February 2007

Skype Asks FCC to Impose Carterfone Regs on Wireless

by on February 20, 2007 · 4 comments

It hasn’t even been a week since Tim Wu made such a splash with his “Wireless Net Neutrality” proposal and already a major corporation has run to the FCC asking for it to be implemented into law! (Tim, my old friend and occasional nemesis, you know how to get results!)

Today, Internet phone giant Skype filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission “to confirm a consumer’s right to use Internet communications software and attach devices to wireless networks.” The 32-page filing repeats many of the arguments Tim Wu made in his paper about the supposed need for regulators to step in and impose Bell System-era device attachment rules to modern cell phone operators. Specifically, Skype wants the FCC “to create an industry-led mechanism to ensure the openness of wireless networks.” I’m not sure what that means but I am certain that entire forests will fall as the paperwork flies at the FCC in an attempt to interpret and implement these new regulations.

I disagree on so many levels with the Skype petition that I don’t know exactly where to begin, but luckily I don’t have to say much. I just need to point to the excellent critiques that my TLF colleagues and current and former PFF colleagues published last week in response to the Wu paper. Here’s a sampling:

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Gigi Sohn on XM-Sirius

by on February 20, 2007

Net neutrality being such a hot issue right now, we haven’t had a chance lately to agree with our friends at Public Knowledge. But when we do agree, we really agree. (Speaking for myself, that includes orphan works and fair use.) Today PK President Gigi Sohn blogs about the XM-Sirius merger and opposition to it by the NAB. The post is too good to excerpt only a piece, so here it is in its entirety–under a Creative Commons license, of course.

How is it that the National Association of Broadcasters, which is seeking regulatory relief from current media ownership caps, has the gumption to criticize the proposed merger of XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio? Their statement following the announced merger can be found here, but this is the part I like best:

When the FCC authorized satellite radio, it specifically found that the public would be served best by two competitive nationwide systems. Now, with their stock price at rock bottom and their business model in disarray…they seek a government bail-out to avoid competing in the marketplace.

If any industry knows how to “seek a government bail-out to avoid competing in the marketplace,” it is the broadcast industry. What is “must carry,” other than a government-granted cable-carriage easement for broadcasters? What is exclusive, free licensing of spectrum, other than government-granted protection from auctions and unlicensed uses of the public airwaves?

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Peer Production and Spontaneous Order at Catallarchy

by on February 20, 2007 · 24 comments

Cool! I just stumbled across this 4-year-old post at Catallarchy making a point that I’ve mentioned a few times in the past: peer production isn’t an assault on the principles of a free society, but an extension of those principles to aspects of human life that don’t directly involve money. Jonathan Wilde offers the blogosphere (and specifically, technorati) as an example of the same phenomenon:

One of the things that undoubtedly adds to Technorati’s success is that Sifry knows blogging. He runs a blog himself. He has likely had to spend a late night tinkering with Movable Type. At one time or another, he probably has wanted to know who is reading his blog, or has wanted a way to search other blogs. He has, in the words of Friedrich A. Hayek, “the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place”.

What inventions like Technorati do is give structure to the blogosphere. And Technorati is not the only tool that does this. The Truth Laid Bear Blog Ecosystem acts as a filtering mechanism to display the blogs that are most frequently linked by other blogs. Blogrolling can create a useful, easily manipulated directory of blogs to visit regularly. The Trackback feature in Movable Type and Typepad has made it easier to see which other bloggers are commenting on your posts on their own blogs. The comments feature allows interactive discussion to take place without interfering with the media look of a blog. Archiving by category, date, and author allows readers easy ways of browsing the past material. RSS feeds allow delivery of blog content to newsreaders so that readers can organize their favorite blogs in a single window.

Each of these implementations were created by different individuals, such as Sifry, pursuing their own ends. There was no central authority barking out orders or making grand designs. The inception of a solid anatomy to the blogosphere was an entirely peripheral phenomenon.

This is an excellent point, and one that Jim Harper and I are hoping to expand upon in the near future: a lot of the intellectual tools that libertarians use to analyze markets apply equally well to other, non-monetary forms of decentralized coordination. It’s a shame that some libertarians see open source software, Wikipedia, and other peer-produced wealth as a threat to the free market rather than a natural complement.

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Martin Cooper lecture tomorrow

by on February 20, 2007 · 2 comments

Martin Cooper, the inventor of the cell phone, is giving a talk tomorrow on spectrum policy for the 21st Century as part of Tom Hazlett’s “Big Ideas About Information” lecture series. It’ll take place at George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, VA. More info here. According to Wikipedia,

Cooper is considered the inventor of the first portable handset and the first person to make a call on a portable cell phone in April 1973, to the bewilderment of passers-by in a road of New York. The first call he made was to his rival, Joel Engel, Bell Labs head of research. Cooper later revealed that watching Captain Kirk talking in his communicator on the tv-show Star Trek inspired him to research the mobile phone.

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Geist on International Copyright “Standards”

by on February 20, 2007

Michael Geist has an excellent BBC article on a recent report purportedly documenting inadequate copyright protections outside of the United States. But as Geist explains, in many cases it’s US law that’s out of touch:

Countries that have preserved their public domain by maintaining their term of copyright protection at the international treaty standard of life of the author plus an additional fifty years are criticised for not matching the US extension to life plus 70 years.

There are literally hundreds of similar examples, as countries from Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America are criticised for not adopting the DMCA, not extending the term of copyright, not throwing enough people in jail, or creating too many exceptions to support education and other societal goals.

In fact, the majority of the world’s population finds itself on the list, with 23 of the world’s 30 most populous countries targeted for criticism (the exceptions are the UK, Germany, Ethiopia, Iran, France, Congo, and Myanmar).

Countries singled out for criticism should not be deceived into thinking that their laws are failing to meet an international standard, no matter what US lobby groups say.

Rather, those countries should know that their approach – and the criticism that it inevitably brings from the US – places them in very good company.

The really funny thing about this (aside from us being on a list with Iran, the Congo, and Myanmar) is that on multiple occasions I’ve heard it argued that we needed to pass the DMCA and the CTEA to comply with international treaty obligations, as though we’re somehow behind the rest of the world in expanding copyright protections. But of course, those “treaty obligations” were largely imposed at the behest of the American copyright lobby.

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Tom on Thomas

by on February 20, 2007 · 2 comments

Tom Bell shares my concerns about Thomas the Tank Engine’s underlying premises. My earlier musings are here.

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A Cynical Argument for the XM-Sirius Merger

by on February 20, 2007

Matt Yglesias channels Adam Thierer’s point about the XM-Sirius merger:

If The New York Times says a Sirius-XM merger is “sure to raise antitrust issues” then I’m happy to believe them. I have a hard time seeing a serious issue here, however. As is typical in these cases, the relevant think is the definition of the market. If you think there’s a discrete “satellite radio” market then, yes, a combined Sirius-XM entity would clearly have monopoly power in that market. Realistically, though, the product both Sirius and XM are selling–audio broadcasts–is one for which there’s a great deal of competition. Cable and satellite television providers are capable of delivering similar content, though in not as convenient-to-use a manner. People can listen to CDs, buy internet music subcription services, subscribe to “podcasts,” and, of course, satellite radio needs to compete with its freely available terrestrial radio counterpart.

After all, at the moment I–like most Americans–don’t have a satellite radio subscription even though I’m pretty gadget inclined. The logic of the business is that the merged entity needs to grow, which is to say continue trying to offer a deal that people find appealing compared to our many other entertainment options, not our satellite radio options.

Another, purely pragmatic consideration that makes me think this merger will be a good thing is that satellite radio is currently locked in a couple of high-profile lobbying battles in which they are, as far as I can see, on the side of the angels. They’re battling the RIAA over the “analog hole.” And they’re also fighting a protectionist proposal by terrestrial broadcasters to ban satellite radio from offering local programming. The merged company is likely to have the financial resources to retain a higher caliber of lobbying talent which will, I hope, allow them to prevail in both of those fights. Obviously, I’d prefer if companies could just focus on their business and not retain lobbyists at all, but if the RIAA and broadcasters are going to push blatantly anti-consumer legislation, I’d at least like to see the other side have the resources to fight back.

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Help, the Internet Made Me Do It !

by on February 20, 2007 · 4 comments

Here’s another one to add to the “personal-responsibility-is-dead” file… According to this AP report, a former IBM employee is suing the company for $5 million claiming he is an Internet addict who deserves treatment and sympathy rather than dismissal. Better yet, in the court filing, the guy claims that stress caused him to become “a sex addict, and with the development of the Internet, an Internet addict.” He is also claiming that he’s protected by the American with Disabilities Act because he says he suffers from sexual behavior disorders !!

This clown gets caught using the Net during work hours to check out porn and now he wants to blame it all on (a) the existance of the Internet and (b) the company and society for not stopping him from indulging his desires. Give me a break. Maybe alcoholics can use this theory to sue booze stores as the cause of all their problems.

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EC FLOSS Report Installment #3: Where are the FLOSS Developers?

by on February 20, 2007

Based on my prior post that analyzes Section 6 of the European Commission’s FLOSS report, we know that there is a growing and in many cases strong private and public sector demand for certain FLOSS applications. This leads the authors to the question of supply? Where are the FLOSS developers?

Based on two developer surveys (MERIT/FP5 and FLOSS-US
Stanford), the report argues that more than three fifths of the worldwide
FLOSS developer community live in the EU. One fifth live in North America and another one fifth live in other countries (p.37). The report relies on this and other data to persuade the EC to adopt an industrial open source policy.

While the authors may be overstating the point for effect
(the different data sets do not always show Europe leading and many Asian
developers are not counted), it is pretty clear that Europe is a leader in global community of FLOSS developers. 

However, as I say below the fold, the authors gloss over some important developer community distinctions that may harm their later conclusions: 

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Brito Deconstructs Spectrum Commons Theory

by on February 20, 2007 · 10 comments

Fellow TLF-er Jerry Brito has just released an important new study on spectrum policy that is must-reading for those of you who monitor ongoing wireless policy battles. His new Stanford Technology Law Review article is entitled “The Spectrum Commons in Theory and Practice.” In it, he thoroughly deconstructs spectrum commons theory and debunks the myths propagated by Professors Lawrence Lessig, Yochai Benkler and others who believe that a spectrum commons offers us a “Third Way” approach to spectrum management that is both free of government control and highly efficient.

To the contrary, Brito argues, “A commons must be controlled either by private actors or by the government. There is no ‘third way.'” And “there is nothing that will make this new government regulation free from the same protracted and inefficient processes that have thus far plagued decisions about spectrum,” he finds. Brito pinpoints the fundamental flaw in the commons mindset in paragraph 28 of the paper:

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