Bellhead/Nethead
If I ever get out of Kuala Lumpur, I look forward to pressing forward on Bellhead/Nethead. I was so pleased to run across this post from David Isenberg today. Thanks, David!
For me, what's going on in the interim FCC proceedings on implementing the broadcast flag has links to my overall “black helicopter” concerns about this pivotal moment in internet history.
As Jonathan Krim of the Post reports today (it must be today somewhere):
Hollywood studios and the National Football League are seeking to block the maker of the popular TiVo television recorder from expanding its service so that users could watch copies of shows and movies on devices outside their homes.
In filings with the Federal Communications Commission, the organizations say the new technology could compromise the copyrights of shows that broadcasters send over the airwaves in digital form, which offers much higher sound and video quality than what viewers typically get today.
The flag was supposed to be about indiscriminate online distribution. TiVo is trying to provide a device that allows 10 people within a personal network to copy TiVo-ed shows onto their PCs. It's perfectly secure. It's just not quite constrained enough for the studios.
And Hollywood is asking [pdf] the FCC to make sure that this TiVo functionality never reaches consumers.
This desperate quest for control, using the FCC as an apparently willing tool, will end its first stage next week. The rumor is that Real and MSN have already caved in to the studios. Only TiVo is still fighting.
The flag proceeding has convinced me that FCC is capable of almost anything. That's why it seems important to let FCC know just how hard making rules about IP-enabled services will be.
Today in the life of the internet
We seem to be at a very interesting point in history. We may be battling for the heart of the internet. That's purple language, but that's what's going on.
Telecom agencies all over the world and the UN would like to see some form of “internet governance” in place. Their statutes or organizing principles are certainly broad enough to include the internet — they look at IP addresses and say, “That's us! We should be in charge!”
And, in the US at any rate, there's an unholy alliance between law enforcement and Hollywood that would like to help this regulatory development along. There are some big companies that would like to sell authentication services. Add this all together, and there is, right now, real pressure to change the way all of us look at this network of networks.
It's going to be hard to make this shift to regulation happen — after all, there really aren't many chokepoints in the system, and it's very difficult to say that citizens can use only particular IP addresses. My hope is that it's already too late to cause this change. The genie is out of the bottle.
But every time anyone says that “governance” necessarily involves “governments,” a tiny link in the chain is forged — and a telecom regulator, somewhere, looks up and smiles.