Aug/090
Wolfram Alpha Wants To Change Software [& Abuse Copyright]
InfoWorld recently posted an article about search engine Wolfram|Alpha entitled How Wolfram Alpha could change software.
Wolfram Research is claiming that each page of results returned by the Wolfram Alpha engine is a unique, copyrightable work, like a report or term paper. That makes Wolfram Alpha different not just from classic search engines, but from most software. While software companies routinely retain sole ownership of their software and license it to users, Wolfram Research has taken the additional step of claiming ownership of the output of the software itself. It’s a bold assertion, and one that could have significant ramifications for the software industry as a whole.
What a terrible, horrible, awful idea. Copyright protection exists, in large part, to provide an incentive for people to produce creative work. Were there no copyright, the argument goes, then people wouldn’t pursue artistic endeavors. Others would copy and cash in, making the time/energy/skill investment a waste. Granting and enforcing copyright protection, then, can be seen as society recognizing the value of such work and forcing a period of exclusive use to reward effort with an opportunity to profit.
Protecting automated results as creative output absolutely defeats the incentive mechanism, for then not only is the underlying software protected, but so too is that software’s output… even if all that software is doing is filtering and/or re-ordering and presenting others’ content.
Start allowing this sort of protection and an infinite loop is quickly created. Great for Wolfram|Alpha, terrible for everyone else.
Apr/090
Best Of Internet April Fools 2009
Keep warm using intestines and The Force.
As has become tradition, Internet-based companies and web celebrities (webbrities?) answered Halloween's treat with April Fools tricks. Some favorites from 2009...
Mar/091
Internet Killed The Publishing Industry
The best article I've read in a while on the topic of the Internet's value and transformative effect, and it's relationship to the death of the newspaper. (via kottke and Daring Fireball)
With the old economics destroyed, organizational forms perfected for industrial production have to be replaced with structures optimized for digital data. It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem.
. . .
Journalism has always been subsidized. Sometimes it’s been Wal-Mart and the kid with the bike. Sometimes it’s been Richard Mellon Scaife. Increasingly, it’s you and me, donating our time. The list of models that are obviously working today, like Consumer Reports and NPR, like ProPublica and WikiLeaks, can’t be expanded to cover any general case, but then nothing is going to cover the general case.
Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable. That’s been a fine accident to have, but when that accident stops, as it is stopping before our eyes, we’re going to need lots of other ways to strengthen journalism instead.
When we shift our attention from ’save newspapers’ to ’save society’, the imperative changes from ‘preserve the current institutions’ to ‘do whatever works.’ And what works today isn’t the same as what used to work.
Jan/091
Fox Removes "Always Sunny" From Hulu
Fox to fans: "I'll eat your babies, bitch!"
After a brilliant musical finale to Season 3, Fox, in their infinite wisdom, has said screw you to the die hard fans who have supported Always Sunny and have ordered all three seasons removed from Hulu.
This is a show that got it's start when its stars/creators filmed a pilot with their home camera (for the cost of the videotapes) and got them to the head of fledgling cable network FX, who took a chance on the young comedic-genuses.
Hulu originally took the videos down asap and without warning to users. Below is their apology. Still, however, they say nothing about why Fox removed the show.
Can't Fox just say "we want to force fans to overpay for dvds" and be done with it? I'd even be fine with this policy if I thought The Gang was getting a big slice of the pie (as Frank would say) ... but I'm pretty sure that any extra coin is headed straight to the pockets of Fox execs. Bastards.
Hulu's apology:
Apr/080
The Future of the Internets
I'm currently taking a class on Telecommunications and Broadcast Media Law. Much of the reading and discussion is timely, and one of the most cutting edge topics we're discussing is Net Neutrality. My school even put on a symposium focusing on the issue of earlier this year. How the issue is settled will decide how the Internet will grow and develop. While some of the statements about the history of telecom regulation, umm, lack accuracy, this Op-Ed in today's NY Times is one of the clearest, most concise, best reasoned pieces I've read regarding the direction that movement on the issue should take.
Under current law, [Network Operators] can block certain files or Web sites for their subscribers, or slow or obstruct certain applications. And they do, albeit pretty rarely. Network providers have censored anti-Bush comments from an online Pearl Jam concert, refused to allow a text-messaging program from the pro-choice group Naral (saying it was “unsavory”), blocked access to the Internet phone service (and direct competitor) Vonage and selectively throttled online traffic that was using the BitTorrent protocol.
And what is likely to happen without government regulation? What if the operators are free to do what they want to "optimize traffic" over their network?
[Network Operators] won’t be blocking anything per se — we’ll never know what we’re not getting — they’ll just be leapfrogging today’s technology with a new, higher-bandwidth network where they get to be the gatekeepers and toll collectors. The superlative new video on offer will be available from (surprise, surprise) them, or companies who’ve paid them for the privilege of access to their customers. If this model sounds familiar, that’s because it is. It’s how cable TV operates.
We can’t allow a system of gatekeepers to get built into the network. The Internet shouldn’t be harnessed for the profit of a few, rather than the good of the many; value should come from the quality of information, not the control of access to it.
For some parallel examples: there are only two guitar companies who make most of the guitars sold in America, but they don’t control what we play on those guitars. Whether we use a Mac or a PC doesn’t govern what we can make with our computers. The telephone company doesn’t get to decide what we discuss over our phone lines. It would be absurd to let the handful of companies who connect us to the Internet determine what we can do online. Congress needs to establish basic ground rules for an open Internet, just as common carriage laws did for the phone system.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Sep/070
Happy Birthday Google!
The one website most responsible for the explosion of growth for the Internet over the last decade turns 9 today. They "do no evil", advocate for openness and transparency on the Internet, push for an interpretation of IP law that will allow for improved development and greater exploitation of future Internet tools and information aggregation, and continue to innovate, pushing their competitors to improve.
I remember the first time I used Google. I'd been a Yahoo! search user, but always felt that limited and frustrated when I attempted to search for something. At my dot-com job one day I became frustrated when unable to find an answer to a simple coding question. My co-worker, a skilled programmer by day and drummer by night, saw what I was doing and said "Worst!" - his catch phrase. "Man, why are you using Yahoo? Try Google. I just heard about it for a buddy, and I ain't goin' back."
I entered w-w-w-.-g-o-o-g-l-e-.-c-o-m into my fancy, new, IE-whoopin' Netscape browser. The logo, a search box, and a plain white background appeared on my screen. I typed in the same search I'd tried earlier. Google returned a plain, clean list of results. I clicked on the first one and had my answer. Game over.
Sure, people have concerns about the data they collect from users, but so long as they stick with their Mission, we'll all be alright. And Google will continue to improve. My birthday was yesterday. C's birthday is Sunday. Good to know that we're bookends to the endless repository of information named Google. Happy Birthday!
Sep/070
Fun facts about the U.S. Register of Copyrights
Marybeth Peters is our Register of Copyrights. She's served as an employee in the Office of Copyrights for over 40 years, and took over as Register in 1994.
One of her most important tasks is to head up reviews of copyright law to ensure that it continues to operate fairly in the face of ever-changing technology. She is also required by law to oversee periodic reviews of anti-circumvention rules, most notably the DMCA, to decide whether it's necessary to specify narrow exemptions.
Regarding the DMCA, Ms. Peters is not a fan of the Safe Harbor found in Section 512. This section requires that copyright holders (Viacom, for example) notify hosts of content on the Internet (YouTube, to name one) before the host must take down copyrighted content that has been posted by users. Only if the host fails to respond to these requests can the host be liable for participating in copyright infringement.
The Safe Harbor is a cornerstone of Google's argument in fighting high-profile copyright lawsuits, including one brought by Viacom, against its YouTube subsidiary.
While an expert in the arena of copyright law, Ms. Peters is a technology novice. She does not own a computer for personal use, and considers herself a Luddite.
Of the DMCA, she says:
Shouldn't you have to filter? Shouldn't you have to take reasonable steps to make sure illegal stuff that went up comes down? . . . I think there are some issues.