Lessig’s USENIX keynote

I listened to Larry Lessig’s USENIX keynote (MP3; ~30MB) and I made some notes of what he said. Perhaps these are of help to you. I recommend listening to it. I like this talk better than the free culture talk. Can’t someone make a Flash out of this, too?

4 stories: AM/FM, 2 broadcasts to prove the superiority of FM to AM; AT&T, “packet switching” – “Internet is not allowed”; AIBO, “hack your pet”; Grimm, Disney “stole” stories, extension of copyright – “The mouse is not allowed”

Architectures allow! The architectures you built allow! It’s not just law that builds freedom; architecture builds freedom. End-to-end. Everything’s allowed as far as the network’s concerned. End-to-end is an architecture. Architecture allows. This has consequences.

AT&T – the number of innovators equals the number of network owners. The number of innovators on an end-to-end network equals the number of connected people.

Difference also in kinds of innovation: AT&T – if you have an innovation that benefits the owners, it will be allowed; end-to-end – if you have an innovation that benefits the users, the connected people, it will be allowed.

HTTP, ICQ, Hotmail, etc – it’s because the network embeds the design that the network owner cannot control innovation. It maximises the number of people who can create for this network. Thus keeps the network open to creativity.

Spectrum use is regulated by the FCC. Auction the spectrum. Now we have increased auctioning of spectrum. Lawyers say this is property. Spectrum is a fixed resource. Scarce resource to be allocated among users.

The capacity is a function of its architecture.

These 4 stories are of the past. Corruption of a core feature of what this architecture originally was.

3 layers. Physical layer corrupting the code layer and the content layer corrupting the code layer. Nobody doing anything. Policy makers encourage. Lawyers have framed the debate: “It’s their property”.

Not going to allow streaming. Because of congestion (smart). No, we didn’t spend 56 billion dollars to have our blood sucked … (honest). It owns the wires, they get to decide how the wires are deployed.

Spectrum is being sold. When 802.11 is said to threaten … We paid for spectrum … interference – competitive not technical. The debate is framed. The consequence: the transformation of this architecture from end-to-end into this balkanised (?) ...

The second framing mistake: “It’s theft” (Eisner) Technologies are allowing theft, Washington must interfere. Napster = theft. The piano-roll napsterized the sheet-music business. You sold piano-rolls not paying the sheet music producer a dime. Court: Not our problem. Congress called to intervene. Compulsory fee. Ensure copyright owners got paid, the new technology could evolve. Old technology couldn’t control new technology.

Napster never sold anything to anybody, but cable TV did: resold broadcasts. Congress again dealing with this new technology. New law paralleling the law for piano-rolls. Fees. No power for old technology to control what kind of innovation can take place.

Napsterization of the film industry. Supreme court says: “Tough!” They established a rule to govern new technology. It’s not our job to decide the balance between … and copyright. Potential for substantial non-infringing use. VCR: lots of uses that were plainly copyright violations. Were there uses that were not? They found two, therefore the technology was allowed. It was up to Congress. Congress looked around to the 30 million users and said: “These people are voters too”

You fit the law to the new technology. In each of these cases there were those who said “this is just theft!” The law has said: What’s the balance that needs to be struck?

Napster led to shutting down of Napster servers. Napster promised to certified 98%—it’s not enough. Would the Xerox machine have been permitted if the rule had been 100% had to be copyright compliant?

Last century’s vision of what the law should be. Copyright is just like any other property right. Disney controls their content forever.

The courts and Congress: The most powerful industries pick what the future will be. What will be allowed.

Physical and content layers: the consequence of these changes is to increase the power of networks to say what innovation is to be allowed. Either real networks or the virtual network of concentrated media. They get to pick what innovations are permitted.

We have never had a time in the history of free culture where a smaller number of entities have exercised more control over innovation and creativity. Never has the power been as large. Never has the scope been as large. Never has it been so intimitely tied to a technology.

We need to reframe this debate. It can’t be about property and theft. There are obvious analogies to draw from: highways. “We need these new Interstate highway system, you [General Motors] can architect it so it benefits your own cars. We’re gonna get a free highway system (not in the sense of Stallman).” Highways is a neutral platform.

Disney took stories and produced on top of it. It’s not theft. Creativity always builds upon the past. If you call that theft you don’t understand what creativity is.

Always about balance. About the controlled and the commons working together. The controlled versus the commons is not a competition. These things work together. This debate has been misframed. Only you can change this debate. Lawyers won’t change this debate. It’s people who understand that free code (in the sense of access), free end-to-end code built a free culture. You understand the connection between the architecture and the freedom to create. Freedom to tinker. Between architecture and what it allows.

Rachel Carson: The Silent Spring. Carson had a simple message: there’s an ecology that can be fundamentally undermined by small changes in the environment. An environment that depended on two sets of interests. Balance. Limited the extremism of either interest. Hunters vs tree-huggers.

You in your activism to tell policy makers that it’s not just about theft. Make possible this movement. You can teach them about how architectures are environments and what this particular architecture did. What it allowed. If you said something to them, they don’t yet get it. Frame the debate as Carson did in The Silent Spring. Otherwise it will be the same silence that allows dinosaurs to stop the innovation your architecture allowed.