Saturday, December 21, 2002

Lessig on Broadband Broadband wars I. The battle to build and keep broadband neutral is an important issue to me. I go a couple rounds on the FT.COM site about it here. Maybe it is just me, but these debates are never satisfying. The thrust of Tom Hazlett's final response is that cable is much better than DSL, so don't regulate cable. On cable, see the next post. But even ignoring the logic of the claim, we should not forget: However good cable is, does it begin to match the broadband options available elsewhere. Again, here in Japan: 100 mbs for $50 a month; 12 mbs for about half that. What cable company comes even close to that? [Lessig Blog] Broadband wars II. If you want to get an idea about how bad the broadband future will be, you need only read this letter from the National Cable & Telecommunications Association describing how good (from their perspective) the broadband future will be. NCTA wrote this letter to the FCC to criticize a letter filed by the Coalition of Broadband Users and Innovators. This Coalition, which includes Microsoft and Disney, told the FCC that it needed to assure that broadband remain neutral[~]that carriers not be permitted to discriminate in the service they offer based on the application or content the user wants. This letter from the Coalition was great and important moment in the debate about broadband. I've been critical of Microsoft and Disney in the past, but they deserve all the credit in the world for taking up this fight. If neutrality is lost in the broadband platform, that means the end-to-end design of the internet will be lost as well. And that would profoundly weaken the potential for innovation and growth on the network. The NTCA letter confirms the worst. After arguing at first that they are providing neutral service anyway (a claim which itself is false: have you checked your TOS re: servers?), they then go on to defend their right to discriminate however they wish. And they defend it by pointing to Microsoft: If Microsoft is allowed to cut special deals with partners, why shouldn't the cable companies? The level of ignorance here is astounding. We are four years into this debate, and apparently the cable companies have yet to even understand the argument they are attacking. The difference between Microsoft bundling products at the edge of the network, and the cable companies bundling preferred service in the middle of the network, is the difference between an end-to-end network and the Ma Bell network the internet replaced. This letter confirms that the cable companies do not begin to understand the value of end-to-end neutrality. It confirms precisely the claim of the Coalition: that left to its own devices, the dominant broadband provider in America (slow and expensive though it may be) sees no reason in the world why it shouldn't corrupt the basic internet design. Robert Sachs, president of the NCTA, is an extraordinarily bright man. He is also apparently a very busy man, for there is no way he could have written the letter he signed. The NCTA should spend some more money hiring press people who have taken the time to understand the arguments they want to rebut. Meanwhile, we, broadband users of America, need to wake up to the broadband environment four years of do-nothing-ness have produced. [base "]Open access[per thou] has been a failure in the United States (though a total success in Japan, where competition has driven prices down and service up: 100 mbs at $50 a month); the cable companies are, as we said four years ago, the single dominant provider of broadband in America. Their service is slow; it is getting more expensive; and now they claim the right to corrupt the basic design of the network they increasingly own. My last book was pessimistic: It was not pessimistic enough. [Lessig Blog] 5:28:29 AM    comment []

Lessig on Creative Commons cc launch. After many hours with lawyers, and many productive hours with tech-types, and lots of imagination by many, an idea first suggested by Hal Abelson and Eric Eldred will come to life on Monday, December 16: Creative Commons.... [Lessig Blog] CC Launches. So just back to Japan after a quick trip to San Francisco to help many many extraordinary people launch Creative Commons. The event was fantastic, especially the Flash that explains our Licensing Project. Watch the flash, and check out the site. We are eager for feedback, and for ideas about where to go next. I can't begin to describe how grateful I am to everyone who made this happen. I am especially grateful to creators who have run with the licenses right away[~]heroes such as Cory Doctorow (who will be releasing under a CC license the entire text of his amazing book, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom as a free, freely redistributable e-book on January 9th. But buy the book as a present. It is the best novel I've read in years), and Peter Wayner (who has licensed his Free for All under a CC license), and Tim O'Reilly (the first adopter of the "Founders' Copyright"). It is no accident that those who understand this are those closest to technology. Our challenge will be to find ways to explain it so other creators get it as well. If you have ideas, or ideas for new projects, please let us know. Our single, overarching aim: build the public domain, by building projects that expand the range of creative work available for others to build upon. Meanwhile, thanks to everyone who helped make this happen. And check on this channel for more news as the project develops. [Lessig Blog] CC for software?. Matt Croydon wonders about how CC licenses will interact with software. In a careless earlier version of this, I said they won't. Sam Ruby suggests the most I could mean by that is that our energy will be directed elsewhere. Indeed, that's the most I mean. We share RMS's concern that there is a proliferation of licenses in software. And our view was that there was a dearth for other creative content. Thus we start outside the software world. But creative reuse of creative content is what CC is all about. My apologies for any confusion. [Lessig Blog] 5:21:52 AM    comment []