Spectrum and the definition of deregulation

Thanks for visiting this blog for the first time. Check out the home page for the most recent posts, or the archives if you're looking for something in particular. Here are some of our favorite posts, which you might enjoy:

If you like what you see, we hope you'll consider subscribing to the RSS feed.

Today Lawrence Lessig released the second in his series of presentations about what Congress should do on internet policy. The first installment was about orphan copyrights, and I addressed it here. Today, Lessig writes about “deregulating spectrum,” which is an apt title if by deregulating you mean regulating. Lessig likens the current command-and-control system of spectrum regulation to communism, and I think he’s right. He goes on, however, to argue that a property system is no longer the right alternative to regulation.

Instead, Lessig suggests a market not in spectrum, but in devices that use free spectrum without causing interference to any other user. As he says in his presentation, this system would require “minimal rules governing the devices.” What he doesn’t say is who would set these “minimal rules” and what exactly would guarantee that these rules would remain minimal or even rational. The answer, as I explain in my new paper out this week from the Stanford Technology Law Review, is that government will set the rules, and the only tools that government has to make rules is its inefficient command-and-control processes. A “commons” model is not a third way between regulation and property, it is just another kind of regulation.

Lessig also exhibits lots of outrage at the fact that the current regulatory system is manipulated by special interests to suit their own purposes and not the interests of consumers generally. Well, how will things be any different when government goes about setting his “minimal rules”?

One last thing. I take umbrage to Lessig’s reference to those of us who support property rights in spectrum as “property-ideologues,” which I for one take as a pejorative term that implies an unthinking blind belief. He says, these are “people who I will, to be fair, refer to as ‘extremists.’” I may think that Lessig is wrong, but I don’t doubt that he’s considered empirical evidence, given lots of thought to different ideas, and come to his own conclusions for intellectually honest reasons. There can only be reasoned debate if the conversation is respectful, and I would appreciate it if Lessig showed some respect to his intellectual opponents.

Feb 14, 2007 | Comment | Tags: , ,

Lessig’s orphan works proposal unworkable

Lawrence Lessig has a new half-hour presentation on his blog where he outlines his opposition to the Copyright Office’s recommendations on orphan copyright works that were the basis for the proposed Orphan Works Act of 2006, and which were very similar to the proposal Bridget Dooling and I made. He also proposes his own alternative solution, which is much like the proposed Public Domain Enhancement Act he helped craft and which Bridget and I have critiqued. I find his new articulation to still be completely unworkable. Let me explain.

Continue reading this post »

Feb 2, 2007 | 1 Comment | Tags: , ,

Google Book Search the new MP3.com?

The New Yorker has a dispatch from Jefferey Toobin updating us on the Google Book Search case. It’s a good primer if you haven’t been following this issue, and also fills in some details if you have. Interesting tidbits include the fact that they haven’t started witness depositions yet, and the parties won’t be able to make motions for summary judgment for another year. More interesting is the fact that both Google and the plaintiffs (authors and publishers) are sure this will settle out of court.

“The suits that have been filed are a business negotiation that happens to be going on in the courts,” [Google's] Marissa Mayer told me. “We think of it as a business negotiation that has a large legal-system component to it.” According to Pat Schroeder, the former congresswoman, who is the president of the Association of American Publishers, “This is basically a business deal. Let’s find a way to work this out. It can be done. Google can license these rights, go to the rights holder of these books, and make a deal.”

Lawrence Lessig points out that while a settlement would be good for both parties, it could create a practical precedent that if one wanted to start a book-scanning project, one had to license the books–a lot like the precedent set by the MP3.com case that was ultimately settled out of court.

Another interesting bit about the technology itself is how Google plans to rely on linking from the wider web to give the information in books the context its search algorithms need to produce good results:

“Web sites are part of a network, and that’s a significant part of how we rank sites in our search—how much other sites refer to the others.” But, he added, “Books are not part of a network. There is a huge research challenge, to understand the relationship between books. … We just started, and we need to make these books networked, and we need people to help us do that,” [Google's Dan] Clancy said.

Cross-posted at TLF. You can leave and read comments there. →

Jan 30, 2007 | Comments Off | Tags: , , ,

Lessig on orphan works

Lawrence Lessig has posted his thoughts on the Copyright Office’s orphan works report. He is largely critical of the report’s conclusions and continues to support the proposed Public Domain Enhancement Act (PDEA), which was based on his ideas. In my recent paper with Bridget Dooling, we show why the PDEA solution is unworkable. But I think it’s worth addressing some of the points Lessig makes in this new response.

Continue reading this post »

Mar 7, 2006 | Comment | Tags: , ,

  •  
  •