Opinion Liberating the Internet
SOPA is not the only threat to open content what about powerful proprietary networks like Facebook and Google?
We who love the Internet love the fact that so many people contribute to it. Its hard to believe that sceptics once worried about whether anyone would have anything worthwhile to say online. There is,however,an outdated brand of digital orthodoxy that ought to be retired. In this worldview,the Internet is a never-ending battle of good guys who love freedom against bad guys like old-fashioned Hollywood media moguls. The bad guys want to strengthen copyright law,and make it impossible to post anonymously copied videos and stories.
The proposed Stop Online Piracy Act,or SOPA,is deemed the worst thing ever. Popular sites like Wikipedia staged a blackout to protest the bills. Google put a black banner over its name. This is extraordinary,because it shows that belief in the priority of fighting SOPA is so absolute as to trump the stated nonpartisan missions of these sites. The legislation has indeed included draconian remedies in various drafts. But our opposition has become so extreme we are doing more harm than good to our own cause. Those rare tech companies that have come out in support of SOPA are not merely criticised but barred from industry events and subject to boycotts. We,the keepers of the flame of free speech,are banishing people for their speech.
Our melodrama is driven by a vision of an open Internet that has already been distorted,though not by the old industries that fear piracy. For instance,until a year ago,I enjoyed a certain kind of user-generated content very much: I participated in forums in which musicians talked about musical instruments. For years,I was warned that media moguls might separate me from my beloved forums. Perhaps a forum would be shut down because it was hosted on some server with pirated content.
While acknowledging that this is a possible scenario,a very different factor proprietary social networking is ending my freedom to participate in the forums I used to love,at least on terms I accept. Like many other forms of contact,the musical conversations are moving into private sites,particularly Facebook. To continue to participate,Id have to accept Facebooks philosophy,under which it analyses me,and is searching for new ways to charge third parties for the use of that analysis. At the moment that wouldnt bother me much,because I know a lot of people at Facebook and I know they are decent. But Ive seen what happens to companies over time. Who knows who will be using my data in 20 years? You might object that its all based on individual choice. That argument ignores the consequences of networks,and the way they function. After a certain point choice is reduced.
The adulation of free content inevitably meant that advertising would become the biggest business in the open part of the information economy. Furthermore,that system isnt so welcoming to new competitors. Once networks are established,it is hard to reduce their power. Googles advertisers,for instance,know what will happen if they move away. The next-highest bidder for each position in Googles auction-based model for selling ads will inherit that position if the top bidder goes elsewhere. So Googles advertisers tend to stay put because the consequences of leaving are obvious to them,whereas the opportunities they might gain by leaving are not.
The obvious strategy in the fight for a piece of the advertising pie is to close off substantial parts of the Internet so Google doesnt see it all anymore. Thats how Facebook hopes to make money,by sealing off a huge amount of user-generated information into a separate,non-Google world. Networks lock in their users,whether it is Facebooks members or Googles advertisers.
This belief in free information is blocking future potential paths for the Internet. What if ordinary users routinely earned micropayments for their contributions? If all content were valued instead of only mogul content,perhaps an information economy would elevate success for all. But under the current terms of debate that idea can barely be whispered.
To my friends in the open Internet movement,I have to ask: what did you think would happen? We in Silicon Valley undermined copyright to make commerce become more about services instead of content more about our code instead of their files. The inevitable endgame was always that we would lose control of our own personal content,our own files. We havent just weakened Hollywood and old-fashioned publishers. Weve weakened ourselves.
Lanier is the author of You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto and a researcher at Microsoft Research,but these views are his alone
Share
