Dissecting the digital utopia.
some tech thing is a new weekly roundup of tech-related stories you might have missed or even wished you missed. Co-hosted by David Newhoff and Sandy Davis. Take a listen and let me/us know what you think.
In this episode: Coinye follow-up, SCOTUS-Aereo, a weird game for kids, Google buys Nest, 3D concert merch, Her.
If we’re not supposed to shoot the messenger for bad news, neither are we supposed to give him credit for the message when it’s good news. As the two-year anniversary of the defeat of SOPA approaches, the folks at Google not only want you to remember the date, but they want to double-down on their arrogance and take more than a little credit for preserving creativity itself. This is certainly consistent with the recent Google/New Year’s TV spot — and admittedly it’s the one I’d produce — that depicts scene after scene of people all over the world doing extraordinary things, mostly captured in videos we can watch on YouTube. And it’s good marketing to align one’s brand with great acts of charity, kindness, and ingenuity, but it’s also just a little bit bullshit, no? I mean if Google consistently states that its platforms are just a neutral highway, and we can’t blame that highway for any of the trash, theft, or promotion of criminal activity we find on it, then certainly the same neutral highway doesn’t get credit for creating or accomplishing the good stuff, right? Surely that’s fair. Not if you want to be the landlord of the digital future and also have the serfs thank you for the privilege of their humble residence, it seems.
Never wanting to lose an opportunity to be bizarrely two-faced, Google is sending around a little graphic today to all you GMail users implying that stopping SOPA in January of 2012 actually enabled creativity to continue to thrive on the Web. Never mind that nothing in SOPA could have stopped you or me or any other would-be creator from uploading our works, ideas, or captured events to the Web; that’s just pesky reality. But Google isn’t satisfied just to effect public policy in its own interests, it also wants to behave like the abusive and negligent father, who creepily shows up with a smile and a hug when his kid wins an award or becomes famous. After all, this week isn’t just the anniversary of SOPA Blackout Day, it’s also the week Google received its 100 millionth takedown notice from recording artists who would rather not have their works exploited without permission or compensation. So, the whole, “we protected creativity together” message just kinda makes the skin crawl. Y’know?
Believe what you want about SOPA Blackout Day. Propose it as a national holiday, and watch what happens when the majority of American adults ask, “What’s SOPA?” But while Google wants us to mark the day with reverence and forget what a boon it was to their $300+ billion market cap, we should remember also that these web companies don’t create artists, human rights activists, social reformers, great athletes, virtuoso performers, or just cool kids who do things that rekindle our faith in human capacity. At best, these companies build tools that enable us to more easily see and share all this activity with one another, and it’s no trivial thing; but it’s important to maintain perspective as to whether we need these companies or they need us.
ADDENDUM: On a related theme, Justin Moyer asks interesting questions about those Google Doodles. See story in Washington Post.
There’s a difference between debate and marketing.
Yesterday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation unveiled an online PR blitz called Copyright Week. The campaign’s launchpad is a webpage that asks visitors to consider and support “six principles,” one per day, over six days which happen to lead up to Silicon Valley’s very own independence day, January 18th, 2012, a.k.a. “SOPA Blackout Day.” The roll-out of this campaign also coincides with today’s new round of hearings in the House Judiciary Committee in the ongoing process to review and potentially revise copyright in the United States. Specifically, today’s hearing was focused on the scope of copyright, and while the EFF is determined that this debate should happen in the emotional realm of PR and marketing, even a brief viewing of the testimony on Capitol Hill should demonstrate that copyright reform is considerably more complex than the blunt, faux populist scaremongering we see in the EFF campaign.
For example, Carl Malamud, founder of Public.Resource.Org offered testimony that, on the surface sounds like something we can all support. The text of written law must be accessible in a free and open society and, therefore, sites like his, which provide easy access to this information should not ever run afoul of copyright protections. Makes sense to me. The law shouldn’t be copyrighted; it belongs to all of us. But in questioning Malamud, Representative Collins of Georgia asserted that the law is publicly available, but that certain annotations, for instance, remain intellectual property. Eyes rolling the back of your head yet? I can’t blame you because unless you’re an IP attorney or just like to follow copyright issues like some people follow sports stats, you’re probably going to tune out about here and find any number of more fun diversions. And that’s cool, but this is what the real debate will probably look like; it’s complex and nuanced and in some cases, kinda dull.
By contrast, the EFF would prefer to manipulate you with a portrayal of an epic battle for the soul of the American dream itself. They would have you believe that copyright is, in our time, a golem destined to destroy the future of all technological advancement and the sacred right to self expression. Never mind the fact that most copyright holders are the manifestation of self-expression, the Copyright Week campaign would rather distract you with a barrage of references to the international trade negotiation known as the TPP and scary words like secret. And maybe there are hazards in the TPP of which we should be aware, but I’ll bet it isn’t the copyright provisions. And I say this because the EFF will overreach when its spokespeople say things like “copyright has no business in a trade agreement.” Why? If one of our most valuable products is intellectual property, why doesn’t the subject even belong at the negotiating table? Surely, when copyright industries can boast a trillion dollars in GDP, the issue must have a few more shades of gray than that.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation boasts the motto “Protecting your rights in the digital age,” but you might notice that this does not necessarily include protecting your rights from the digital age. When Google or Facebook revise their Terms of Use policies to encroach ever further on your privacy or claim the right to use your kid’s birthday pictures in a paid ad, the EFF is silent. They are silent on the subject of cyber-mobs, which are an acute and clear infringement on their victims’ right to free expression and have even resulted in physical attacks. They are silent on Google’s monetizing just about any form of human depravity from sex-slave trafficking to illegal narcotics to abusive and deadly depictions of atrocities on YouTube. And for all its efforts to leverage our distrust of the American government to mask the agenda of Silicon Valley, the EFF is silent about the deepening influence of these government contractors who are the tech companies they serve.
So, by all means, if you care about the future of copyright from any perspective, I encourage you to follow the nuts and bolts of review in the coming year (if you can possibly stay awake through it all). But failing that, at least don’t freak out because an organization like the EFF says you should. After all, it isn’t the Hollywood studios who can scan your emails, manipulate the flow of information on the Web, or might one day help develop an autonomous weapon. Pour a glass of wine, take a breath, and ask yourself a very simple question: If you had to guess who has the greatest capacity to adversely affect your civil rights today, would it be the copyright holders or the data collectors? Cheers.