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Months ago, I got this very cool Sprint-MotoQ phone as a gift. I can’t use it, having tied myself to another bundled phone and network (scandal, I know). I’m happy to send it ($420 retail value), free, in its original package, unopened, to the 100th person to email me at this address with the subject line: “Keep the net neutral!,” and complete mailing instructions inside. (Multiple emails from the same email address will be removed.)
Embrace the irony, always.
We’ve got a winner. Thanks for the replies. And fear not: the addresses/names will be deleted. Continue reading →

In an interview after YearlyKos, DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga was keen to avoid making himself less relevant (“I can’t imagine any way to make myself less relevant today than to come out” and announce his choice for the presidency he told the Times). But there are times when we all have a duty to make ourselves a bit less relevant (I know, assuming a fact not in evidence). This is one for me, prompted by Senator Clinton’s vigorous defense of lobbyists, now supported by the Wall Street Journal.
It should be no surprise that I’ve been a Clinton skeptic for sometime now. As I said at a keynote at PDF , those of us in the free culture movement have lots to be skeptical about. Some of the worst changes in copyright law came under the watch of her husband (Sonny Bono Act, DMCA, NET Act). She’s made no statements that I’m aware of to suggest she has any different view from her husband’s. She was also the only major Democratic candidate not to endorse the idea of free presidential debates. Of all the Dems, I would have bet she was closest to the copyright extremists. So far, she’s done nothing to suggest to the contrary.
But that skepticism could have been erased. As important as I believe those issues are, they are obvious not the most important. What is, in my view, most important is a candidate with a clear understanding of the corruption that is Washington. (Again, not corruption in the bribe sense. But corruption in the economy of influence sense I’ve described before.)
After her comments on the lobbyists, it is clear enough that Senator Clinton has no such clear view. Indeed, quite to the contrary: were she elected, we’d get more of the “let me do enough to suggest I think this matters but not so much as to make a change” we’ve seen for 30 years. And if this election is to matter, this is precisely the sort of view that we need to defeat.
“The idea,” Senator Clinton said, “that a contribution is somehow going to influence you …” Right. That’s precisely the idea. Not always. Not fundamentally. But obviously (isn’t it? Or is the relationship between contributions and votes so brilliantly mapped on MAPLight just an amazing coincidence?) on the margins, when interests are strong and opposition oblivious, “contributions … influence” judgments that otherwise would have been different. That, at least sometimes, is the problem.
The problem is not, as Clinton seemed to suggest, that anyone believes that lobbyists are evil. Of course they are not evil. Lobbyists are often among the best educated, hardest working, most sophisticated people in Washington. They know their stuff. They are fantastic at conveying the message. They are typically decent, polite and honorable people. They are not in any sense corrupt, any more than lawyers, or press secretaries, or union stewards are corrupt. They have a job; it is to persuade. The people who succeed in that job succeed because they are good at what they do.
But just because a system is populated with good people does mean the system itself is not corrupt. And the problem with this system is the way it obviously queers good judgment when so much effort by politicians must be devoted to raising money in order to keep your job.
Put differently, if there were a way to fund campaigns that wouldn’t create the stain of corruption, we would still need (and want) lobbyists. Their job would be simply to make policymakers aware of the interests they represent. But just because your job is to educate politicians, it doesn’t mean you have to be able to give politicians money.
This is the (extraordinarily obvious) point the Wall Street Journal missed when it chimed in yesterday in support of the Senator. As the Journal wrote:

Her answer was met with jeers, but what Mrs. Clinton was daring to tell her left-wing audience is that lobbyists are an essential means by which average Americans transmit their political concerns to Washington, and in turn hold their elected Representatives accountable. Not everyone in America can afford to trek to D.C., or has the clout to demand an audience with a Senator. Lobbyists represent the collective voice of groups with shared ideals, whether they be gun owners, union workers, corporate employees or the pro-choice movement.

Just the sort of reasoning that makes that page so famous: Look, lawyers represent their clients before a judge. Does it follow from that that judges must be free to take money from lawyers? Even just to redecorate their office?
I don’t doubt that at one level, Senator Clinton believes — like every politician who takes money in a campaign, or every law professor who takes money to testify for some policy or another — that her judgments are not being influenced by that money. But I also can’t believe that she doesn’t also understand that at some level, this simply can’t be true. A good politician develops a 6th sense about how her actions will play. Some of these reactions we want her to be sensitive to — that’s why this is a democracy. But it impossible to believe that politicians spending 40% to 70% of their time raising funds to get elected don’t begin to factor into their decisions a sense about how their decisions will burden their opportunities to raise money. Not that it always trumps. But like water in a basement, it obviously eventually corrodes. Continue reading →

I’m grateful for the replies to my disclosure statement and statement of principle. Some of these have led me to reform — in an important way — at least one part of the statement. I’ve reposted the statement in the extended entry below, but the key difference is in response to a great point made by Stuart Ballard. Doesn’t my rule, he asks, create perverse incentives? A simple way for an opponent to silence me — donate to, e.g., CC?
I plead humility as the only defense to this obvious omission: It never occurred to me that anyone would waste their money in that way. And while I believe the chance that an opponent would waste their money to silence me is tiny, I do hope that the NC principle becomes common, adopted by people for whom such an expenditure wouldn’t be a waste. I’ve therefore modified the principle as it applies to indirect donations — meaning donations to entities that indirectly benefit someone because they make him or her materially better off, or lessen a duty he or she has to those institutions: With respect to those donations, I will either not recommend a policy, or if I do, I will disclose the benefit.
This reformulation is in apparent tension with my rejection of disclosure generally. But as I see it now, this is the simplest way to avoid the (wholly unlikely) perverse incentive.
There were other useful comments, some of which I address here:
SethF: “not a disclosure statement.” Ok, how about a disclosure statement and a statement of principle.
redpop has a nice point about other influences which, s/he rightly observes, may also bend a policy recommendations. As s/he writes, “You seem to imply, for example, that you will, push someone else’s work if they push yours, regardless of whether you would otherwise do so.” If that is implied, I don’t mean the implication. We all have an obligation to be true to our principles. The general practice we adopt to police that obligation, however, is laissez faire. The NC principle is one compromise on that laissez faire approach — a rule that limits the potential for one kind of influence. But of course, one should avoid any inappropriate influence. In the list I spoke of in my original post, some influences I think are totally appropriate. Some are not. My only point is I’m not creating an additional rule to ferret the one from the other — beyond, again, money.
Jardinero1 thought his point not good enough without wrapping it in sarcasm. I disagree. He asks a very good question: “Which brings me to my point Professor: Who cares why you or anyone else shills?” First, my target is not me (alone). It is a profession(s). So why should we care “why … anyone else shills?” Great question, which goes the heart of what I see as the corruption here. We should avoid influences, in my view, that have nothing to do with the merits of the question at issue. For example: Imagine a doctor told you that you should try risky drug X for your life threatening condition. In my view, you should care whether your doctor is a stock holder in the company making the drug. Why? Because deciding what treatment is good for you is hard enough without the doctor weighing into the balance (or trying not to weigh into the balance) his own personal financial wellbeing. The same with professors. The same with politicians. All are called upon to make hard judgments. The extra-complexity of self-interest will not help them make those judgments well.
Which leads to the second point: In my view, if, e.g., a doctor recommends a drug, or even pushes the drug because he believes in it, so long as s/he has followed the NC principle, it is not “shilling.” In my view, a distinction must be drawn. Failing to draw such a distinction — by calling everything “shilling” — is a cover for more corruption.
Dan Collier asks about retirement benefits: “If so, statements about Google Books, for example, may directly impact Google share prices and indirectly effect your investments.” True enough. I don’t hold stock in individual companies. If I did, I would consider the same limitation to apply.
anon asks whether my list of board memberships was complete. It wasn’t, but now is. I’ve been a bad board member of MusicBrainz, and my guilt led me to forget it in the list. But the project is fantastic and shouldn’t be forgotten. My apologies.
I’ll think about this more as I read more. The disclosure and statement will be linked from my contact tab. Thanks again for the help.
extended entry Continue reading →

So I spend a great deal of my time insisting that my work, and the work of others in my “movement,” is about promoting something other than “piracy.” And indeed, I was in the middle of explaining exactly that to ARTE TV here in Germany when my cover was completely blown. Check out circa 5:10 in the video linked at the bottom of this page or download it here. (Thanks, Michael!)… Continue reading →

This letter was sent to the RNC today:

May 16, 2007
Honorable Mel Martinez
Chairman
Republican National Committee
310 First Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003
Dear Chairman Martinez:
I have watched with interest the growing effort to urge the Republican and Democratic National Committees to open the debate process by making the footage from the Presidential debates available to the public – by permitting anyone to reuse the footage in whole or in part with attribution or by placing the footage in the public domain.
The process of selecting our representative government is perhaps the most important function we, as Americans, carry out in our democracy. It is imperative that the process to do so is as public, and as transparent as possible.
Following on the heels of this week’s Republican Debate in South Carolina, I am writing to urge you to give new consideration to the bi-partisan request you have received requesting access to the debates. I believe this effort is important to our democracy, and I am reaching across the partisan divide to join Senators Obama and Dodd, and former Senator Edwards in asking the parties to assist in opening the process to the people.
I was encouraged that CNN recently announced it would make the footage from its debates available immediately following the conclusion of the debate.
Due to the historical nature of presidential debates and the significance of these forums to the American public, CNN believes strongly that the debates should be accessible to the public. The candidates need to be held accountable for what they say throughout the election process.
The presidential debates are an integral part of our system of government, in which the American people have the opportunity to make informed choices about who will serve them. Therefore, CNN debate coverage will be made available without restrictions at the conclusion of each live debate. We believe this is good for the country and good for the electoral process.
I could not agree with this more. I hope that other networks will follow suit and give these debates life beyond the moment. It is unfortunate that activists currently fear running afoul of copyright laws and may hesitate before using footage from these debates to advocate on behalf of their candidate.
These debates are a part of our political discourse. While the networks do the nation a great service by hosting and broadcasting them, the issues and ideas are bigger than the networks that carry them, and deserve a life beyond their air date.
Recently, I began working with the Capitol Hill Broadcasting Network (www.chbn.com) in an effort to bring attention and transparency to our government. CHBN provides a platform, similar to YouTube, for elected officials, candidates, public policy advocates, and others to engage in discussion and debate of the important issues facing our nation. CHBN is dedicated to making our government accessible to the people, and as CNN suggested, holding our government accountable to the people.
I ask that you do the same. I urge you to put the weight of the Republican National Committee behind the effort to free the debates. Urge the networks carrying Republican debates, and the candidates seeking the highest office in the land, to make the footage available to the people.
Thanks for your consideration of this matter and your stewardship of our party.
Sincerely,
Robert L. Livingston
Member of Congress (Retired)

Continue reading →

C-Span has announced that it will make “video of congressional hearings white house and other federal events” available under a license that requires ATTRIBUTION, and limited to NONCOMMERCIAL use. The press release indicates C-Span will “borrows from the approach to copyright known in the online community as ‘Creative Commons.'”

We’re happy to share.

Should they be even more liberal? The Kos says yes. More of course would be better. But first steps are progress, and deserve sincere praise. Continue reading →

As reported on Boing Boing, Oort-Cloud is “is a new “social publishing” experiment for science fiction.” Late last month, hafoc donated a character, Lance Steele, to the community (and world using a …).

I’m told by Paul Hartzog that the one hole in the Oort-Cloud genius (licensing) will be fixed in the summer. Continue reading →

Two friends of Creative Commons have been nominated for won an Oscar: Board member Davis Guggenheim‘s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (husband of Christiane Henckel von Donnersmarck, original director of Creative Commons International)’s film, The Lives of Others.

Friends are to inspire. And so they have. Continue reading →

The Net’s ablaze with talk about Steve Job’s call for the end of DRM for music. That is really fantastic news and contrary to what many of us had believed he believed. For one feature (from Apple’s perspective) of DRM is that it ties iTunes to Apple devices. No DRM would end that tie as well.

So bravo to Apple and Steve Jobs. About this I am happy to be proven wrong. But then here’s a simple next step: There are artists on iTunes whose creative work is Creative Commons licensed. Colin Mutchler is one. When his stuff first went into iTunes, he requested the DRM be turned off. The request was refused. But if no-DRM is Apple’s preferred policy, then let them begin here. Continue reading →

University of Georgia Professor Paul Heald has been working for a long time to understand the right balance in copyright. He’s got a fantastic new empirical study posted at SSRN that evaluates the effect on access from work passing into the public domain. Recall one argument for extending a copyright term is that it gives the copyright owner incentives to keep old works alive. Heald tests this hypothesis by looking at the availability of best sellers after the pass into the public domain.

The study is interestingly rich, and the conclusions are interestingly contingent. But the bottom line for books is that a work’s passing into the public domain increases access at a lower price. Or put differently: if you want to make sure the classics are preserved, the public domain is a good tool to do just that.

The paper has not been published yet. But consistent with the ideals of science, Heald is making all the data freely available so others can test the hypothesis. The data is being housed at Science Commons just now. So download (paper/data), test, re-test, and see if Heald is right.

One thing’s for sure, however: this is the right way to make scientific knowledge available. Bravo, Professor Heald. Continue reading →