In this post I will discuss three of the essential parts in the filesharing debate.
*Consumers show a need that is not satisfied by the market,
*The intellectual property law needs to change.
*The need for control to maintain power.
———–

A Need

The filesharing is a result of improvements in technology and a need to share and be social with each other. When new technology emerges and it is superior to existing technology the market needs to adapt to the new needs of citizens in our digital society. People don’t want to wait another few days (or weeks) for the end of the show they are watching. A lot of people would rather enjoy music digitally right away instead of buying a CD and converting it themselves. People have a need to be spontaneous at home and deciding what movie they would like to see now instead of planning it beforehand or having to walk off to rent a movie somewhere.

Intellectual Property Law

As I see it copyright is a ”monologue” where people are meant to consume instead of participating in the further shaping of the copyrighted piece. This limits the communication and creativity that would otherwise take place. Before our digital age copyright had a good place in our society preventing physical copies to be made elsewhere which was directly damaging to the sales. Today when a technological change has made copying of digital material almost costless the old copyright law no longer applies in the same way it used to. The intellectual property law needs to change to reflect this but the established companies are happy with the profits from their old business model and do what they can to maintain this model. For society to adapt copyright to our digital age we need to either change intellectual copyright law or we are forced to change other existing rights such as Secrecy of Letters (Brevhemligheten), Source Protection (källskydd) and Mere Conduit.

A Need For Control

The filesharing debate is essentially about the right to knowledge and the sharing of it. Today knowledge-hoarders have power since they are the ones sitting on more knowledge than others have. With a bigger access to knowledge the society gets more equal. Inside larger corporations they have the possibilities of remixing each others work with that corporation. Having an opportunity of remixing leads to an increased creativity. The creation of copyright was meant to allow creativity but today it acts more as a restrictor of creativity. ”To discuss the actual conditions of creation, one should also discuss how the act of creation is done”

[Pics: Movie watching, CC-BY-NC-SA, julianrod / Leaf, CC-BY-ND, jaypeq21 / control, CC-BY-NC-ND, alphadesigner ]

For a further discussion around the need to change copyright take a look at my blog-post ”Copyright Worked In The Past But Not Anymore”
For more around the concept of copyright as a monologue listen to ”Larry Lessig on laws that choke creativity”.]

I’m reading a book called ”The Social Study of Information and Communication Technology”. One part of the book takes up an example that shows how a tool can be perceived very differently from a slight incident. They are unaware of the surveillance until they see it and they don’t like the spying on their every action even if they have nothing to hide.

”The case dealt with a fairly large application of Lotus Notes used for new product development within a worldwide team-based organization. Dedicated Notes applications were built to allow multidisciplinary and multinational teams to work jointly on common projects, regardless of distance between locations. Implementation of the new system was carried out according to a participative methodology, an incremental introduction of the system, and comprehensive training. Usage was immediate, ubiquitous, and successful. One day, however, a cheering message broadcasted over the network by a top marketing manager in London made every user realize that the new transparent platform could be deployed by headquarters as a powerful controlling eye, able to access any working document and local bulletin board of all the distant teams. Such a possibility made usage fall immediately and significantly. Attempts to revamp the system succeeded only when the applications were redesigned to replicate the pre-existing routines and organizational structures, thus losing much of the original innovative design, transparency, and collaboration opportunities.
This case provides evidence, among other things, about the ambiguity of new technology. Despite the careful planning and design, and the extensive training, the new groupware technology appeared to the user suddenly as an ambivalent, threatening stranger. The latent tensions between the professional dimension and the existential one exploded as a consequence of a small incident” (p. 26)

This story tells us a lot of useful things. One of the most significant ones being that the average user is very unaware of what the technique actually does and how it can be used until someone ”misuses” it. The surveillance of people is normally not a problem as long as they are not aware of it.

Another issue that becomes clear through this is that people are not comfortable sharing everything with others even if they have nothing to hide. Right now there is a lot of argument about not having to be afraid of surveillance unless you have something to hide. This is clearly not the case in this example.

The third thing we learn is how little is needed to shift the usage and opinions of people. Find the right thing to say and we can change everything instantly. One wrong (or right) thing to say changes the focus of the mass from seeing a productive and efficient tool to seeing a tool for controlling and spying.

The public space is important for people to have a space to live and feel free. Unfortunately with the progress of commercialism the public space is shrinking and becoming more sparse. What you can do in an open area is becoming more restricted at some places.

One example of the restriction of public space is that in Sweden (and many other places) we are not technically allowed to take pictures of what we want. I’m not sure of the exact details but I remember a lecture this spring with Staffan Teste, a copyright lawyer, that told us we were not allowed to take pictures of famous buildings (e.g. city hall) since the copyright was owned by the creator. Not being able to take pictures of what we want becomes a small problem.

If you walk by a mural or a graffiti piece you like it has copyright by creation that limits the use and spread of the pictures. This is probably against the will of the creator but we still have to find the creator and ask if it’s ok to use the picture since copyright is automatic. Even billboards and advertisements with a hint of creativity has copyright protection. Showing the pictures in this case is important for a high diffusion where as many as possible can take part of the pictures.

Another very interesting article I found the other day is about a guy that lost an eye in a hunting accident. He replaced the eye with a prosthetic eye that doubles as a video-camera. This raises a lot of interesting copyright issues about where he can go and what he can do if he constantly records everything. There is some very interesting comments in that post as well.

[pic: CC-BY-NC-ND Xavier Donat]

Time for an update for my readers about what kind of person I am and a few things that matter to me. I use Twitter a lot and the lists that people have put me in there summarize me pretty good. What I have not yet been able to be listed as is a dual-citizen (Swedish and American) and my love for traveling and exploring cultural patterns and local parts. I am also very found of organizational learning as well as how to improve the pedagogy in various fields. Transparency and entrepreneurship are two other fields that highly interest me. Most of the rest of the areas I have a burning interest for I have been listed for in Twitter.

A few of my twitter-listings:
Netpolitics
Sweden
Overseas
Advertising-Marketing-PR
SM-Internet
PR-Students
Public Relations
Jonkoping
Communications-Expert
Art-Design-Media
Advertising Folks
PR of Sweden
Creative Marketing
Design
Knowledge
Educators Sweden

Borrowing the title from a very famous book called ”The Inmates are Running the Asylum” by Alan Cooper. This book talks about the problem for normal people when all functions and digital objects work according to ”programmer logic” which might seem like the best and easiest way for them since their brains are already wired to think in that way. For the rest of the population it requires a learning curve instead of working intuitively. One example of how complicated some objects can be are the remote-controlled who usually are very confusing unless you’re used to that or a similar model already. Everyone interested in usability should definitely read Cooper’s book.

The reason I’m writing this post about usability and technocracy right now is the frustration from spending an hour yesterday trying to install a new version of Tweetdeck. The first and biggest problem I have is with Microsoft and their ”safe” Vista7 that doesn’t allow me to install what I want even though I’m the sole administrator and user of this computer. Microsoft has decided that the average user is better off with less control of their own computer and therefore it requires a lot of tweaking and looking to find the right settings if one wants to do something more advanced. The second problem I encountered was that I had to update Adobe Air, a program that is required to run Tweetdeck. This program runs in the background of Windows and is very hard to find and uninstall. It kept telling me I had the wrong version installed even though I tried several times to wipe it out completely and make a fresh install. Even though I am a fairly technical guy I never managed to fix it and gave up after all that time I wasted on trying. Now running Seesmic instead of Tweetdeck because it was too technical to fix the issues that arose…

I am very much against the control that Microsoft exerts over the user. Unfortunately Adobe has decided to not support Linux at this stage which forces me to use a desktop I don’t like to be able to use Photoshop and Illustrator:/ Another company I’m liking less and less is Apple and their Iphone. The phone is a brilliant product and very easy and good to use but it destroys the market for the rest of the smart phones. By being as dominant as Iphone is right now on the market, all the suppliers produce apps primarily for Iphone and then if they have the time and resources for other phones. This is an evil circle where Iphone gets more and more users due to their good apps and the increased number of users create an even bigger incentive for the suppliers to produce apps for Iphone primarily.

Tech rant. end.

[pic: CC-BY-NC-SA, ewar woowar]