Category: Four pillars

So now the announcement has been made. EMI Music launches DRM-free superior sound quality downloads across its entire digital repertoire.

I guess it’s safe to predict that the story will make No 1 at Technorati, so there are a zillion places for you to go to if you want the details. Instead of adding to that list, I want to concentrate on one key issue. The Freedom Premium.
SIMfree phones. Advertising-free digital content. DRM-free music and video. Device-independent anythings. Pollution-free anythings. They’re all the same thing. Either you put up with some corruption provided “free of charge”, or you pay for the freedom. A redemption price.

It’s not new. Today, if I want to buy a dishwasher that I can integrate into my kitchen cabinets, I have to pay more for that than I have to pay for the stand-alone device. Far more than is defensible in the context of shipping and packing costs. If I  want to unlist my phone number I have to pay for it, in most geographies. If I want an air ticket that can be transferred between airlines (or for that matter modified in any way) I have to pay.

The idea that freedom of movement (of digital goods) and freedom to change (digital contracts) are made available, but at a price, I find this idea reasonably appealing. Because this choice is more real than much of the snake oil we get offered today in the name of customer choice. I wonder how long it will be before someone gives me this equivalent for films, at least partially doing away with the nonsense that is Region Coding. Would I pay a premium for a Region Free DVD? Probably, as long as it’s a reasonable one.

Freedom at a price. Ironic, two hundred years after the abolition of the slave trade.

A coda. One of the things we have to watch out for is alluded to amongst the small print in the EMI news release:

EMI Music will continue to employ DRM as appropriate to enable innovative digital models such as subscription services (where users pay a monthly fee for unlimited access to music), super-distribution (allowing fans to share music with their friends) and time-limited downloads (such as those offered by ad-supported services).

The problem with that sort of statement is that it provides an opportunity for lock-in specialists to Trojan Horse their way back in, often without people realising the implied price.  So we have to be careful.

More later.

Everyone’s waiting to see what the Apple and EMI joint announcement is going to be about. Rumours abound. To the extent that people are even talking about the Death of DRM. So for once I will be commenting on news, primarily because of the importance of getting DRM right. More later.

There have been  quite a few posts around the blogosphere about the Kathy Sierra Meets Chris Locke CNN segment to be aired today. I found one aspect of the posts intriguing, almost beguiling.

I quote from Accordion Guy:

Don’t worry if you’re too busy in the morning to catch the segment. Someone will upload the Sierra/Locke summit segment to YouTube within an hour of its initial broadcast, and the analyses should appear online shortly afterwards

For a while now we have had news events being made available on YouTube, in effect time-shifting news on to the Web. In itself this is nothing new. What feels new to me is the expectation that something will be made available on YouTube or its equivalent. And it made me wonder about what else we’re all starting to expect. How our reading and viewing and listening patterns are changing (along with our purchase patterns for the same things) as a result of all this.

Some of the concepts referred to above are Web 1.0, so you may wonder why I bring it up at all. I guess it’s partly because I can’t articulate what I want to say well enough, and wondered if you could help me. I sense this has something to do with The Intention Economy that Doc and others proposed quite some time ago.

I think it goes something like this…. I won’t buy a book until I can Look Inside it. I won’t record something that I expect will  appear on YouTube or its equivalent, but I will plan to watch it on YouTube. I won’t buy an album until I have listened to sample tracks via the web, be it iTunes or an equivalent. I won’t meet someone for the first time unless I have Googled them, maybe even Linked them In.

Just thinking. Of a world where we’re going to see a whole new set of trademarked verbs and nouns entering our speech? Comments welcome.

Rumours continue to grow that Apple will announce a special edition Beatles iPod today as part of making Beatle songs available via iTunes. An event that has been predicted for a very long time, so let’s see what surprises are in store. We’ve had the trademark lawsuit settled once and for all. We’ve had a Beatles song playing in the background while Steve talks. So what will he do for One More Thing? I hope it’s more than iPhone-only Beatle ringtones.

I still haven’t met anyone who would refuse an iPhone.

Ever since I started this blog, I’ve been trying to stress the importance of dealing prudently with the Three Is of Information: Identity, Intellectual Property Rights and the Internet.  Recent events have only served to highlight why.

Most of you are aware of the tragic time that Kathy Sierra has had, her response, the polarised debate that ensued, the continuing firestorm, culminating, at least for the time being, in Alan Herrell’s e-mail to Doc. The blogosphere is a small world; you have seen me refer to Kathy’s writings many times; I have, and continue to have, enormous respect for her and her writings; and I know many of the people involved in the debate (at both extremes!), and count quite a few as my friends. Much has been said in the heat of the moment, and much emotion expressed. These are sad times.

Nobody should have to put up with the perverseness, hate, misogyny and bullying that was directed at Kathy. It cannot be defended or condoned. Full stop. So how are we going to prevent this from happening?

Not by knee-jerk attempts at “governing” what happens on the web; personal empowerment is a key attribute of the web, and should remain so. Let us be careful about introducing cyberlaw sledgehammers.

Not by McCarthyist hounding of people judged by innuendo and insinuation either; the presumption of innocence is not something the web can take away. If we do this, all we do is bring the worst of journalism into the digital world rather than the best, which we are still in a position to do.

Not by polarised emotion and blamestorming and flaming either; I am saddened to see just how many friends I have on both sides of the arguments right now, people I will continue to call my friends. I prefer to take the beam out of my own eye rather than look for motes in my friends’ eyes.

We live in a world that has a lot of evil in it, and the Web gets its share.  While I have seen many attempts to legislate ethics, I have also seen them fail. The community space that is the Web can only be “governed” by community ethics and community values. Civility and common sense are more important than legalism and legislation.

If we get Identity right, we can go a long way towards preventing the recurrence of what Kathy faced. Bullies, especially cyber-bullies, tend to be cowards.

If we get Identity right, we can also go a long way towards preventing Digital McCarthyism as well.

Getting Identity right will help ensure that the Web is a safer place for our children, at home or at school; that Web tools can be used more effectively to teach and communicate.

Getting Identity right will help us ensure that the Web is a safer place for us, as we get and spend and lay waste our powers.

Getting Identity right will allow us to ensure that the Knowledge Commons doesn’t become another Tragedy of the Commons, as we use Identity to push back against mindless DRM and IPR legislation.

It’s all about Identity, and the trust that is engendered when Identity is real. And the things that can happen when trust does not exist, or when Identity is not real.

The entire Kathy Sierra incident is a tragedy, one we can and should learn from. Maybe it’s time we became passionate about Identity. I have enjoyed reading Kathy’s blog; I have also enjoyed reading the blogs of many others scattered right across the spectrum of anger and argument engendered by what happened to Kathy. If we want to continue to enjoy reading such conversations, then we have to do something.

And Identity is where I would begin.