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Natalie Fonseca at Tech Policy Summit passed along this photo of National Journal's Andrew Noyes and I blogging furiously in LA last week. Andrew rocks, his blog is a must-read, and to top it off he's an R.E.M. fan.
Back safely ensconced in the Eastern Time Zone, I can finally say a few things and "exhale."
- Do not Red-Eye if you can help it. If you must, follow Andrew Noyes' lead and take VirginAmerica. I know I'm going to check it out.
- Conferences are much more fun to cover when they are focused. I enjoyed the networking and atmosphere at SXSW in general, but in terms of things to write about, the guys at Tech Policy Summit put on a great event. Pretty much every issue that I care about and I try to bring to you, the loyal and stalwart readers, was touched on in some way. I can't wait for next year's. Not only is it in the Bay Area and closer to many of the players, it means I can crash on Alex's floor.
- So far the great wireless experiment has been great. All those photos you can see on Flickr have been uploaded without the use of a single cable, in almost real time. The Eye-Fi isn't without problems, but my set-up has allowed for some cool things. I'll do a better write-up on it this weekend since several people asked about it.
A few shout-outs. Natalie Fonseca and Marc Licciardi at TPS arranged my getting there and helped me out while I was covering their great event, along with Cathy Rought from Dittus Communications, who was invaluable in putting me in touch with some great people to talk to. Mozelle Thompson and Alec Ross were great sports about getting back-to-back questioning in panels, and Jon Taplin was his usual fantastic self.
Special thanks go to my interview subjects, including Jim Williams, Brian Knapp, Prith Banerjee and Gary Fazzino, as well as the incredible Craig Newmark.
Andrew Noyes gave some good placement to our photo coverage at Tech Daily Dose, and Adam Theirer was so impressed with our coverage he didn't even bother to do any blogging himself. Plus, he had possibly the best, brightest green sport jacket I've ever seen yesterday. We have proof!
If I missed you, yell at me appropriately. Back to work.
Tonight we'll recap Day 2 of the Tech Policy Summit over at Blog Talk Radio.
So head on over to www.blogtalkradio.com/Capitol-Valley at 9pm Pacific/ 12am Eastern and listen live.
Even better idea? Call us at 347-945-5989 and let us know what's up.
So head on over to www.blogtalkradio.com/Capitol-Valley at 9pm Pacific/ 12am Eastern and listen live.
Even better idea? Call us at 347-945-5989 and let us know what's up.
Andrew Keen, Author of Cult of the Amateur
Gregg Spiridellis, JibJab CEO
Jonathan Taplin, USC
There is some discussion of a "Copyright tax" to allow more free trade of content and compensate copyright holders.
I've missed a whole bunch of this, but I walked in to hear Jonathan Taplin talk about the DMCA as the "Lawyer's Preservation Act."
Keen thinks there would be a massive user rebellion over the tax. Spiradellis thinks that content is a communications tool, and that they won't pay for "linear content" like TV shows but they will pay for things like e-cards.
Keen: Most blogs suck, the vast majority of content is awful. We have less time and more things to do.
Taplin says that the current content model is monetizing based on directed and CPM, and that may work and may not work.
I'm sorry, but I can't keep up. That's it for TPS 2008. I'll be in DC in the morning, possibly a podcast with Alex tonight.
Even Andrew Noyes has checked out. I'm hanging in there.
"Leading the Way in Broadband Innovation: What Should the US Strategy Be?"
Ambassador Richard Russell, President's office on Science and Technology Policy
Milo Medin - CTO, M2Z Networks
Susan Crawford, Visiting Professor, Yale Law School
Joe Waz, VP of External Affairs and Public Policy, Comcast
Quick hit and run liveblogging:
Crawford - Broadband is not Internet Access. We've failed to have an industrial policy pushing access, we have no competition, and that "Shamu and Godzilla" are battling with bundles. Internet Access is a utility like electricity, sewers, etc.
Waz - Cable is a historical accident: CATV was originally built to bring TV signals to people who couldn't get it. He thinks wireless will lead to competition, and that we're gonna have multiple wireline providers "trying to beat the tar out of each other." Docsis 3.0 is being spurred by Verizon FiOS. Bundles are pushing adoption (cites Triple Play).
Moderator Wildstrom asks if there is a contradiction between the idea of competition and the idea of Internet as a monopoly. Punts to Crawford, who believes that this is a natural monopoly, and that 700mhz as a "third pipe" is a pipe dream (my words, not hers). She believes whoever provides access should be considered a utility. Calls Comcast a bandwidth hog for using their bandwidth for TV.
Medin calls her idea "a travesty."
Russell also disagrees. Two ways to look at problem: a) one heavily regulated carrier or b) multiple providers and have marketplace competing at multiple levels in different ways. Right now? We have the worst of both worlds in competition between cable and telcos, but not alot. All networks, except FiOS are retrofitted to carry the Internet. Hard to hit a Gigabit with Wireless, but some people would rather have ubiquity than higher speeds (like me!).
Russell wants a 4th and 5th pipe somehow, and believes that would drive prices down dramatically.
Crawford says by a utility, she means non-discrimination.
Waz responds to the "bandwidth hog" comment by saying that must-carry is a bandwidth hog. DOCSIS 3.0 will allow more channel bonding. Crawford agrees, but as an Internet provider, TV is still a bandwidth hog (she says).
Wildstrom: Do we need Universal Service for Broadband?
Russell: Universal Service is good, but can be cautionary tale because it could deter new market entrants who aren't getting subsidy.
Wildstrom: No excuse for huge POTS Universal Service fund.
Medin agrees, and says that we should target infrastructure by geographic need.
Crawford has hope for White Spaces, despite her skepticism on wireless.
Russell: Hybrid systems could be a solution for rural areas. The developing world is going wireless. Poorest slums in Kenya are filled with mobile phones, it's the first thing people buy.
Waz: Why are we talking about Net Neutrality instead of fixing "digital divide?" Net Neutrality and FCC involvement is irrelevant. He wants the "fine minds of Palo Alto" on rural access.
Crawford: Why not make rural access open? Why can't we have both?
Medin: Traffic shaping dates back to NSFNet, not new at all. Question w/ management is "what is the goal?"
Crawford is wary of the network operators having too much control...refers to common carrier system. Medin thinks that's crap. His solution to Net Neutrality is to have more networks! "Competition can discipline the system..." Notes that FCC grants tons of waivers to licensees who don't build out.
Russell: what we want to avoid is anticompetitive behavior, and the FCC is doing a good job of being "the cop on the beat..."
Wildstrom: Authors of '96 Telecommunications Act thought they were creating competion. Why did that fail? Was it killed by anticompetitive behavior?
Waz: You don't expect someone to share something they built that would result in their own demise...put a ten year freeze on voice over cable. Government needs to "clear the way"
Crawford agrees that the protracted litigation around '96 Act killed it, but the separation between the content and the provider was a good idea.
Medin: '96 Act was a compromise, engineers don't like compromise. Compromising on engineering leads "crap for policy...cutting the baby in half."
Russell: Remember the '96 Act took 10 years to write, should have been called the '86 Act. Had way too much to do with Long Distance and wrongly believed that competition could exist by everyone sharing the same 80 year old copper wire.
Crawford: The '96 hardly mentions the 'net except for the defunct CDA.
Russell asks Crawford if because of uncertainty on FCC's interpretation of Title I of '96 Act, people aren't writing code. Crawford segues into a Net Neutrality argument, but Medin cuts her off and notes that lots of business are getting funded that depend on networks, and if someone does something egregious, it'll get dealt with by competition. Medin is still arguing for more pipes..."if you don't like Comcast, jump on FiOS."
That's it for this panel...one more to go, let's see if I can survive.
Talking with Declan McCullough, Ashwin Navin scored a few cool points. He noted that many companies are using BT distribution to distribute legitimate content, and at Declan's prodding, takes issue with the earlier claim that most P2P traffic is pirated.
For the company itself, it's still small. 55 employees, no Washington lobbyists. They want to sell their technology to companies who want to make P2P a higher margin part of their business.
Navin believes that P2P will be adopted by people who need to save money on distributing video, and they're still "working through" the cloud of illegality from Grokster, and that companies like Yahoo can use BT to distribute content.
What does Navin see the role of Congress being? He answers that if Ed Markey called him to ask help in writing a bill, he'd be the wrong guy. He goes back to the fact that they're about the technology. He's not going to hire lobbyists, but will allow Google, etc to work the Government Relations front.
When I asked him if it was irresponsible to allow others to "carry his water" by not hiring lobbyists and letting other companies do the heavy lifting if needed, Navin was actually rather honest in his self-assessment, saying that yes, it could be irresponsible or naive, but the gist of his argument was that he's going to let the product speak for itself, and that it's "breaking down barriers." For instance, kids in China knew who he was when he visited recently. I'm not sure how that fits in, but if he's brave enough to let the software do the talking and not take a proactive approach like say, loopt, (see my interview with Brian Knapp posted earlier) especially in spite of P2P's history, well, more power to him.
Other questions were more technical in nature dealing with the recently settled Comcast issue, and one questioner pointed out the MPAA's idiotic statement that the Comcast settlement was a "step in combatting online piracy," and asked Navin how the agreement would fight privacy. He had no idea.
Navin added that BT plans to work with ISPs, content providers, IETF, and pretty much everyone in the "spirit of openness." He envisions the network as being less asymmetric, and I think that's a pretty optimistic prediction. Other suggestions included hardware-based solutions for bandwidth issues and copyright problems like Akamai's software.
When asked if ISPs could sit on BT streams and identify pirated content, Navin alluded to the fact that if an ISP and a copyright holder had a deal, it is technically feasible for an ISP to watch BT packets.
Jonathan Taplin asked if he's exaggerated the ease that Cable companies could have a symmetrical network. Navin had no idea about the cost and ease (he cites Brian Roberts of Comcast saying it would be done) but emphasizes the importance of open dialogue with ISPs.
Navin did say that identifying infringing torrent content would be quite costly in response to a question from McCullough. What he sees, though, is that rights-holders will embrace content-recognition and P2P technology that will enable new business models, not just takedown notices. In Navin's future, piracy will disappear because the free flow of video we have now will be monetized to the point that it will become a non-issue.
Next, Declan brought up the idea of blanket licenses, and Navin was not adverse to a "Rhapsody-style" license that would not "criminalize the vast majority of people in the United States..."
Good job by both.
Brian Knapp is Chief Privacy Officer for loopt, the "mobile social networking" company recently promoted by Sprint-Nextel and Boost Mobile using those adds with people wearing fat suits floating in swimming pools. Knapp describes loopt as "a mashup of google maps and twitter..." (a thousand web 2.0 marketers heads just exploded, but he's pretty spot on, actually).
We took advantage of some downtime here at TPS to talk about his service, why it's cool, semantic games like "tracking" versus "location sharing", and, most importantly, how entreprenerus and innovators with potentially controversial technologies can get out in front of the doomsayers, horror stories and local news anchors. I'm very impressed by "where he's at" on how tech entrepreneurs can deal with Washington. Finally, a company that has the right idea.
I feel bad because I still haven't written up the SXSW Child Protection panel, but here I am again at a great panel on the same subject.
Moderated by CBS' Larry Magid (who wrote a book on Prodigy that I read when I was 7 years old and using my parents computer), this one features (Left to Right in the above picture) Rachel O'Connell of Bebo, Hemanshu Nigam, Chief Security Officer of MySpace, Joan Irvine, CEO of the Association of Sites Advocating the Protection of Children, and Adam Theirer, Senior Fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation (and one of our loyal, awesome CV readers).
One of the first topic to come up was how many child protection issues come up across borders in Web 2.0. Ms. O'Connell pointed out that the distinction between the online and offline world has blurred significantly in social media, and we need to stay up to speed on how young people use these technologies and make sure they are used in a positive way. She wants to mitigate risk, instead of taking the attitude that risks can be eliminated. Very smart.
One concern she brought up (keep in mind she's from the UK) is cyber-bullying and social exploitation using offline information, and used a triangle metaphor for securing information:
Location - What are the laws and social circumstances?
Users - emotional and mental health support for some
Mitigation of Misuse - get the message across to ill-doers that they are not anonymous.
Magid segued into while Web 1.0 was about protecting kids from bad adults, Web 2.0 has young people as the bad guys. Examples - Cyber Bullying, "Child created child pornography," etc. How do we deal with this?
Nigam (MySpace) said that "we don't want to compete on safety" and are working with everyone. He said that users need to be educated, and in a way that matters to them. Also, they want to educate non-users (parents). Right now, MySpace is running a campaign to get parents to talk to kids about online safety. It drives traffic to experts on these issues, such as their MySpace Safety website, which educates about things like what to post and what not to post (and that it's forever), Cyber bullying, etc.
"Education has to be relevant to the users you are trying to reach" -- Hemanshu Nigam
Adam Thierer pointed out that a vast majority of "solication" is "teen-on-teen" and that we shouldn't be so shocked. Adam suggests developing methods for intervention when it escalates from what used to be in the hallway to being full-fledged bullying and harassment.
Magid revisited the idea of Government regulation, and asked the panel what the role of Government should be in protecting children.
Ms. O'Connell (Bebo) pointed out that Gordon Brown (PM of Great Britain) has commissioned a psychologist to figure out what the real risks are, if the media is exaggerating the risks, and finding out if there is even a need of intervention. Her report came back (possibly today) and said that many of the doomsday scenarios are propagated by media, and that private industry's solutions are working. The role of the government should be to monitor and to possibly set standards for educating certain professionals, like teachers.
"If we are to educate young people...the department of education has a duty of care to...educate teachers...there is a positive role for government..."
Magid again plays devils advocate and asks what the response is to the constant calls for more regulation. Mr. Nigam hits back and says that the most important role the Government can play is to enforce the laws that already exist. Some money quotes/excerpts:
"A crime is a crime is a crime...enforce the laws against the criminals."
"It is easy...to create fear...it is a much more honourable task to inspire dialogue..."
He points out that one law that is needed is mandatory online education, and that only two states have mandatory online education laws.
When Mr. Nigam was questioned by a father about an incident when a "friend" copied his daughter's information and gave it to a predator after his daughter had taken her site down. He claims the FBI believes he should be suing MySpace, and asked what MySpace is doing to prevent this kind of "mirroring" or "identify theft." Nigam noted that MySpace has options to prevent some copying and privacy settings, and that the legal responsibility probably lies with the third party. He also (correctly) stressed that this another example of a need for education. Nigam is totally on top of this. "If someone calls you and tries to kill you, you call the police, not sue the phone company."
Magid wrapped things up by pointing out that there is information that maybe he wouldn't put online himself, and education is definitely a solution.
Great panel. Hopefully more from some of the panelists later.
Another artfully moderated Steve Wildstrom panel.
L-R: Jim Davis (CIO, UCLA), Zahavah Levine (Chief Counsel, Youtube), Vance Ikezoye (CEO, Audible Magic), Jim Williams (SVP/CTO, MPAA)
This panel on the DMCA looked to be an angry one, but turned out to be pretty civil.
Interesting fact, YouTube has proprietary technology for identifying copyrighted works.
Everyone seemed to agree that on the whole, the DMCA has been good, but the trend towards "pre-litigation litgation" has been frustrating, but irrelevant from a consumer standpoint. Interestingly, it has pulled Universities (as ISPs) into the middle, but allowed them to influence a new aspect of education on copyrights and IP.
Wildstrom brought up the anti-circumvention rules, and noted that as a consumer, if he buys a DVD, he wants to watch it how he wants to (not reproduce it), and mentioned the common law right of first sale. If he wants to watch a DVD on his MacBook Air without an optical drive, how can he do that without breaking the DMCA?
Jim Williams from the MPAA said that the problem wasn't DRM or DMCA, but the lack of foresight on the part of those who created the DVD standard over ten years ago. He pointed out that Blu-Ray's encryption (AACS) lets you make "managed copies" and should fix this problem.
DMCA is ten years old. Wildstrom asked what the panel would change in copyright law.
Levine (YouTube) would allow for easier grants of blanket licenses on a mass scale due to the structure of the music rights in the U.S. You need recording rights, the composition rights which is almost impossible and the way the publishing industry developed (performing versus reproducing versus distributing). She noted that a webcaster needs a license for the streamed copy, publishing rights, and a performance license for the streaming. There is also no database of who owns what music. In contrast, Radio broadcasters have compulsory licenses for mechanical royalties, and zero performance royalties. Levine thinks compulsory licenses would be a good idea, and let more musicians get paid.
Williams (MPAA) said they don't want any more compulsory licenses and want to roll back a few by systems by which people can do business depending on the content. He'd also like to see more legal incentive for ISPs to do more about "massive, large-scale infringement" and seemed to call out Jim Davis from UCLA, asking how much of his network was used for P2P sharing. He also claimed that if you filter out copyrighted works, almost all P2P network traffic disappears, and the internet is "clogged with stolen goods....with free riders that are hogging bandwidth and taking it away from legitimate consumers." He also appeared to criticize Richard Lynch from Verizon for screening out Child Porn but not policing P2P traffic for infringing content, and called for ISPs to "unclog the internet." When I challenged him on this comparison, he backed up and said that there were good uses for P2P, and efforts should be made to stop the illegal uses. I'm not sure that I was entirely fair because the issue is one that got me rather annoyed, and my question may have been a bit too pointed (I quoted Joseph Welch. Maybe that was a bit over the line.) Mr Williams later asked if we could speak later on the subject, and I agreed because I want to be fair, so we should have an interview with him up soon. He was very eager to get his message across, and I suspect that we'll have a much more productive conversation outside of a "sound-byte" environment.
Wildstrom noted that many TV shows can't get onto DVD because of problems with music rights (I want the Wonder Years! Now!). This is a problem, and he noted that only a tiny fraction of movies are available because of this. He said that "less would get stolen if more were available legally." Applause line.
With regard to the TV Music problem, after Wildstrom pointed out that rights to a ton of music from the 60's is still in litigation, Vance Ikezoye from Audible Magic chimed in and said that there are efforts in place to develop technology to create and maintain a database of rights ownership, since records of publishing rights are scattered to the winds.
Jim Davis added that a reason that many Universities don't block content is because they can educate rather than enforce, and that a lot of P2P content is both legal and useful. Ms. Levine pointed out that after they remove videos they get lots of angry users who don't understand copyright law, and that citizens aren't being trained in copyright law in a social media age. With their filtering technology, they don't use it to just block videos blindly, because they need to collaborate with content owners to find out who owns what and what rights the owners will give users. Many users of their identification technology let them monetize their content, not blocking it. Very cool, and very Web 2.0
