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Location: Nashville, Tennessee, United States

5/28/2003

Digital Freedom: Final Update
From the Tennessee Digital Freedom Network:

Latest News - It's Official. Senator Curtis Person, Jr., in the last Senate Judiciary Committee hearing of the year, officially took Senate Bill 213 "off notice," announcing that he would sponsor a Senate Joint Resolution to move the bill into summer study. He also stated that he would propose a Senate resolution to the same effect, to be used in the event that the joint resolution does not allow time for the in-depth study that he believes the subject demands and deserves.

I expressed to Senator Person today, and I express here now, our deep appreciation for his continuing efforts to include our group in every step of the legislative process. We have had our disagreements concerning the framing and language of this bill, but Senator Person has at every turn been open, honest, supportive, and in all ways the very definition of a public servant. I extend to him our sincere thanks for his kindness, his professionalism, and his continuing service to us and to our state.

[5/28 Update: The House Budget Subcommittee today deferred action on HB457 until 2004.]

Now comes the long preparation for the next session in February 2004. The lobbyists are already hard at work, and we need to be ready as well! Visit the Tennessee Digital Freedom Forum to find out how you can be a part!
So...it's over. But it's not over. It won't be over until the cable industry and the entertainment industry give up trying to control to the nth degree how you access and use their products. This weblog will post additional updates on HB 457/SB213 as warranted, though probably not until closer to next year's legislative session. In the meantime, we will post updates on the general issue of technology, copyright, digital rights management and such. Stories like this one from David Weinberger at Wired, which explains why copyright protections are better off being flexible, and technology-empowered hard copyright protection will be bad for society.
Digital rights management sounds unobjectionable on paper: Consumers purchase certain rights to use creative works and are prevented from violating those rights. Who could balk at that except the pirates? Fair is fair, right? Well, no. In reality, our legal system usually leaves us wiggle room. What's fair in one case won't be in another - and only human judgment can discern the difference. As we write the rules of use into software and hardware, we are also rewriting the rules we live by as a society, without anyone first bothering to ask if that's OK.

The problem starts with the fact that digital content can be copied - perfectly - from one machine to another. This has led the recording and movie industries to push for digital rights management schemes. Buy a one-time right to play the latest hit song or movie, and DRM could prevent you from playing it twice. Of course, to exercise such exquisite control over content, DRM requires deep changes to all parts of the equation - the hardware, the operating system, and the content itself. Sure enough, some in Congress recently pushed the FCC to add a "broadcast flag" to content which digital hardware would be required to honor. DRM is barreling down the pike.
Read the whole thing. And then go read this article from Joshua Ellis over at MindJack.com:

While it might be argued that this tendency to publish one's opinions is somewhat self-indulgent, the same can be said of professional criticism. My personal experience as both a blogger and professional journalist is that the level of quality in the blogosphere is pretty much on par with the mainstream media - which perhaps says more about the mainstream media than anything else.

Bloggers link back to sites that link to them. Wow, pretty shocking, huh? But the reason why this happens is pretty interesting. It's not out of courtesy, the way it was back in the early days of the web when we were all terribly elated to be linked to by anybody. We're older now, more cynical, less excitable.

It happens because minds think alike - great minds, lesser minds, minds that really love Jean-Luc Godard or Kenneth Cole or the booming garage-rock scene. The Russian lap dancer who links to my ninth drunken review of
Nebraska is likely to be someone whose tastes I instinctively get - like the theoretical guy in the Kraftwerk t-shirt I mentioned at the beginning. If she likes Nebraska, she probably likes the Cowboy Junkies. She might read Flannery O'Connor (whose short stories heavily influenced Springsteen when he was recording the album). If she doesn't, I can suggest these media to her. And in return, she can turn me on to some vastly beautiful and eminently depressing Ukrainian alternative country band that I would never, ever have come in contact with otherwise. She is another member of my taste tribe - and we can introduce each other via our links to others like us.

This is all very well for the people who consume media, but what about the people who make it? What does it do for them? The answer is: it depends on whom you're talking about. If you mean the writers and musicians and photojournalists who create media, it's an opportunity for distribution and collaboration unparalleled in the history of media. But if you're talking about the people who promote and distribute media - the record executives and PR people and publishing houses - the answer is: probably not good.

Taste tribes are based upon exactly that - taste. But record labels and publishers are based upon moving data, with no real concern as to the quality of that content. This works fine in a world dominated by the one-to-many model of media dissemination - but it's more problematic in the arena of taste tribes.
Read the whole thing. It's absolutely brilliant and - as a bonus - rather brutal to Britney Spears.