Subject: Re: RFC3271 and independance of "cyberspace"

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 00:14:17 -0400

> well, keith since we cannot amend RFCs maybe you should prepare one of your own?

maybe.

> I am not sure that the idea of killing intellectual property is the right one either.
> We all know there is something wrong with the current set up but I am no sure that
> the wholesale dispatch of Intellectual Property concepts is the right answer either!

nor did I quite suggest doing that.

however, there seems to be a strong and alarming tendency for global legal frameworks on 
IPR to discourage, rather than encourage, the notion that the Internet is for everyone.
or perhaps they encourage the notion that the Internet is for everyone to be a consumer
of works that are produced and controlled by a few large companies, rather than a vehicle 
which enables everyone to share their ideas, expressions, and experiences with others.

Keith

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From: vint cerf <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 00:22:57 -0400

i think people should be free to create and share but that those who wish to claim
rights should not be prevented from doing so.

vint

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 00:39:30 -0400

> rights should not be prevented from doing so.

sure - but which rights they should be able to claim, what remedies should be
available when rights are violated, and what presumptions are made by the law
until disputes are adjucated?  slightly different answers to these questions 
have drastically different effects.

Keith

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 15:00:53 +1000

> i think people should be free to create and share but that those who wish to
> claim rights should not be prevented from doing so.
> 
> vint

Claiming rights is different to be able to enforce rights.

It would be useful if there was a document which helped clarify the limits
to enforcement given innate behaviours of the Internet. 

It would be useful if a vision statement went beyond a passive assertion that
free information exchange was useful, and took a position that it was actually
a very important thing. For instance, it could assert that the assumed
state was that information was in the public domain, and resist the move to
assume all information innately carries enforceable restrictions ab initio.

Given the extent to which the Internet leveraged public funding processes
in R&D and education, I am suprised there isn't more explicit mention of the
benefits of that leveraged outcome. Do we have to be neutral?

cheers
	-George

---

From: Einar Stefferud <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 23:21:01 -0700

Well, I am doing my part by exercising my rights to avoid buying any 
of the stuff that does not let me copy it, and I will not buy any 
computer stuff that is unable to copy stuff.

And, so I agree that if the IPR folk want to be so damned 
proprietary, they can just sit at home with all their unsold stuff.

If they tie up the Internet as we know it, the USENET WILL RISE AGAIN 
and we will have two Internets passing in the night.  And, after a 
while, things will come back together with the re-introduction of 
sanity.

Is this not how the world always muddles through?

Fortunately, there remains a group of people who have kept the USENET 
spirit alive while the Internet has run over almost everything else.

So there;-)...\Stef

PS:  And, I did not appreciate USENET for what it was (and is) at the time;-!

At 12:39 AM -0400 5/1/02, Keith Moore wrote:
>  > i think people should be free to create and share but that those who wish
>  > to claim rights should not be prevented from doing so.
>

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 03:14:52 -0400

> assume all information innately carries enforceable restrictions ab initio.

Unfortunately, international copyright law has long assumed that things are
created with copyright, and do not lapse into the public domain until
certain conditions are met.  And in fact, *reasonable* enforceable
restrictions are a Good Thing.

/Valdis

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From: vint cerf <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 05:39:44 -0400

At 03:00 PM 5/1/2002 +1000, [email-masked] wrote:

> For instance, it could assert that the assumed

current copyright law says that from the moment of creation all rights
lie with the creator of the intellectual property. That is, you don't
have to register for the material to be copyrighted. You have to take
a conscious action under present law to make something public domain.
(You have to make a declaration that it is public domain). 

That may not be what you have in mind, of course, but it is the present
state of affairs in the US and other countries subscribing to the Berne
Convention on Copyright.

>benefits of that leveraged outcome. Do we have to be neutral?

surely we do not have to be neutral on this point. However I am not entirely
sure I understand how you want to couple the leveraging observation with
the intellectual property discussion?

vint

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 20:01:16 +1000

> restrictions are a Good Thing.

It was wrong of me to add a patently partisan comment, and of course I have to
respect the reality (awful though it is) of the current international copyright
domain. But it is worth remembering that some things which exist as written
information probably shouldn't be copyright, and that many things which flow
as written information over the Internet are going to go on flowing, copyright
law or not. I would have hoped a document talking about content rights could
have mentioned the social value of deliberately placing things into the public
domain, and the likelihood that much material apparently covered by copyright
has stong(er?) claims to being PD than not. 

It might also have been worth making some observations about how *long* things
make sense to be copyright. Isn't there an aspect to the Internet which is
tending to reduce that period, when law is tending to increase it?

But, I think there are serious points here. 

Firstly, there is not unanimous agreement about the current international
copyright regime, and it would be wrong to make a tight binding in an IETF
document which suggested the IETF, or the Internet reflected convergeance here.
(which doesn't exist elsewhere. it would be a wrong assertion)

Secondly, there are many other regimes of international agreement which
might want to 'leverage' this kind of engagement from the IETF. International
child protection for instance, or the banking and finance legislations which
are harmonizing around grey/black economies, or more plausibly law enforcement
where we have already seen the IETF stand up and assert limits to what can be
expected from the Internet.

To return to being partisan:

I don't have much bag with a vague assertion that some kind of copyright
is a good thing, or reasonable enforcable restrictons  could be entertained
but I do have problems with how that translates into concrete outcomes either
in protocols, or in edge or core or any other devices.

For instance, I cannot see how any of the historical (and continuing) use
of general-purpose computers as network infrastructure could be entertained
if there was a sense that 'copyright bits' had to be hardware enforced. Which
winds up echoing the experiences with content controls in the W3C: a 
volountarist tagging regime for data doesn't deliver what law enforcement or
any other process seeking to constrain content wants. So I just don't see how
people entertaining IRTF work in this region expect to get outcomes which don't
have architectural impact, or other downside effects.

I do not see content owners of any size accepting a vague comment. And I am
asking myself why it makes sense to entertain *any* kind of comment when it
winds up inviting finer and finer refinement of ideas which are demonstrably
not going to deliver what is useful.

I think this whole content/copyright thing is going to be very 'entertaining'
over the next 10-20 years. Its pretty clear that it will wind up being part
of the general strategic process nation-states use against each other, as
the GATT process has become (and always was?) and that what is being touted
as a harmonized worldwide regime won't last. Its not in France's interests
to agree to Disyneyfication of french culture, its not in China's interests to
stop making DVD players which are region free, and its not in consumers 
interests to use an Internet which is a one-way pay-per-view content pipe.

Sooner or later the tensions between content and delivery make it all come
unstuck.

Time-Warner AOL?

cheers
	-George

--
George Michaelson       |  APNIC
Email: [email-masked]    |  PO Box 2131 Milton QLD 4064
Phone: +61 7 3858 3100  |  Australia
  Fax: +61 7 3858 3199  |  http://www.apnic.net

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From: Alexandre Dulaunoy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 12:01:33 +0200 (CEST)

> state of affairs in the US and other countries subscribing to the Berne

The initial Berne convention is enough. The worry is more regarding the 
extension made like by WIPO/OMPI. (like the Article 11) This type of 
extension generates DMCA, EUCD and all the horror used by the editor and 
not the author itself. 

For example, the GNU General Public License is using the classical 
copyright from the Berne convention. The use is smart and protect the four 
freedoms of Free Software concept. But now extension is a threat to these 
freedoms... (you know, equilibrium.)

I'm sure, the idea/intention behind the RFC ("...global legal 
framework..") is good but I'm worry of the use that could be done by 
"international" organisation like WIPO (funded by big companies) to use 
that to extend the arsenal of law to stop the natural extension of the 
cyberspace.  

So, on the pratical side, do you see that as an issue or not ? If yes, do 
you plan to make a new version ? and obsolete the other one.

Thanks a lot for your excellent work.

Cheers,

Alexandre Dulaunoy

http://www.ael.be/

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From: Gordon Cook <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 09:16:36 -0400

Keith you have put your finger squarely on the nub of what is wrong 
with this RFC .

I recommend to you and other list members the essay of Yochai 
Benkler.  Grab the whole essay with the following URL.  Benkler asks 
that we consider what we are doing.  Building the perfect shopping 
mall or the great agora.  His question is the same as yours.  i quote 
my own summary from COOK Report volume 11, nos. 3-4, pp. 5-6

Consider Benkler's challenge in his two year old essay: "From 
Consumers to Users: Shifting the Deeper Structures of Regulation 
Toward Sustainable Commons and User Access." The complete paper is 
found at: http://www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/pubs/v52/no3/benkler1.pdf

In April of 2000 he closed this article with the following eloquent 
plea.  "Once legislatures conceive of those whose welfare they serve 
as users, rather than as consumers, the relevant focus of regulation 
should shift to enabling the widest possible range of users to use 
the resource for active communication, not simply for passive 
reception."

This we contend is the critical question never asked.  Why are we 
building these communications systems?  To provide services and make 
money of course.  But what is it that we expect the system to do? 
Enable a new generation of couch potatoes like the television of the 
last major communications revolution?  Or, since we now know and 
understand that this technology makes possible, will we ask that the 
legal power of the state be invoked to ensure that those who pay for 
it will be able to run their own web sites, host their own discussion 
forums, publish their own research and opinions or run their own 
electronic store fronts?

Who Will Own the Printing Press?

Benkler's analysis shows that these are the most fundamental and 
basic questions.  Ones that must be answered before a legal and 
regulatory approach is applied to the technology.  If we answer that 
we are going to build a legal and regulatory framework that enables 
users rather than consumers, our entire approach must change in 
radical ways to be in keeping with the goals that we wish to use the 
law and regulation to achieve.

Two years ago Benkler pointed out that the approach being undertaken 
was to enable consumers.  He suggested that, perhaps, it was being 
done perhaps out of ignorance.  After two more years of life on the 
fast track aimed at the creation of Internet-couch-potatoe-consumers, 
we can no longer claim ignorance of what we are allowing our 
politicians and the FCC to do.  Consider again Benkler's call to arms:

"Today, as the Internet and the digitally networked environment 
present us with a new set of regulatory choices, it is important to 
set our eyes on the right prize. That prize is not the Great Shopping 
Mall in Cyberspace. That prize is the Great Agora-the unmediated 
conversation of the many with the many. [snip]  An open, free, flat, 
peer-to-peer network best serves the ability of anyone-individual, 
small group, or large group-to come together to build our information 
environment. It is through such open and equal participation that we 
will best secure both robust democratic discourse and individual 
expressive freedom."

-- 
========================================================
The COOK Report on Internet, 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA (609)
882-2572 (phone & fax) [email-masked]  Subscription info & 
prices at   http://cookreport.com/subscriptions.shtml    Summary of 
content for 10 years at http://cookreport.com/past_issues.shtml 
Whither License Exempt Wireless?
112 page  - June July issue available at http://cookreport.com/11.03-4.shtml
========================================================

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From: vint cerf <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 11:27:56 -0400

rather than revising the RFC maybe it would be good to develop some
recommendations for the principles or features of a useful framework?

I am also guessing that most of the ietf would prefer NOT to put up
with further debate on this topic. Maybe we should move over to the
Internet Societal Discussion list??

vint

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From: Rens Troost <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 08:57:08 -0400

Hear, hear!

-Rens

At 11:21 PM 4/30/2002 -0700, Einar Stefferud wrote:
>Well, I am doing my part by exercising my rights to avoid buying any of
>the stuff that does not let me copy it, and I will not buy any computer
>stuff that is unable to copy stuff.
>
>And, so I agree that if the IPR folk want to be so damned proprietary,
>they can just sit at home with all their unsold stuff.
>
>If they tie up the Internet as we know it, the USENET WILL RISE AGAIN and
>we will have two Internets passing in the night.  And, after a while,
>things will come back together with the re-introduction of sanity.
>
>-
>This message was passed through [email-masked], which
>is a sublist of [email-masked]. Not all messages are passed.
>Decisions on what to pass are made solely by Raffaele D'Albenzio.