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Katie Hallen -- About 150 tech geeks and policy wonks gathered at Google’s new D.C. office last Thursday to celebrate The Future of the Internet – And How To Stop It, Jonathan Zittrain’s new book out in April. The soiree, cosponsored by Harvard Law’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Family Online Safety Institute, featured a tripleheader – Zittrain plus Stanford Law’s Larry Lessig and one of the Internet fathers, Vint Cerf.
In the audience, it was button-down shirts and pinstripes intermingled with satirical Ts and washed jeans. In a way, the eclectic dress of Capitol Hill meets Silicon Valley provided visual symbolism for Zittrain’s book, which contrasts the Internet’s openness of yesteryear with the rising tide of lawmakers, courts, and even tech companies seeking to lock it down.
Zittrain argues that it was the “smiley geeks,” like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who helped set the Internet and home computers on a “generative” path that allowed virtually anyone (who could code software) to innovate, giving us new Web browsers, free encyclopedias, Internet phone calls, etc. Generative systems have thrived because they lack central control and depend on the goodwill of their participants.
Today, though, the generative model is threatened with the rise of locked appliances like the iPhone, Xbox and TiVo that prohibit innovation to their platforms from anyone except the manufacturer. Why the lock down? In large part, to protect the consumer from hackers seeking to wreak havoc and purloin sensitive data.
Lessig projected that a “9/11-type event over the Internet” where hackers take control and cause a massive shutdown could very well happen and warned the government likely has a Patriot Act for the Internet waiting in the wings – a prediction that made several geeks sitting near me at the event visibly cringe.
The answer? For one, a democratic Internet where constituencies are allowed to police themselves and encourage moderation within a system that thrives on decentralization. For more, the book is out April 14.
The Berkman Center at Harvard Law School is a 463 client.
Photo by Grant Hamilton
The good and connected Brooks Boliek at the Hollywood Reporter makes some educated guesses on who the next FCC Chair would be if either Senators Clinton or Obama are elected president.
For Clinton, Boliek hears that...
Susan Ness is the name bandied about among the tele-cognesceti. Ness, a former commissioner, has strong ties to the Clintons. She was a fundraiser and former campaign worker for President Clinton and has continued in that role actively campaigning for the senator. She has been named a "Hill Raiser" for raising more than $100,000 for Clinton and has been active in her campaign.
As for Obama...
...his campaign and Senate staffs are dotted with people who have close ties to the FCC. Connecting those dots, however, is Julius Genachowski, a former aide to Hundt and Kennard and a close friend of Obama's since they attended Harvard Law School....
Aside from commission experience, Genachowski was an executive at Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp. and a managing director at digital media specialist Rock Creek Ventures and is a special adviser to the private-equity group General Atlantic. (Ed note: Genachowski was Obama's representative at this year's Congressional Internet Caucus conference.)
"He got a lot of people interested in him early on," said Blair Levin, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus who was a top adviser to Hundt. "There are a lot of people there that would be terrific choices, just as there are in the other campaigns."
Levin has also been mentioned as a possibility, but he dodged the question when asked if he wanted the job.
Boliek also mentions: Obama policy director Karen Kornbluh, who also worked at the commission under Hundt and Kennard; Don Gipps, an FCC veteran who was former Vice President Al Gore's domestic policy adviser and is now a top executive at Level 3; and, Larry Stcikling, a former chief of the FCC Common Carrier Bureau and an Obama campaign worker.
Despite the Silicon Valley circular hype machine about Twitter for the last year, I have somehow managed to avoid getting sucked into the micro-micro blogging service. I do have a Twitter "handle" (seangarrettnow), but haven't done much with it (yet).
But, I do love one thing about Twitter: It's ability to serve as an insta-focus group. You can gauge reactions to any piece of reasonably big news (or anything else) via a third-party search service called "Tweet Scan". I wanted to see what the chattering classes thought of the (historic?) Obama speech on race today right as it ended, so I searched "Obama" and "speech" and dozens of dozens of instant reactions appeared. Here's the top several from a screen shot:
REM at this year's SXSW festival (photo by kk+)
Brendan P. Lewis – Through the miracles of life, I was lucky enough to attend SxSW this year for 463. More thoughts on the week, including SXSW Interactive, to come.
However, an interesting discussion took place today at the Mobility, Ubiquity and Monetizing Music panel, centering on what the future holds for compensating artists as technology advances and provides avenues for people to get music for free (read: illegally.)
Providing a backdrop for the conversation was an article in Wired today that outlined a suggestion of panelist Jim Griffin to “collect a fee from internet service providers -- something like $5 per user per month -- and put it into a pool that would be used to compensate songwriters, performers, publishers and music labels.”
The Pho list, the Dave Farber IP list and a niche of the blogosphere went mental.
Griffin has been accused in said venues of suggesting a “tax” or “surcharge” on broadband to compensate those various parties, and he was quick to dispel that notion. He said he didn’t favor a tax or government involvement, but rather a network licensing model to combat a growing sentiment that paying for music had become voluntary, rendering the music industry’s economic model one that “operates on a tip-jar.” He also went on to say that the Internet, specifically bandwidth, is not the only cause of the illegal distribution of music. Another culprit, if you will, is storage. Said Griffin, “You can carry a 500GB hard drive and carry more music than an entire record store that just went out of business.”
That sentiment was quickly echoed by Sandy Pearlman of McGill University who outlined his vision of the “Paradise of Infinite Storage,” which he feels will enable anyone to be able to store every piece of recorded music – ever. While that might seem a bit far-fetched to some, there’s no questioning that storage capacity is increasing and prices dropping to the point where that scenario is more and more plausible. The real blame for a “loss of control” of music, according to Pearlman, is the record industry executives themselves. “The people who control the assets have failed to be good stewards of those assets,” said Pearlman. “Artists should have filed class actions lawsuits against their record labels for failing to be good stewards. (Because of their failure to act in good faith) control of music has slipped away.”
Lost in the blame-game is the artists themselves – who are creating music and not getting properly compensated for their wares. The answer, according to lawyer Dina LaPolt is for record labels to build brands around bands and seeking new venues to merchandise.
While that may work for the Hannah Montana’s and other “musicians” of the world – I find that last point pretty ironic as hundreds of young, start up bands have descended upon Austin to showcase their music. One would hope that the majority of them are in it for the craft, not to build a brand. And while solutions to compensate them range from suing college students, to technological filters, to a service-based subscription model – it seems pretty clear that while record industry themselves are twiddling their thumbs trying to come up with a model to “monetize” new forms of music distribution, the sentiment of “paying for music is voluntary” is taking greater root among a younger generation that will think it the norm.
Katie Hallen -- Consumer Electronics Association President & CEO Gary Shapiro told the Detroit Economic Club last Monday that free trade and innovation held the key to the economic resurgence of the city and its auto industry. (Video of the speech is here).
The Detroit Free Press reported that Shapiro said in the speech:
"It is true that free trade hurts some people in the short term -- but we must look at the big picture and what's best for our nation. An American worker who lost her manufacturing job may assume it was lost to someone overseas. Indeed, protectionists repeatedly talk about the 3 million manufacturing jobs our nation has lost in the last decade. But what about all the jobs open markets and free trade have created?...
"Detroit leading the opposition to this agreement only reinforces the perception that Detroit automakers cannot compete. Imagine if Detroit was to come out in favor of free trade. Say, 'Hit me with your best shot.' The world's perception of Detroit would change."
Shapiro’s message to Detroit was important for those in the community beaten down by union and political leaders blaming the city’s woes on globalization and free trade agreements. In a speech last month, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger deemed a free trade agreement with South Korea the “theft of American jobs.”
As Shapiro pointed in an accompanying Detroit Free Press op-ed:
“Detroit has all the ingredients for a successful turnaround: a highly skilled workforce, a modern international hub airport, and a surplus of reasonably priced housing, commercial and industrial space.”
America’s innovation boom, driven in large part by trade and globalization, has created 25 million U.S. jobs.
In recent weeks, trade – particularly NAFTA – has emerged as a hotly contested subject in the presidential debates, with most of the tension focusing on jobs. You might have heard a mention or two of NAFTA in Ohio (not so much in Texas, where trade is seen as a benefit to the economy).
This undercurrent of protectionism challenges America’s very place as a global superpower in a flatter world. Free traders say America should compete and win, while protectionists want to rescind free trade agreements and close our borders to imports and exports alike.
With the national debate seesawing on this conflict of global competitiveness versus isolationism, it’s particularly noteworthy that Detroit takes center stage. FDR, in a 1940 fireside chat coined Detroit “the great arsenal of democracy.” He was referring to the auto industry manufacturing weaponry for World War II soldiers. But historians have since adopted the phrase to explain America’s transition from an isolated nation to a global purveyor of democracy.
Trade in my mind is intrinsic to democracy. Economic mercantilism (essentially what Dobbsian protectionists want) historically has led to imperialism. It’s a lesson we should keep in mind as we forge our new economy.
Note: CEA is a 463 client.
You may have seen today that Facebook hired Google executive Sheryl Sandberg to be the social network's COO.
There is notable relevance to this move in these tech policy parts. First, in the press release announcing the move, Facebook noted that she would be in charge of "public policy". This isn't some empty throw-on responsibility for Sandberg. It's safe to predict that it won't be long before Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly has some extra help and we're not writing about the company making a single hire in DC.
First off, before she was at Google, she was Chief of Staff to the U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton. She carried this DC experience to Google where she was one of the few executives there openly and actively involved in politics. For example, she is a big supporter of Hillary Clinton and has frequently served as host to policy makers on their visits to the Googleplex.
Sandberg should be able to serve as a forceful voice for policy engagement at Facebook. She's certainly seen the movie before at Google.
Sandberg will also likely carry over a philanthropic bent to her new job. She was instrumental in starting Google's foundation and rolls in the Davos-elite circles. (You can envision Bono getting a Facebook page soon).
