gregory donovan's eportfolio (a syndication of cyberenviro.org)
Archive for June, 2009
by gtdonovan on June 25, 2009 at 7:43 pm · Filed under Berners-Lee, informationalism, medium/message, quote, semantic web
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, on the “insidious” quality of vertical integration:
The Web’s infrastructure can be thought of as composed of four horizontal layers; from bottom to top, they are the transmission medium, the computer hardware, the software, and the content. … I am more concerned about companies trying to take a vertical slice through the layers than creating a monopoly in any one layer. A monopoly is more straight forward; people can see it and feel it, and consumers and regulators can “just say no.” But vertical integration — for example, between the medium and content — affects the quality of information and can be more insidious.
– Weaving the Web, p130
by gtdonovan on June 23, 2009 at 1:38 am · Filed under file-sharing, piracy, play, property
ars technica has an interesting summary/critique of a working paper, titled “File-Sharing and Copyright” by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf. Since the genesis and intent of most copyright law is to stimulate creativity — not to protect authors and publishers — Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf argue that while file-sharing might be harming the music business (“might” being the keyword) it does not appear to be stifling the production of new music content. All of which begs the question: if copyright law is meant to stimulate creativity (not to protect the business interests of authors/publishers) and if sharing music — at a minimum — isn’t stifling creativity, then why aren’t we updating our copyright laws to protect this increasingly common and important creative practice? The working paper can be downloaded here, and the ars technica summary/critique can be found here.
by gtdonovan on June 22, 2009 at 1:30 am · Filed under cyberczar, education, governance, informationalism, obama, security
On May 29, 2009, Obama announced his intention to appoint a “cyber czar” to coordinate cybersecurity policy for private and government computer networks in the US. Obama also argued the importance of educating the public about cybersecurity while highlighting the dialectical reality of cyberspace:
Cyberspace is real and so are the risks that come with it. It is the great irony of our information age [that] the very technologies that empower us to create and to build also empower those who would disrupt and destroy…
It’s encouraging to hear Obama talk about education as a necessary component of cybersecurity. If an actual education initiative does emerge from this, I hope it will focus on both the empowering and threatening aspects of cyberspace.
Obama also noted that national cyber security policy would not entail the surveillance of Internet traffic or private networks, citing privacy concerns and a committment to net neutrality. So far, so good…
by gtdonovan on June 21, 2009 at 2:58 am · Filed under EU, governance, informationalism, participation, pirate party, privacy, property, Sweden
According to Wired’s Threat Level blog:
Sweden’s Pirate Party won a seat in the European Union Parliament, swept in Sunday amid outrage over a new copyright law and the convictions of the four founders of The Pirate Bay.
The party, formed to protest copyright law, took 7.1 percent of votes in Sweden and one of that country’s 18 seats in the European Parliament. The party stands for radical reform of copyright legislation, abolition of the patent system and guaranteed online-privacy rights.
Check out wikipedia for background on the Pirate Party or visit the official Pirate Party website.
by gtdonovan on June 20, 2009 at 8:37 pm · Filed under experience, governance, Holmes, pragmatism, property, quote
from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr:
The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow-men, have had a good deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed. The law embodies the story of a nation’s development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics. In order to know what it is, we must know what it has been, and what it tends to become. We must alternately consult history and existing theories of legislation. But the most difficult labor will be to understand the combination of the two into new products at every stage. The substance of the law at any given time pretty nearly corresponds, so far as it goes, with what is then understood to be convenient; but its form and machinery, and the degree to which it is able to work out desired results, depend very much upon its past.
(emphasis added)
