By all means, let’s consider doing something about television violence. But why don’t we start with the obvious?
Digital set-top boxes will allow parents to buy specialty tiers of programming as well as make use of more powerful parental control technologies. Trouble is, not enough families have them. The Federal Communications Commission emphasized this fact yesterday when it issued a report concerning television violence. The report noted that a significant problem with parental controls is “it does not appear that cable operator-provided advanced parental controls are available on a sufficient number of cable-connected television sets to be considered an effective solution at this time.”
There’s a shortage of parental controls mainly because consumer electronics manufacturers have been concentrating their efforts on high-end devices that incorporate high-definition and recording features, forsaking the low-cost, limited capability devices that generate less profit. Congress unintentionally created this market failure when it ordered the FCC to eliminate proprietary or “integrated” set-top boxes provided by the cable companies to their customers via Section 629 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, enacted to give a boost to consumer electronics manufacturers who wanted to produce cable set-top boxes and market them directly to consumers.
But wait.
Comcast, the nation’s largest cable operator, recently asked the Federal Communications Commission for a waiver of the ban so it can distribute low-cost, limited capability set-top boxes to subscribers who don’t want higher-end devices costing several hundred dollars (see this and
this.
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The FCC has just issued its long-awaited report on Violent Television Programming and Its Impact on Children. Unsurprisingly, it recommends that the government should assume a great role in regulating the video content that comes into our homes. The agency concludes that: “We believe that further action to enable viewer-initiated blocking of violent television content would serve the government’s interests in protecting the well-being of children and facilitating parental supervision and would be reasonably likely to be upheld as constitutional.” (p. 15)
Ambiguity Defined
Ironically, however, the FCC’s report goes on to undercut its own argument for regulation again and again because of the stunning level of ambiguity surrounding everything they propose. For example, in the second paragraph of the report, the FCC notes that “A broad range of television programming aired today contains [violent] content, including, for example, cartoons, dramatic series, professional sports such as boxing, news coverage, and nature programs.” Is the agency saying such things could be regulated? They never tell us.
Or consider the endless number of questions raised by this paragraph on pages 20-21:
We believe that developing an appropriate definition of excessively violent programming would be possible, but such language needs to be narrowly tailored and in conformance with judicial precedent. Any definition would need to be clear enough to provide fair warning of the conduct required. A definition sufficient to give notice of upcoming violent programming content to parents and potential viewers could make use of, or be a refinement of, existing voluntary rating system definitions or could make use of definitions used in the research community when studying the consequences of violent programming. For more restrictive time channeling rules, a definition based on the scientific literature discussed above, which recognizes the factors most important to determining the likely impact of violence on the child audience, could be developed. For example, such a definition might cover depictions of physical force against an animate being that, in context, are patently offensive. In determining whether such depictions are patently offensive, the Government could consider among other factors the presence of weapons, whether the violence is extensive or graphic, and whether the violence is realistic. (p. 20-21)
Let’s try to unpack some of this because defining “excessive violence” is really the core of this debate.
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On Monday, the WashingtonWatch.com wiki went “live” – with a lot of promo efforts dedicated to getting it in front of an ever-broader audience. Along with a release out on PR Newswire, it got a friendly write-up on TechCrunch, where Mike Arrington is rubbing his hands together in anticipation of the fun.
I’m pleased to see that several people and groups have begun editing bills of interest to them. It looks like the National Association of Realtors has a say about the Community Choice in Real Estate Act, though they don’t seem to be winning the day with site visitors, judging by the votes.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest is making the case against cutting the beer tax. Love the comment on that page. A couple of different editors have added information to S. 9, The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007. It’s one of the consistently popular bills on the site.
Of interest to folks here on TLF might be the write-up of S. 744, The SAVE LIVES Act. That’s Senator McCain’s public safety spectrum bill. I’m not equipped to determine whether the editor of that bill makes any sense. Luckily, anyone with an Internet connection can, and they can improve it too, if they want. It’s a wiki.
You know what this country needs more of? Patent trolls! This time the target is Microsoft, over its .net software. Jeremy Reimer at Ars is on the story:
The patent itself, like many software patents, uses vague language to describe “a system and method for generating computer applications in an arbitrary object framework.” The patent involves creating “objects” in a web-based application. These objects are managed throughout their life cycle in an object library and put together to create complex, interactive web applications. The whole mechanism separates design, function, and content so that each can be developed separately.
To anyone who has some knowledge of web-based software development, it sounds a lot like what Sun’s Java or Apple’s WebObjects were doing before .NET was even released. In fact, the patent even admits as such: “Prior art solutions have succeeded in partially separating some of these functions. Notably, content management databases and digital repositories provide a means of separating content from form and function.” It then defends the need for this separate patent with the incredibly vague assertion that “content management tools typically fail to address form/function issues.”
I’ve used a few content management tools in my time, and none of them have failed to separate content from function—that’s basically the entire point of content management systems. The patent goes on to claim that “changes in design or content do not require the intervention of a programmer.” Again, it’s difficult to see how this is different from any other existing solutions, many of which predate Vertical Computing’s efforts.
Over at Ars, I’ve got an analysis of the patents in the Vonage case:
The “invention” disclosed by the patent is the concept of applying these “advanced” routing concepts to DNS servers. One of the additional services envisioned by the patent is the ability to translate among domain names, telephone numbers, and IP addresses—clearly essential in any VoIP system that interfaces with the traditional phone system. The server described by the patent would also be able to “condition name-to-address processing on certain parameters relating to a request for translation, such as the time of the request, the party or terminal making the request, the status of one or more potential destination terminals, etc.”
What follows is a detailed description of the functionality provided by this DNS server, listing a variety of situations and how it would behave in each. But hardly any of the details would be interesting from a programmer’s perspective. No algorithms or data structures are described in any detail.
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Alex Tabarrok on Marginal Revolution posted an interesting comment on J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter wealth. Though it’s been up for 2+ days and generated several comments, I don’t see a mention of copyright anywhere. I think it’s very relevant. This is a blog of smart and aware readers and writers.
Update: Commenter “candid” spots a reference to “IP” in comment #3 at Marginal Revolution, confirming my observation about their writers and readers, and drawing into question my own capabilities . . ./Update
To see discussion of copyright, one must go to Matthew Iglesias’ follow-on. It’s not him, but his commenters who surface the intellectual property issue. Commenter “Rich C” says:
If Rowling (and her publisher) could not rely on an internationally enforceable system of intellectual property rights, her income would be a good deal lower. Rowling’s wealth is a product of protectionist policies, not free trade or technology.
A system of support for creative artists that does not depend on current forms of intellectual property protection (such as that Dean Baker has proposed) would still allow Rowling to live an extraordinarily comfortable life, but would sharply limit the windfall gains to her and her publisher. A system of real free trade in creative products would not increase inequality to anything like the degree we see with our system today.
I don’t know anything about this Dean Baker or his proposal, but I do think copyright is very relevant to J.K. Rowling’s wealth, and I think more people should be thinking and talking about its role in creativity, wealth creation, and sometimes windfalls.
(Via Will Wilkinson.)
The Federal Circuit says Vonage can continue signing up new customer while it appeals its loss in the Verizon controversy.
As Luis pointed out last week, Vonage’s hand was doubtless strengthened by the Supreme Court’s recent eBay v. Merc Exchange decision:
Note that per the court’s recent decision in eBay, this may work in Vonage’s favor in defeating the proposed injunction in this case. If the option is ‘no injunction’ or ‘make Vonage implement a workaround’, then the court is supposed to favor making Vonage implement the work around. If the option is ‘no injunction’ or ‘completely screw Vonage’s several million users’, the court is supposed to at least take that into consideration when discussing the injunction (though it may not be decisive.)
You’ll be shocked to hear that yet another patent trolling company has sued a major technology company over a vague software patent. Ars has the scoop. In this case, the plaintiff is “IP Innovation, LLC,” the defendant is Apple, and the patent in queston is this one, covering “User interface with multiple workspaces for sharing display system objects.”
I’ve gotten too busy to do a full “software patent of the week” writeup every week, but this certainly looks like it would be a juicy one. It’s got all the elements that make software patents so pernicious: it’s extremely vague, making it impossible for other software companies to be sure whether their products infringe on it. It’s extremely broad, apparently covering a variety of general characteristics of windowing systems. As the Ars article indicates, there’s likely to be prior art. Finally, it’s extremely wordy, with 62 loquacious claims and dozens of pages describing this “technology” in excruciating detail.
I’ve ranted about all of those problems before, so let me just make a brief policy observation: would anyone seriously claim that granting legal monopolies on the general characteristics of windowing systems is either necessary or helpful to the progress of the software industry? Microsoft and Apple spent the late 1980s and early 1990s battling it out for dominance of desktop computing, introducing numerous important innovations in GUI design. It’s hard to imagine Apple saying “Gosh, I just thought of a great new feature to add to Mac OS System 7, but it will cost a million dollars to develop it and Microsoft will just copy it in Windows 95. So why bother?” Apple and Microsoft copied each other promiscuously (well, OK, Microsoft mostly copied Apple) and consumers benefitted from it. Apple certainly would have liked to prevent Microsoft from copying their innovations (and in fact, they tried very hard to do so) but they ultimately were not able to do so. Does anyone think that consumers would be better off today if the courts had prohibited Microsoft from imitating Apple’s UI innovations?
According to today’s Washington Post, the FCC’s report on televised media content will be out within the week, and you can expect a whole lotta regulatin’ to be goin on once it hits the Hill.
In their article, “FCC Seeks To Rein In Violent TV Shows: Agency Will Recommend Law to Regulate Broadcast And Basic Cable Content,” Washington Post staff writers Paul Farhi and Frank Ahrens report that:
The Federal Communications Commission has concluded that regulating TV violence is in the public interest, particularly during times when children are likely to be viewers — typically between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., FCC sources say.
…
The report — commissioned by members of Congress in 2004 and based on hundreds of comments from parents, industry officials, academic experts and others — concludes that Congress has the authority to regulate “excessive violence” and to extend its reach for the first time into basic-cable TV channels that consumers pay to receive.
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From IPcentral.info…
Tony Healy, programmer and Senior Fellow of the Institute for Policy Innovation, has commented before on issues involving the GPL, and particularly on ASPs. (See, e.g., GPLv3 and Web Businesses Is the Free Software Foundation Getting Tricky?)
He sends the following commentary on the ASP issue and the latest draft of GPLv3:
FSF betrays its followers with GPL v3
By Tony Healy — April 23, 2007
Amid the smoke and confusion around GPL v3, one thing is clear. The Free Software Foundation has wimped out of its intention to close the ASP loophole, thus betraying its programmer supporters.
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