Category Archives: good code

This is very cool functionality, building nicely on the free (culture) web. Continue reading →

Mizuka and Joi’s Wedding from Joichi Ito on Vimeo. Continue reading →

As I indicated yesterday, I was very encouraged by the decision by the Obama transition team to freely license change.gov (not actually a .gov entity, so not exempt from the rights of copyright).
But over the weekend, a bunch of us got together to begin (actually, continue) the process of framing “open government principles.” The first round is described at Politico by Ben Smith.
You can read the rationale for the principles at open-government.us. Put briefly, the three principles are:

1. No Legal Barrier to Sharing (law (copyright law) should not block sharing);
2. No Technological Barrier to Sharing (code (limitations on downloads, for example) should not block sharing;
3. Free competition (no alliances should favor one commercial entity over another, or commercial over noncommercial entities).

Some have framed these as “demands” made of the administration. That’s like saying the mouse can make demands of the lion. We’re not making demands; we’re describing good policy. Or at least, good policy as we see it. Continue reading →

Consistent with the values of any “open government,” and with his strong leadership on “free debates” from the very start, the Obama team has modified the copyright notice on change.gov to embrace the freest CC license.
This is great news about a subject that’s harder than it seems. One might well ask why is this an issue at all? The one thing copyright law is pretty good at is exempting works of the government from copyright protection. Why should the published work of a transition, or a President, be any different?
I don’t think it should be, but I get why this is a hard issue. Whether or not one was free to republish works printed by the GPO, the freedom that digital technologies enables here is certainly enough to give one pause. I’m fine with the pause; I’d be happy to defend the freedom explicitly. But it is understandable that this is something that any administration would have to think through.
I’m glad the thought in this administration led to the right conclusion, so quickly, and in the midst of so much else going on. Continue reading →

So a new President means (the chance of a) new Chairman of the FCC. Before he passes, it is timely to begin to reflect a bit upon the chairmanship of the current chairman, Kevin Martin.
A clue that this is an interesting and important chairman is the fact that he’s an equal opportunity anger-er — the left has loved and hated him, the right has loved and hated him. I’m an increasingly strong admirer. His contribution to sensible thinking about infrastructures was established with his taking the lead in imposing network-neutrality-like rules on Comcast. But it is the unanimous decision freeing “white space” spectrum that will, I think, ultimately be the most important. The decision is not only right. It shows a liberation from a rigid and flawed understanding of the best way to maximize the economic value of “spectrum.” This clear thinking needs to expand beyond these bands. But it is an important start. Continue reading →

As many have, I’ve been eager to understand the terms of the settlement in the AAP/Authors Guild v. Google case (Google Summary, Actual Settlement). After spending some time studying it, here are my thoughts. (4TR: I was not part of any of these settlement negotiations so all this was news to me).
IMHO, this is a good deal that could be the basis for something really fantastic. The Authors Guild and the American Association of Publishers have settled for terms that will assure greater access to these materials than would have been the case had Google prevailed. Under the agreement, 20% of any work not opting out will be available freely; full access can be purchased for a fee. That secures more access for this class of out-of-print but presumptively-under-copyright works than Google was initially proposing. And as this constitutes up to 75% of the books in the libraries to be scanned, that is hugely important and good. That’s good news for Google, and the AAP/Authors Guild, and the public. (My favorable views about the AAP at least are not, of course, reciprocated.)
It is also good news that the settlement does not presume to answer the question about what “fair use” would have allowed. The AAP/AG are clear that they still don’t agree with Google’s views about “fair use.” But this agreement gives the public (and authors) more than what “fair use” would have permitted. That leaves “fair use” as it is, and gives the spread of knowledge more that it would have had.
The hard issue here will be in the details (surprise, surprise). The agreement calls for the creation of a registry to be operated by a nonprofit corporation. That corporation will be governed by a board comprised of publishers and “authors” (meaning authors participating in the law suit). That corporation will administer the payments to authors and publishers that flow from the agreement. It will also administer a registry that will make it easier for works to be identified, and owners located.
The hard question for the registry is how far they will go to support the range of business models that authors and publishers might have. E.g., Yale Press “Books Unbound” and Bloomsbury Academic both have Creative Commons licensed authors. Will the registry enable that fact to be recognized? Indeed, though the comment was made by someone from the plaintiffs’ side that it would be “perverse” for authors to choose free licensing, it is perfectly plausible that an author would choose to make his or her work available freely electronically, but contract with one commercial publisher to deal with selling the physical book, or licensing rights commercially. That, again, is the Bloomsbury Academic business model. Ideally, this non-profit should encourage the widest range of rights-respecting business models. One clear signal about what kind of organization this is will come from this.
But key to the good in the agreement is that we don’t have to trust the nonprofit to do good here. Google has committed both to making the data it can control (not private data about telephone numbers and contact info, but public data about copyright registration, terms, etc.) nonexclusively available, and more importantly, downloadable by anyone who wants to build a competing and complementary database. It has also reserved important safe-harbors for its incredibly valuable public domain collection (which includes books people get free access to, and can download for free).
Here, too, however, there is an important challenge for Google. It has provided important value by making available works that have no rights attached to it. But it should do more to make available works that have some rights attached to it. Critical for evaluating whether the long term interest of Google is GOOd or GOOey, Google needs to build into its architecture assets that are licensed freely, or under noncommercial terms, to complement the assets that it claims are free for “noncommercial” download (namely, the public domain works it has). Acting to clearly support the non-proprietary movement as well as the proprietary is an important way for it to show that it stands in the middle, and that it, with the AAP/Authors Guild, have now done some real good.
The biggest loser in this whole battle is the Orphan Works legislation. If anyone needed evidence to demonstrate that it is WAY TOO EARLY for Congress to be passing massive new bureaucratic overlays to copyright to deal with the important problem of “orphan works,” this is the evidence. Let’s let this private alternative develop, while Congress puts away its billion-factor balancing tests for regulating access to “orphan works.” For earlier rants against the Orphan Works bill, see:
Copyright Policy: Orphan Works Reform
Internet Law: 2.5 done (round II on Orphans)
And here’s a video I did years ago against the original Orphan Works proposals.
And a video I did long ago about whether Google’s use was “fair use.” Continue reading →

Julian Sanchez has a fantastic piece about the fabrication of a (still used today) statistic about the economic harm caused by “piracy.” Continue reading →

Harry McCracken has “25 Arguments for the Elimination of Copy Protection.” Continue reading →

TransparentDemocracy.org has gone beta. This very cool sites helps you sift through election recommendations as well as corporate ballot measures. The gist is this: you pick your recommenders, and you can see how they rank candidates or ballot measures. The site will eventually be a platform for any set of recommenders, so its aim is to become as general as possible. But especially for us California voters (with pages and pages of incomprehensible ballot measures) this will be an enormous help. In the extended entry below, I include an email from the creator of the site, Kim Cranston, explaining a bit more. Continue reading →

res ipsa.
And note I talk about this blog in the book. If Three Blind Mice wants to out himself, I’d be happy to send him a copy. Continue reading →