last month the whole project was shelved as a waste of money even by French standards.
Of course, I’m sure some will see this as yet another example of how hard it is to compete against Fox, CNN, and the dozen or so other media “monopolies” that operate today without taxpayer support, French or otherwise.
In an attempt to woo customers from Apple’s iTunes Music Store, RealNetworks halved per-song prices today for its music download service. The company will also be initiating an ad campaign espousing “Freedom of Choice.”
I have some serious difficulty mustering sypathy for RealNetworks in their current spat with Apple over Real’s new Harmony technology (which allows users to play files downloaded from Real’s service on an Apple iPod). Remember that Real is the same company that invoked the DMCA to crush Streambox several years ago.
If you do buy Harmony-enabled songs from Real, don’t expect them to always work with your iPod. Apple has already warned that future firmware upgrades may eliminate compatibility.
Unlike many of the other dry technology and media policy issues I monitor, censorship issues occasionally provide some comedic relief, especially when Congress or the FCC start talking dirty. I love the sheer irony of the fact that in order to tell us which words or phrases must never be uttered on broadcast television or radio, Congress must ultimately list them all in a bill, as part of the public record, for the whole world (including school kids) to see. (Take a look at all the filthy talk in H.R. 3687, for example.) My God, aren’t they thinking of the children! Naughty, naughty Congress.
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Although we don’t always agree, I have a lot of respect for Tim Wu of the University of Virginia Law School and he’s doing some interesting guest blogging over on the Lessig Blog this week. He recently made a post about the principles that should guide the next Telecom Act and lists many that I agree with, some that I do not. Anyway, here’s my own short sketch of what the next Telecom Act should include:
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The online libertarian nirvana is no longer. As Adam says in his post introducing this blog, “Today the government has its hands all over the Internet. It’s difficult to name an area where lawmakers and regulators are not currently promulgating or considering rules and regulations for the high-technology and communications sectors.” So it is fitting that Wired News reported that it will no longer capitalize the “I” in internet, the “W” in web or “N” in net. (I’ve felt that this should be the case for years, but the elements of style dictated otherwise). Certainly the backbone of any new technology is the person using it – and through it all, people really don’t change all that much despite the change in technology. Our society has for too long thought of the “internet” as some distant land – and free market advocates have been able to ride the coattails of this perception when telling regulators to keep their “hands off.” As technology transcends socioeconomic barriers and becomes commoditized, this laissez faire argument carries less and less weight with regulators. This just makes our job advocating for market solutions harder, and means we need to focus on why the regulating forces of the market make for better outcomes than government regulation, not just by saying “don’t regulate a new technology” (implying its OK to regulate it once it’s all grown up) or “don’t regulate what you don’t know” (never stopped Congress before!). For better or worse, the “Internet” is no longer a strange land – and is little “i” internet for copy-editors and government regulators alike.
“Phishing,” a.k.a. tricking an Internet user into handing over their data to thieves who steal their money and identities, is becoming a huge problem. There’s a few companies in Silicon Valley that are working on a tech solution to the problem, and Senator Leahy recently introduced a bill to stop it. Here’s a decent primer on the issue.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has just released an outstanding new primer on digital copryight issues that is probably the best introduction to the issue for the layman that I have ever seen. A very objective overview of all the key issues. Check it out.
There has been a string of stories about hackers cracking the copy-protection features of Apple’s proprietary suite of music hardware and software. The most momentous was the news that Real had figured out how to place its own copy-protected songs on iPods, without any cooperation from Apple.
I think Apple’s response was incredibly short-sighted. Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, appears to be of the attitude that he can single-handedly conquer the digital music market. Aside from one-sided rebranding agreements, Apple has refused to let anyone under the iTunes tent.
Apple, clearly, has not learned from its own history. This has clear parallels to the biggest platform battle of Apple’s corporate lifetime– the battle with Microsoft for dominance of desktop computing. There, as here, Apple pursued a strategy of trying to build everything itself. Microsoft, in contrast, licensed its technology freely to all comers. In the process, Microsoft built a thriving and competitive ecosystem of PC hardware manufacturers, each of which had to pay Microsoft tribute in order to run Windows. Apple, meanwhile, spent most of the last two decades trying to invent everything in-house, and Steve Jobs strangled Apple’s one tentative attempt at platform openness in its cradle when he returned to Apple’s helm in 1997. As a result, Macs today have a dismal 3% market share and have been relegated to being the niche favorite of creative professionals and yuppies.
Apple looks determined to do the same thing with its current commanding lead in the music market. Microsoft and Sony are veterans of brusing platform battles, and they’re coming with war chests of billions of dollars to take Apple’s cozy music monopoly. Apple needs all the allies it can get in that battle. It should be locking in favorable terms now with anyone willing to take its side, not snubbing potential allies at every opportunity.
Steve Jobs has never shown himself to be a great strategic thinker. He’s a smart guy who thinks it’s cool to run a computer company and a movie studio. But he lacks Bill Gates’ appetite for world domination. and paradoxically, that makes him more–not less–of a control freak. The problem is that peaceful co-existence is rarely an option in the technology business. Either your platform comes out on top, or someone else’s does so and you get relegated to obscurity.
Fortunately, Real appears to be doing to Apple what Microsoft did to IBM in the 80’s– pry their platform open against their will. If Real wins the coming legal battles, the iPod and iTunes will be open whether Apple likes itor not. That just might be a blessing in disguise.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.