The Times: Tech column - John Perry Barlow/Picture-messaging
By David Rowan
Few Grateful Dead lyricists enjoy the status of "digital guru" among the internet community - but, then, John Perry Barlow is not your typical geek. A 55-year old former Wyoming cattle rancher who went on to teach at Harvard Law School, it was Barlow who first used the term "cyberspace" to describe the net and whose free-speech body, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has for 12 years defended its freedoms. Lately, the EFF has been busier than ever, fending off threats ranging from new copyright laws to censorship in the name of anti-terrorism. Neither governments nor corporations want the information flow that the the net allows, Barlow argues, which is why only civil disobedience will guarantee our right to be informed.
The big threat is copyright, as he will explain in an ICA lecture in London tomorrow. Politicians are pushing copy-protection technologies at Hollywood's behest; corporations are using copyright law to suppress any criticism. "I worry that my grandchildren won't be able to get the information they want when they want it," Barlow says, even though the net was supposed to create universal access to knowledge. As the "fair use" protection in law is whittled away, he worries that dissent will be silenced. "If you so much as have a company logo in a video on your website, you can be sued," he says. "There's a body of laws and lawyers working to an algorithm that stems the information flow."
With content-producers demanding even the right to hack into your computer if they feel you are breaching their rights, Barlow is urging rebellion. "We need to put anything and everything online and flood the net with material that could be prosecutable," he says. "Then no one will have the capacity to prosecute, and by doing a Google search you'll be able to find everything that exists about a subject -not just what copyright owners want you to know."
He is also worried that the post-9/11 mood allows governments to curtail the information flow and to mine public databases (such as supermarket shopping records) to profile potential dissidents. But, I ask, isn't the growth of personal web publishing a new opportunity to channel dissent? "I used to be a poet, and noticed that there were way more people writing poetry than reading it. Weblogs are a similar phenomenon," says Barlow. The only ray of light he sees is the growth of low-range wireless devices that allow anonymous surfing. These may yet allow human beings to challenge the corporate state.
++++
ALL THE TELECOMS firms want for Christmas, other than a refund of those 3G auction fees, is to get us to upgrade our mobile phones. Certainly there are some decent toys hitting the market: Microsoft's new Windows-powered Smartphones are turning heads, and the Nokia 7650 is making the geeks' mouths watering. But the networks' desperate optimism still looks misplaced. With 3G still some way off in Britain, multimedia messaging (MMS) and polyphonic ring tones are not yet good enough reasons to spend £200 or more on a handset.
Listening last week to 14-year-olds in West London - a key barometer for this market - I learnt that picture-messaging was deemed "cool", but not a vital day-to-day tool. Partly it's the cost of using it: at around 40p a message, it would never replace a 10p text message. But they are all too aware that pictures cannot yet be sent easily between rival networks and, until they can, that "must-have" factor is lacking.
But games are a different matter; what kept them interested in Vodafone's new mobile portal, Vodafone Live, were free downloadable games such as Space Invaders and Puzzle Bobble. Free, that is, until January, when they will cost up to £5 - which, as one girl pointed out, could pay for 50 texts.
(The Times, November 5 2002)
Few Grateful Dead lyricists enjoy the status of "digital guru" among the internet community - but, then, John Perry Barlow is not your typical geek. A 55-year old former Wyoming cattle rancher who went on to teach at Harvard Law School, it was Barlow who first used the term "cyberspace" to describe the net and whose free-speech body, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has for 12 years defended its freedoms. Lately, the EFF has been busier than ever, fending off threats ranging from new copyright laws to censorship in the name of anti-terrorism. Neither governments nor corporations want the information flow that the the net allows, Barlow argues, which is why only civil disobedience will guarantee our right to be informed.
The big threat is copyright, as he will explain in an ICA lecture in London tomorrow. Politicians are pushing copy-protection technologies at Hollywood's behest; corporations are using copyright law to suppress any criticism. "I worry that my grandchildren won't be able to get the information they want when they want it," Barlow says, even though the net was supposed to create universal access to knowledge. As the "fair use" protection in law is whittled away, he worries that dissent will be silenced. "If you so much as have a company logo in a video on your website, you can be sued," he says. "There's a body of laws and lawyers working to an algorithm that stems the information flow."
With content-producers demanding even the right to hack into your computer if they feel you are breaching their rights, Barlow is urging rebellion. "We need to put anything and everything online and flood the net with material that could be prosecutable," he says. "Then no one will have the capacity to prosecute, and by doing a Google search you'll be able to find everything that exists about a subject -not just what copyright owners want you to know."
He is also worried that the post-9/11 mood allows governments to curtail the information flow and to mine public databases (such as supermarket shopping records) to profile potential dissidents. But, I ask, isn't the growth of personal web publishing a new opportunity to channel dissent? "I used to be a poet, and noticed that there were way more people writing poetry than reading it. Weblogs are a similar phenomenon," says Barlow. The only ray of light he sees is the growth of low-range wireless devices that allow anonymous surfing. These may yet allow human beings to challenge the corporate state.
++++
ALL THE TELECOMS firms want for Christmas, other than a refund of those 3G auction fees, is to get us to upgrade our mobile phones. Certainly there are some decent toys hitting the market: Microsoft's new Windows-powered Smartphones are turning heads, and the Nokia 7650 is making the geeks' mouths watering. But the networks' desperate optimism still looks misplaced. With 3G still some way off in Britain, multimedia messaging (MMS) and polyphonic ring tones are not yet good enough reasons to spend £200 or more on a handset.
Listening last week to 14-year-olds in West London - a key barometer for this market - I learnt that picture-messaging was deemed "cool", but not a vital day-to-day tool. Partly it's the cost of using it: at around 40p a message, it would never replace a 10p text message. But they are all too aware that pictures cannot yet be sent easily between rival networks and, until they can, that "must-have" factor is lacking.
But games are a different matter; what kept them interested in Vodafone's new mobile portal, Vodafone Live, were free downloadable games such as Space Invaders and Puzzle Bobble. Free, that is, until January, when they will cost up to £5 - which, as one girl pointed out, could pay for 50 texts.
(The Times, November 5 2002)
posted by David Rowan at Tuesday, November 05, 2002
<< Home