Implementing technological developments

7. Bit protection

The very nature of digital production techniques, content, and networks, makes protecting bits from people and people from others who (mis)use bits against them deeply problematic.

• Bits are easily copied and shared.
• The global reach of digital technologies compromises the local nature of statutes and practices. Business practices and legal systems have been, for the most part, designed and developed in "analog times" and at "local levels" (of varying sizes). "Protections" no longer "solve."
  • Federal/state, interstate, and international laws were not designed for the digital world; efforts to catch up are mired in difficulties. Particularly, for example, there is no consensus as to who needs the most protection: everyday users or corporate interests.
• Most in-use provisions were spliced into "other" legal or treaty arrangements rather than developing as a natural outcome of careful considerations of specific questions.
• Like every other sort of international issue, there is no single adjudication body.
• The distributed nature of the Internet problematizes command and control: No single entity is in charge.
• In-place (old media) like laws/practices that protect & aid them. New media present challenges.
• Technology has come on pretty quickly: users need protection now; protections take time to develop.
• There are cultural clashes between elites/professionals/those in developed countries and "everyperson/digital native creators/those in under-developed countries.
• The net reaches a broad demographic range. Who merits protection (age, socio-economics, geography, culture)?
• There are difficulties protecting bits from people.
  • As you well know, digital technologies have put the means of production and distribution in the hands of broad segments of people across a very wide geographic range. Content is not locked down in a cut-and-paste culture.
  • Digital natives tend to not see legal limitations in the same light as do digital transplants or analog media types.
  • We have loads of trouble protecting our even our analog infrastructure. In some ways, most are way behind in the digital environment.
  • The protection schemes themselves are either overly esoteric, non-standard, or hotly contested. They are also big business in themselves (e.g.DRM & cryptography).
• There are difficulties protecting people from others who use bits in harmful ways.
  • There are bad people in the world. There are people with causes that, to them, justify radical action. The webbed nature of things gives them loads of opportunities to make trouble.
  • Many (many, many) users are lax, leaving themselves and their information open to attack.

Study Question:

Sketch the basic "positions" about protection and controls from the position of the industries, consumer, individual producer, government.

Want to learn more?

Bollier, David. "Reclaiming the American Commons"
Bollier, David (2005) Brand Name Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture
Lessig, Lawrence (2001) .The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World
Lessig, Lawrence (2004). Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. Penguin Press.
Litman, Jessica (2001) Digital Copyright
McLeod, Kembrew (2001). Owning Culture: Authorship, Ownership, & Intellectual Property Law. Peter Lang.
Summary, DMCA, p. 3-7. [.pdf]