mutatron

My Kind of History

My contributions to this blog aren't going to be nearly as socially useful as Chris's. But I hope they'll at least be amusing. For starters, let's look at my new fave-rave reading material.

I've always been a heavy reader of history, but every now and then it's nice to break out of the academic mould and kick back with a kid's book. Such as these amazing tabloid histories from Usborne. The link takes you to the book with my favourite front-page headline; to see all of the titles available go to this page and scroll down until you see "Newspaper Histories".

Here's another excellent use of the tabloid format, with particular relevance to yours truly (me roots are Viking). The content's pretty good, too. Taking into account the overall tone, these "tabloids" are a hell of a lot more accurate than your standard UK newspaper.

Up(down)grades

Shades of the PVR "commercial skip" up(down)grade...

This is a discussion forum wherein owners of the RCA Rocket EBook 1100 discover that the "upgrade" to a Gemstar GEB 1150 is at least partly a "downgrade". The REB 1100 included the ability to load non-Gemstar content, using external utilities. For the GEB 1150, you must purchase all content through GemStar - if they don't offer it, then you don't read it. If you had non-GemStar content, now you can't read it on your spiffy new grayscale screen...

An additional discussion forum here, where many owners make it clear that this is a Critical Success Factor in the upgrade process.

Also, here is the Gemstar description of the upgrade. Notice how they don't mention that the device you get back won't do all the things it did when you sent it in?

And finally, just to get a full picture of the attitude of the company, try this FAQ - see the final question, where the question of having materials on your PC or Palm is addressed:

"...second, the PC and the Palm Pilot are considered "open" systems: anything read on a PC or Palm could be copied illegally."

This ignores the point that you can also copy anything read on a GemStar Ebook. You just need a scanner or photocopier.

With an approach like this, it's almost as though they would prefer not to have the inconvenience of customers.

Should Macrovision Panic?

Macrovision wants everyone to use Macrovision - and pay for the privledge. DVD producers want to buy low, sell high - and shelling out for Macrovision on a per disc basis is NOT buy low.

These days, the sheer quantity of material on a DVD relative to the price gives the package value. It doesn't need the same degree of protection as VHS tapes might have needed. Having spent all that money on content, and using a low-cost distribution system (the DVD, that is) content producers may be questioning or discovering that they don't need special protective mechanisms. Superbit DVDs only take this one step further, giving you a package that simply isn't worth trying to reproduce.

This is anathema to Macrovision. It wants "use Macrovision" to be a no-brainer decision. There is, as I understand it, a license provision for VHS recorders - in order to have the rights to use VHS technology, you had to respect Macrovision copy-prevention as well. Under such conditions, Macrovision could likely get by without either a marketing or advertising department.

The final nail in the coffin is that almost nobody dumps DVD to VHS, except maybe for the spare VHS machine in the playroom. That's all that Macrovision prevents. It does nothing to stop DVD-to-VCD or DVD-to-DivX transfers, and it doesn't even enter into the picture when large scale illegal distributors manfacture bit-for-bit perfect copies. So, why pay for technology that doesn't solve a problem.

The Almost General Purpose Computer

There's been a really nice discussion going around on Ed Felten's analogy quest for the Almost General Purpose Computer. With the discussion still on-going, his favorite comparison is the Almost General Purpose Language.

Now, Almost General Purpose Computers (AGPCs) don't start off that way. In almost every case, the starting point is a general purpose computer, or at least general purpose components. Either restrictions are added, or the software is deliberately constructed so as to have limited functionality. The key point is intent - AGPCs happen by design! (They can also happen by incompetence, but I can't see any useful results down that line of thought right now.)

From this comes my main objection to most of the analogies to date - although many of them capture the idea of the AGPC, they don't elicit that gut-grabbing reaction that says this is wrong. The technical accuracy of the language comparison succeeds too well, by continuing with a rather dry, academic feel to the questions. For most of us, upon being presented with an Almost General Purpose Computer or Language, the immediate reaction is What are you hiding? or What can't I do?

My preference is to find a comparison from the legal arena that pulls up the same red-flag instincts that technologists get from the idea of the AGPC. Discussion comparing AGPCs to concepts from a 1940's novel just doesn't pull on the gut the same way.

To correct this, we need to identify the group we want to make feel this way. Felten's epiphany comes from Washington, land of lawmakers and lawyers. So we'll pull out a red-flag raising legal concept here.

The Almost-General-Purpose Computer is Prior Restraint.

For a legal definition, the closest dictionary at hand is at law.com; this is start of their definition of prior restraint:

prior restraint n. an attempt to prevent publication or broadcast of any statement, which is an unconstitutional restraint on free speech and free press (even in the guise of an anti-nuisance ordinance)

Of course, not every single action by a computer consists of publishing. But it's not the big stretch you might expect. The origins of copyright as a body of law stem from the time when technology suddenly made multiple copies easy and cheap. Computing technology has pushed "easy" and "cheap" to an extent never imagined by the originators of copyright.

Foregoing prior restraint does not remove the requirement to publish responsibly. If you're crossing the line, you will be held accountable for what you do. But it will be for what you do, not for what you might do.

That's the key element I want captured with regards to general-purpose computers. There may very well be some things you shouldn't do with a computer, things that are illegal, immoral, both, or just a really bad idea. But at the same time, there are unexpected things - things we didn't even know we could do. For all the trouble it is causing the audio recording industry, compressed audio implementations in software constitute an amazing development - one not even predicted by some of the developers of audio ocmpression. Society as a whole has a poweful new communications tool available as a reulst. You don't want to risk losing those things.

And that's why we dont't want either Prior Restraint or Almost General Purpose Computers.