If you follow technology news services and blogs that are vaguely interested in digital rights issues, you must already have heard about ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. This is a multilateral trade agreement between the EU, the US, Mexico, Canada, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand and a [...]]]>

"I find your lack of copyright enforcement disturbing"

If you follow technology news services and blogs that are vaguely interested in digital rights issues, you must already have heard about ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. This is a multilateral trade agreement between the EU, the US, Mexico, Canada, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand and a few others, currently negotiated in secret that is set to tackle copyright infringement issues. As the name indicates, the aim of the agreement is to tackle counterfeiting. However, the most controversial aspect is that various sources have disclosed that the agreement is set to export some of the worst maximalist legislation out there, particularly in an attempt to curb illegal file-sharing. For the most detailed in-depth analysis of what has been happening so far, Michael Geist’s blog is the place to be. Nonetheless, I have been meaning to take stock and write a synopsis of what has happened so far for my own benefit. If you are confused about the various claims and counter-claims, I hope you find this useful.

The main problem with ACTA is that the negotiations have been closed. Secrecy leads to fear, fear leads to hate, hate leads to anger, anger leads to the Dark Side. One problem that I have noticed, and which has already been picked up by some defenders of the agreement, is that some of the language attacking ACTA seems to be rather overboard. This is an agreement that will end Web 2.0 services, it will eradicate the Internet as we know it and replace it with an alien reptilian replicant. So I have decided to go through what we know about the agreement so far. It must be pointed out that this is the perfect time to take stock, the next round of negotiations is coming up in April, so if there is something to be worried about, we should make a fuss right now.

So what do we really know about the agreement? Relatively little. Because of the secret negotiations, we only have had some leaks here and there. I will not recount the history of the talks (for that, again, I refer you to Michael Geist), but I will only mention that the agreement has been in negotiation since 2008, and that, as mentioned, the process has been shrouded in secrecy. Had it not been for some whistleblowers like Geist, ACTA would now be in an almost final stage with little or no public oversight whatsoever. Whatever one may think about some of the more colourful and fanciful speculation out there, the spotlight cannot hurt, ad we will not be taken by surprise.

So, what does the text say? The most important leak so far came in mid-February, and it was precisely what we had hoping to see, namely Article 2.17: Enforcement procedures in the digital environment (pdf here). The text starts out in a seemingly innocuous manner:

“Each Party shall ensure that enforcement procedures, to the extent set forth in the civil and criminal enforcement sections of this Agreement, are available under its law so as to permit effective action against an act of, trademark, copyright or related rights infringement which takes place by means of the Internet, including expeditious remedies to prevent infringement and remedies which constitute a deterrent to further infringement.”

This is frustrating, as we do not have the current civil and criminal enforcement sections. There are some earlier proposals out there (here and here), and a European leak with country positions  regarding civil enforcement here, but we do not have a clear idea of what the final text will look like. Two things are worrying however. As EU representatives have mentioned, current European copyright obligations do not mention specifically criminal and civil liabilities, but “adequate legal protection…” Another worrying aspect from the existing civil liability section is that ACTA exports the DMCA’s infamous statutory damage provisions, as it asks other countries to calculate damages in the following manner:

“[I]n determining the amount of damages for infringement of intellectual property rights, its judicial authorities shall consider, inter alia, the value of the infringed good or service, measured by the market price, the suggested retail price, or other legitimate measure of value submitted by the right holder.”

This means that we might see some of the most outrageous American copyright enforcement damages, such as the Jammie Thomas-Rasset and Joel Tenenbaum cases, exported to jurisdictions where damages are nowhere near what is proposed. The other concern is that the civil enforcement section could contain a three-strikes clause. We just do not know yet.

Paragraph 2 is a bit odd. It requires the enactment of third party liability, but this is surely already part of most agreements, so why include it here? My guess is that this is setting up the stage for continuing the war against intermediaries that is being waged at the moment. The language is broad enough as to include almost anything.

Paragraph 3 creates rules that will allow service providers, intermediaries and third parties to operate despite what has been mentioned in paragraph 2. In other words, Paragraph 3 will export American safe harbours and notice and take-down regimes. What bothers me is that Paragraphs 2 and 3 create a noxious environment in which third party liability is the rule, not the exception. Intermediaries will be liable with two exceptions. The first one reads:

“[Each party shall] (a) provide limitations on the scope of civil remedies available against an online service provider for infringing activities that occur by:
(I) automatic technical processes and
(II) the actions of the provider’s users that are not directed or initiated by that provider when the provider does not select the material, and
(III) the provider referring or linking users to an online location when, in cases of subparagraphs (II) and (III), the provider does not have actual knowledge of the infringement and is not aware of the facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent [...]“

So, if you are an intermediary, you have to make sure that all of your processes are automated, that you do not exercise any editorial and selection process whatsoever, and you make your best effort not to know anything that happens with your providers. Otherwise you might be liable. The second exception is:

“(b) condition the applicantion of the provisions of subparagraph (a) on meeting the following requirements:
(I) an online service provider adopting and reasonably implementing a policy to address the unauthorized storage or transmission of materials protected by copyright or related rights except that no Party may condition the limitations in subparagraph (a) on the online service provider’s monitoring its services or affirmatively seeking facts indicating that infringing activity is occurring; and
(II) an online service provider expeditiously removing or disabling access to material or activity, upon receipt of legally sufficient notice of alleged infringement, and in the absence of a legally sufficient response from the relevant subscriber of the online service provider indicating that the notice was the result of a mistake or misidentification. Except that the provisions of (II) shall not be applied to the extent that the online service provider is acting solely as a conduit for transmissions through its system or network.”

As stated, this pretty much exports DMCA notice-and take down. You must have a policy to take down content as soon as you’re told, and must make sure to take down the content ASAP.

Paragraphs 4-6 are also DMCA export provisions, as they make it an obligation to export the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, particularly criminal liability for breaking DRMs. Paragraph 6 specifically talks about rights management information (mostly metadata integrity).

So, what’s the verdict? It’s too early to tell. I will reserve full comment until I get to see a reliable draft of the civil and criminal enforcement sections. So far, I do not particularly like what I have seen. I agree with people like Ben Sheffner and Nate Anderson who comment that what we have seen of ACTA does not affect the United States that much, they already have the mother of all maximalist copyright protection. However, their comments seem rather short-sighted, and tend to forget that there are lots of other countries who will sign the agreement. The provisions are already in US law, so don’t worry, they would come to you anyway in some shape or another.

The problem that I have with exporting DMCA-level of protection is that Americans have a huge counterbalance to those provisions in the shape of Fair Use dcotrine. We do not. We have fair dealing, an exhaustive list of exceptions and defences. We get the DMCA, but without any balance. Why is it that the American copyright system seems keen to export maximalism, but not fair use?

Hopefully, there seems to be some opposition building up this side of the Atlantic. Stay tuned.

Read a very interesting article by Wired UK about web archiving. In my experience, one only need utter the word “archive” and audiences the world over will be immediately sent to sleep. Although by now half of my readership will be in the middle [...]]]>

"Coruscant Law allowed archival fair dealing, so the Jedi archives flourished..."

Read a very interesting article by Wired UK about web archiving. In my experience, one only need utter the word “archive” and audiences the world over will be immediately sent to sleep. Although by now half of my readership will be in the middle of a narcoleptic slumber, I shall plough on.

The state of archive law in the UK is quite clear. The Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 creates an obligation for publishers to deposit their works to the British Library and on request to the other designated deposit libraries. This obligation is not extended to all publications, for example, sound recordings and films are explicitly excluded. While the law is clearly geared towards printed publications, there is a bit of a grey area with regards to digital works. For example, s1(4) includes non-print works included as prescribed descriptions. s6 allows the Secretary of State to make the necessary provisions to include non-print works, specifically allowing electronic submission, and the provision of additional software necessary to access the work.

The law creates a very specific fair dealing right with regards to internet works. s10(5) reads:

“Where a work is published on the internet, subsection (6) applies to a copy of the work if—
(a) the work is of a description prescribed by regulations under this subsection,
(b) the publication of the work on the internet, or a person publishing it there, is connected with the United Kingdom in a manner so prescribed, and
(c) the copy was made by a deposit library or person acting on its behalf copying the work from the internet in accordance with any conditions so prescribed.”

This has been included in the Copyiright Designs and Patents Act as s44A, and therefore it must be understood that internet publications are covered as well. The problem of course is that this is very limited, and only a few libraries are included. The other problem of course is that there is little indication of what constitutes an internet publication for the purpose of the Act. Does this include every work connected with the UK? Blast, does it mean I have to start archiving my blog?

As the Wired UK article comments, the state of UK archiving law indicates that there are only a few institutions that have the right to archive under current fair dealing provisions, which means that any other project will require permission from the publisher for publication. Unfortunately, this means that sites like the Wayback Machine are not possible over here. Nonetheless, one big omission from the Wired article is that there is an assumption that only because something is possible under U.S. fair use, it should somehow be allowed under fair dealing. What I mean is that web archive institutions such as the Internet Archive might very well be infringing copyright in the UK, which could open them up for liability. This would therefore be a jurisdiction clash.

The obvious solution to the sorry state of UK archival law is to change the existing fair dealing provisions to include a more open-ended and better defined web archiving right. Why is it the Digital Economy Bill seems to completely ignore this? Why is it new legislation always has to emphasise the negative, instead of giving us some more positive aspects? Instead of enhanced fair dealing with regards to private copying and archives, we get all sorts of nightmarish provisions. The other obvious solution is to have more content under open licences. One of the great advantages of Creative Commons licences is that they permit all sorts of uses of the work that might otherwise necessitate contacting the author. In the case of digital archives, they can copy and store a work under CC licence with no problem whatsoever.

If you have made it this far, go and get a caffeinated beverage of your choice. You’ve earned it.

GikII V, The Voyage Home 28-29 June 2010 John McIntyre Conference Centre Edinburgh

Call for Papers

GikII returns to its place of birth for its Fifth Edition. GikII is a workshop concerned with exploring the legal interaction between popular culture, speculative fiction, and new technologies. It has been described unimaginatively as trail-blazing, innovative, fun and informative. We [...]]]> GikII V, Edinburgh 2009

http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/gikii/2010.asp

GikII V, The Voyage Home
28-29 June 2010
John McIntyre Conference Centre
Edinburgh

Call for Papers

GikII returns to its place of birth for its Fifth Edition. GikII is a workshop concerned with exploring the legal interaction between popular culture, speculative fiction, and new technologies. It has been described unimaginatively as trail-blazing, innovative, fun and informative. We like to think of GikII as the legal workshop equivalent of a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, in other words, it is “like having your brain smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick”. GikII is where the bravest, fun-est (not to be confused with funniest) and zaniest ideas about law and technologies are discussed. In some instances we explore technologies so new that in fact there is not even a term to describe them, while some other times we have discussed technologies long gone. We only ask that you are imaginative and think of your fellow travellers instead of yourself. GikII is all about giving legal scholars the opportunity to engage in blue skies thinking (variations of the visible electromagnetic radiation spectrum may occur depending on which planet you may currently inhabit). If you have a paper that is languishing at the bottom of your hard drive and is crying out to see the light of a USB stick, GikII is the place for you. We laugh in the face of tradition and make rude comments about scholarly convention.

Application process

Please send an abstract not exceeding 500 words to Professor Lilian Edwards (Lilian.Edwards@sheffield.ac.uk) or Mr Andres Guadamuz (a.guadamuz@ed.ac.uk). The deadline for submissions is April 15 2010, and please bear in mind that we do not hold with the Adamsian theory of deadlines (“they make a pleasing whooshing sound as they go by”). We will try to have them approved and confirmed as soon as possible so that you can organise travel and accommodation.

Registration

As with previous years, GikII is free of charge, and therefore there are limited spaces available, so please make sure you submit your paper early. Priority is always given to speakers, but there are some limited spaces available for students and non-speakers. Registration will be open shortly.

(By the way, we are perfectly aware that “The Voyage Home” is Star Trek IV, we’re just testing your trekkie knowledge).

Apologies for the sensationalist title, but that is precisely what came to mind when I read an article about how the book industry has lost billions of dollars because of book downloading. Attributor is a company that produces anti-piracy solutions, and they have conducted a study that claims illegal downloading of books has [...]]]>

Lost sales

Apologies for the sensationalist title, but that is precisely what came to mind when I read an article about how the book industry has lost billions of dollars because of book downloading. Attributor is a company that produces anti-piracy solutions, and they have conducted a study that claims illegal downloading of books has cost American publishers $3 billion USD. I will resist the temptation to comment on the fact that one should not take seriously a report undertaken by a company that has a commercial interest on the result of said study making the case for their products.

The full report is sketchy at best, but it explains the methodology used to produce such amazing figures. Attributor used some of its proprietary software to track 913 titles throughout several book sharing sites, including RapidShare, 4shared, Upload.com, and Scribd. They tracked a total of 3.2 million downloads in 4 websites, and then extrapolated a total 9 million books for the top 25 sharing sites by allocating their respective market share (there is no indication of the time period of tracking). Attributor then calculated a total market value of $380 million USD for those 9 million books.  Too much extrapolation? Atrributor was not finished. The report says:

“The 913 titles in this study represent works from publishers totaling 13.5% of the U.S. book publishing market. Projecting this $380 million value to the entire industry results in total potential piracy figure of $2.8 billion.”

Translating this into the overall U.S. market, Attributor claims that 10% of the American book market consists of pirated book copies. I am not going to spend a lot of time demolishing the study because it rests on a very faulty assumption, namely, that each download equates a lost sale. Interestingly enough, the full study admits this very fact:

“This study does not to answer the question, “How many of these pirated books would have been purchased legally if piracy was not an option?” Previous piracy studies assume a one-to-one substitution, meaning all pirated material would have been purchased and thus the market value of pirated books is equal to the actual loss, though Attributor feels this is an overly optimistic assumption. This issue will be addressed in a future research phase.”

Wait just a second, then why make a calculation based on an assumption that you admit is “overly optimistic”? Doesn’t that completely demolish the estimates the study is clearly trying to push? Similarly, the book market is very different to other industries, as any calculations have to take into account the existence of libraries. One cannot possibly assume the 1 copy = 1 lost sale doctrine, as it is evidently false. Libraries have not destroyed the book industry, and they never will.

By the way, happy World Book Day.

Last week we were bemoaning the fact that record company EMI had disabled embedding of its music videos outside of YouTube, a measure that directly affected bands that rely in viral fan distribution and embedding for their dissemination, namely band OK Go.

The band’s new video is called This Too Shall Pass, and was released on [...]]]>

Last week we were bemoaning the fact that record company EMI had disabled embedding of its music videos outside of YouTube, a measure that directly affected bands that rely in viral fan distribution and embedding for their dissemination, namely band OK Go.

The band’s new video is called This Too Shall Pass, and was released on Monday 1st March. Given the outcry caused by the band’s New York Times op-ed piece complaining about the problem, EMI has relented and has allowed embedding back, but just for this video. This Too Shall Pass is viral video gold, this should go nuclear, it is the type of setup that makes it perfect YouTube watching, and has all of the ingredients of a big hit; at the time of writing it has been viewed 895,900 (not bad for a 3-day run).

So, let this be a lesson for everyone out there thinking of closing content down. Sharing is good. Sharing produces more hits. Sharing = WIN.

By the way, I will not even entertain the notion that the whole embedding ban was a clever marketing ploy. I am a cynic, but I am not paranoid. Nobody knows that the Internet hates censorship stories, and nobody has noticed that maximalist copyright enforcement gets tweeted and blogged by people just like me, so there is no chance that anyone would believe that it is actually quite easy to spread one’s brand that way. I mean, there is not even the slimmest possibility that there are people out there trying to build viral campaigns by using copyfight issues. No, I refuse to even consider the thought. It is ridiculous to imagine that anyone could possibly think that getting large number of traffic from big profile sites catering to the very same audience you are trying to reach would be in any way productive.

Is there a word for the nagging feeling in the back of your head that implies you have just been used?

Update: 1,926,894 views in just over 3 days and counting. Viral indeed.

Update 2: 2,543,835 in 4 days and counting.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

Enjoy! ]]> (via Flowing Data) There are some surprising figures here:

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

Enjoy!

Last week several news sources reported on the publication of a patent on news feeds granted to Facebook, but I didn’t want to comment until I had read it in full.  Behold US Patent 7,669,123, protecting a system that dynamically provides “a news feed about a user of a social network”. The abstract [...]]]>

Last week several news sources reported on the publication of a patent on news feeds granted to Facebook, but I didn’t want to comment until I had read it in full.  Behold US Patent 7,669,123, protecting a system that dynamically provides “a news feed about a user of a social network”. The abstract reads:

“A method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment is described. The method includes generating news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social network environment and attaching an informational link associated with at least one of the activities, to at least one of the news items, as well as limiting access to the news items to a predetermined set of viewers and assigning an order to the news items. The method further may further include displaying the news items in the assigned order to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewers and dynamically limiting the number of news items displayed.”

So, the patent protects a method that will associate social network users with an informational stream, which will be displayed to a number of other users dynamically. Is it just me, or does this sound extremely basic? Where is the novelty? Where is the inventive step? This is pretty obvious stuff! RSS feeds and news streams are relatively old, and the only big difference here is that it is applied to social networks. Just to make sure that I am not missing an amazing innovative step, I went through the patent claims. The first one reads:

“1. A method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment, the method comprising: monitoring a plurality of activities in a social network environment; storing the plurality of activities in a database; generating a plurality of news items regarding one or more of the activities, wherein one or more of the news items is for presentation to one or more viewing users and relates to an activity that was performed by another user; attaching a link associated with at least one of the activities of another user to at least one of the plurality of news items where the link enables a viewing user to participate in the same activity as the another user; limiting access to the plurality of news items to a set of viewing users; and displaying a news feed comprising two or more of the plurality of news items to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewing users.”

In plain English, this will take information from a social network profile, store it in a database, and then generate news streams that can be linked to other user profiles, and can be viewed and/or filtered in any manner. In other words, Facebook has been granted a patent for trivial database information handling. Really, this is all the above is. Storing, linking and filtering data is what every database in the world does. What is so unique about the above? Nothing! This is basic stuff, even by the USPTO’s low standards. Further claims are similarly obvious:

“16. A system for displaying a news feed comprising: a social network environment; a module configured to monitor a plurality of activities in a social network environment; a storage medium for storing the plurality of activities in a database; a module configured to generate a plurality of news items regarding one or more of the activities, wherein one or more of the news items is for presentation to one or more viewing users and relates to an activity that was performed by another user; a link component configured to attach a link associated with at least one of the activities of another user to at least one of the plurality of news items where the link enables a viewing user to participate in the same activity as the another user; a privacy component configured to limit access to the plurality of news items to a set of viewing users; and a media generator configured to display a news feed comprising two or more of the plurality of news items to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewing users.”

Again, this describes a trivial use of database tables. Should every use of database filtering be granted a patent? The answer should obviously be negative. It seems like the software patent standard in the U.S. is so low that all one needs is to get a clever patent attorney to attach a lot of mumbo jumbo to mundane database functions, and voilà, you are given a patent.

Besides the appalling quality of this patent, I am concerned that it will seriously affect the social network developing environment. Just as an example, academic and professional social networks (such as LinkedIn and Academia.edu) already use news feeds, and by reading the Facebook patent they appear to be infringing. News feeds have become an integral part of social networks, and any patent that protects such feature will place Facebook at a great advantage over its competitors. But I am also concerned that the patent is so broad that it affects other innovative uses of social networking. For example, there are several open source projects which allows one to create a social network on the go. As far as I can tell, most of these offer news feed implementation, which means they are infringing in the U.S.

I wonder what is Facebook’s strategy here. They could simply be looking to stifle competitors. The obvious result of this is that they will probably attempt to get licences from some prominent social networks and the aforementioned open source projects. In the longer run, this could be used to become the only name in social networking. Not good news at all.

Sooo tired, let me rest for just a moment...

[Warning, uninteresting details about the inner life of a blog to follow]

Habitual readers may have noticed that the site was down for just over two days. Having a hosted WordPress site allows one the freedom to configure a blog in ways that some ready-made [...]]]>

Sooo tired, let me rest for just a moment...

[Warning, uninteresting details about the inner life of a blog to follow]

Habitual readers may have noticed that the site was down for just over two days. Having a hosted WordPress site allows one the freedom to configure a blog in ways that some ready-made services such as Blogger simply cannot match.  However, this freedom comes at a price, as I just found out.  Blogger relies on Google’s staggering hosting and processing power in order to guarantee almost limitless space, bandwidth and uptime, while a hosted blog relies on one’s hosting service.  I will not name and shame my old provider, as they worked quite well for almost a year, but it became obvious that I needed to switch providers.

On Sunday 21st I wrote an article about the music industry.  This blog has a plug-in that will tweet all articles, and this got retweeted quite a few times. It has become evident that if one is serious about blogging, one must try to accompany it with Twitter, as it fulfils the same function as RSS feeds to many people.  One interesting feature of Twitter is that it perfectly exemplifies network theories about link propagation, six degrees of separation and the small world phenomenon which make it a perfect tool for disseminating information.  As with many other things in life, blogs and Twitter users observe a strict hierarchy based on the number of people that can be reached.  That is why getting mentioned in high-traffic sites such as Slashdot or BoingBoing can increment one’s incoming links.  In the case of Twitter, there are individuals who carry a lot of influence, and once they retweet or link to something, then that page will get more hits.  The aforementioned article was communicated by two influential twitterers, Glyn Moody and CopyrightLaw.  Their followers kept linking to the original article, and the post got 70 retweets, which was a record for any of my posts.  What happens then is pure mathematics, each retweet translates into hits to the site.  70 retweets may not seen like much, but I started immediately noticing a spike in traffic.

This alone is not enough to explain what brought down the site.  The next day I wrote an article about an outrageous submission by the International Intellectual Property Alliance against open source software.  I was already amazed by the number of hits the site was getting, but of course I could not foresee the strength of the reaction this got. As with the previous day’s post, this was retweeted by several influential tweeterers, and the numbers started climbing.  However, it was then picked up by several news and comment aggregators such as Reddit and Hacker News.  After that, the item started making the rounds in the blogosphere (Ars Technica, yay!) and then on Tuesday it was picked up by the always excellent Bobby Johnson in The Guardian.  By then, the llamas went on strike and the site went down (you didn’t think I’d pay for electricity, did you?).  Interestingly enough, some boards even linked to the Google Cache page of my post.

So what happened?  When setting up the blog I made sure to choose a service that would give me “unlimited bandwidth”.  However, this does not mean that they will accommodate large traffic spikes.  My webiste was suspended on suspicion of abuse, as apparently I was in contravention of the terms and conditions of service.  Interestingly enough, they were correct.  One clause allows for the service to be suspended because “sites must not use excessive amounts of server resources. These include Bandwidth, processor utilization and / or disk space.”  Wait, I have unlimited bandwidth, but if there is excessive use, they will shut down the site?  What did me was not bandwidth however, but processor use.

Anyway, I would have stayed with the provider, but I found customer service pretty bad, and I was upset with the fact that the site was placed on probation for a week.  So I have spent all of today changing providers and exporting the site to a new location, which has reacquainted me with the intricacies of hosting, MySQL data export and WoprdPress php files.

If you are a new reader thanks to the incoming links, welcome!  Thanks to all the people who have tweetered and emailed about the blog. Your interest, recommendations and support are much appreciated.

[OK, self-referential uninteresting bit over, now back to our normal schedule]

Ah, 1995, the early days of the Internet. Windows 95. The Clinton era. Apollo 13. The Unabomber Manifesto. And in Newsweek, a columnist says that the Internet is all hype. He said:

“But today, I’m uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia [...]]]>

Bah, humbug...

Ah, 1995, the early days of the Internet. Windows 95. The Clinton era. Apollo 13. The Unabomber Manifesto. And in Newsweek, a columnist says that the Internet is all hype. He said:

“But today, I’m uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.”

I smell a fallacy. This is what we call, a straw man. Setting up ludicrous statements so that we can knock them down later. Who are “they”?

“Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.”

True of the last two statements, but let’s not talk about how daily newspapers are faring these days.

“How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it’s an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can’t tote that laptop to the beach.”

Exhibit A: The Kindle. Exhibit B: The Netbook. The prosecution rests m’lohrd.

“Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we’ll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.”

OMG, imagine that, buying books online? Whoever heard of such thing?

“What the Internet hucksters won’t tell you is tht the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don’t know what to ignore and what’s worth reading. Logged onto the World Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel them–one’s a biography written by an eighth grader, the second is a computer game that doesn’t work and the third is an image of a London monument. None answers my question, and my search is periodically interrupted by messages like, “Too many connectios, try again later.”"

Hmmmm… Battle of Trafalgar on Wikipedia. How’s that for the unedited Internet?

“Then there are those pushing computers into schools. We’re told that multimedia will make schoolwork easy and fun. Students will happily learn from animated characters while taught by expertly tailored software.Who needs teachers when you’ve got computer-aided education? Bah. These expensive toys are difficult to use in classrooms and require extensive teacher training. Sure, kids love videogames–but think of your own experience: can you recall even one educational filmstrip of decades past? I’ll bet you remember the two or three great teachers who made a difference in your life.”

So many links, so little time!

“Then there’s cyberbusiness. We’re promised instant catalog shopping–just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet–which there isn’t–the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.”

Let’s quickly bypass the obvious straw man, has anyone ever claimed that e-commerce will make mortar shops obsolete? Anyway, e-commerce is doing nice and well, thank you very much. And yes, we use the Internet to shop, click for great deals, order airline tickets, make restaurant reservations, and negotiate contracts.

“And who’d prefer cybersex to the real thing?”

I will grant that one.

So kids, let this be a lesson. Never criticise a technology based on its current features.