Business Week online technology reporter Jane Black has a good interview with Lawrence Lessig covering Lessig’s concern about the entertainment industry’s power grab for control of the Internet.
Lessig mostly regurgitates snippets from his latest book, The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World, but it’s still worthwhile reading.
The result of a controlled network, as envisioned by the entertainment industry, is a significantly higher cost of innovation, according to Lessig: “Before, you just had to worry about complying with basic network protocol. Now you have to worry about making your program run on the full range of proprietary systems and devices connected to the network. Before, the network would serve whoever and whatever people wanted it to. Soon, you will need the permission of network owners.”
Lessig calls for immediate political action:
- Mandatory low, fixed, compulsory license fees for distribution of content on the web;
- Repeal of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA);
- Defeat of new legislation designed to protect the entertainment industry, specifically the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA).