--- Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 12:32:47 -0400 (EDT) From: Jonathan Weinberg <weinberg@private> To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private> Subject: Re: [Politech] RIAA replies to Politech over "Net drivers licenses" [priv][ip] But there's nothing so odd about the proposal; its core features would have been accomplished by Intel's Pentium III architecture back in 1999. (For more about Intel's Processor Serial Number and its function as a globally unique ID for Internet-connected computers, see Hardware-Based ID, Rights Management, & Trusted Systems, 52 Stanford L Rev 1251 (2000), <http://www.law.wayne.edu/weinberg/newstanford.PDF>). Current trusted-systems design has moved from embedded GUIDs to more sophisticated controls. See Ross Anderson's FAQ at <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html>. Jon Jonathan Weinberg Professor of Law, Wayne State University weinberg@private --- Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 11:06:23 -0400 (EDT) From: batz <batsy@private> To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private> Cc: politech@private, srh@private Subject: Re: [Politech] Record labels want mandatory "Net drivers license?" [ip][priv] While I am not an inside source, I can tell you why and how this "Net drivers license" would be implemented. The Internet is unique as far as communications technologies go in that it is built around a stateless protocol (IP). The whole notion of a routed store-and-forward vs. a circuit-switched network, is that the reliability of packet delivery is based upon the feature of the network that specifically removes the requirement for and end-to-end control connection. The telephone networks and, most notably, cellular networks are built with this end-to-end control connection in mind. This is what allows companies to deliver phone services profitably. They have their infrastructure subsidized through various incentives, and charge users monthly fees for the connection, the interface (phone), a base service package rate, usage, and then leverage that control to be the sole distributor of services over that media, such as text messaging, voicemail, long distance, etc. Even if there are competitive service providers, the user much pay their source provider to access them. If you look at it from the perspective of a protocol stack, they have control of, and therefore profit from, each layer of physical, data/link, transport, session, presentation and application layers of the medium. Businesses that have profited by and based upon distributing online content (porn, napster) didn't need this kind of control because what they are distributing was as abundant as water. Similarly, content in telecoms is as abundant as water, but they do not control it. Bandwidth is a measure of the rate at which information can be transmitted across a channel, not the value of what that information represents. That is, bandwidth is a relatively constant quantity, whereas value is dynamic and variable, thus available for optimization. MP3 is an excellent example of this, in that it is a technology that allowed for (high value) music files to be transmitted efficiently with existing bandwidth limitations. To deliver services profitably, the provider must have sufficient control over the availability of that service. This availability is facilitated by the medium in the telecom world, as it was by physical media (CD's) in the recording industry. Therefore, control of the medium is control of the content. For you network engineers out there, the DoD or OSI protocol stack evidences that control of a lower layer of the medium, encapsulates the control of higher ones. The Internet changed this by abstracting the network layer to function autonomously from it's lower layers. Control of this abstracted network layer is only as broad as the control of the lower layers, which wasn't an issue until this network layer transcended them to become a ubiquitous layer. What the RIAA sees, is that profit is a function of control, and until an end-to-end control connection can be built into Internet Protocols, they have no means of profiting. ISP's will move to the cellular phone model, where they will manage the users device as a means to deliver services to him, as without value-added service delivery, they are essentually a fixed-income business that scales linearly with the number of users added. There is little room for optimization or value-add in the bandwidth business as it stands. They will recognize this and build in that control connection to deliver services, which will in turn, restore the music industrys media control. This is what the Microsoft Network experiment was. M$ leased dial pools from major ISP's and tried to get into the Internet business. They had spotty control of the desktop, in that they owned it, but had no access to it to leverage it into delivering services. It can be considered a failure because of entrenched ISP's were already offering more user-centric cheaper service and MSN was doomed. AOL had the right idea from a technology standpoint, and they hedged their bets on local ISP's dying out because of not having any real services. The jury is still out on that one. What has happened is massive entry into the market by cable providers, who have a business model that is right in between cellular companies and ISP's. They have the wire, the network, the content and the services. With things like bandwidth caps and proxies, they are slowing closing the loop around the desktop, while dangling the carrot of integrated services like pay-per-view as an incentive to get users to give up control of their desktops. These alleged "licences" will be little more than phone numbers, but their value is that, like phone numbers, they provide a control connection, which the service providers (and law enforcement etc) can access the user to deliver services to them, and enforce policies against them as part of the agreements. I have purposely made ambiguous use of the words "control connection" as in this context, the meaning of an empirical control, (or known constant), an out of band link, and political control, all converge. After all, property is just information, but media is control. _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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