[10068] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: COPYRIGHTS/BENDER
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Peter Deutsch)
Sat Feb 5 18:11:12 1994
From: Peter Deutsch <peterd@bunyip.com>
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 17:55:57 -0500
In-Reply-To: CFMSKI@delphi.com's message as of Feb 5, 6:15
To: CFMSKI@delphi.com, com-priv@psi.com
[ You wrote: ]
. . .
> Anyway, if this list (usually) is about commercialization and privatization
> of net, it is about copyright. The owners of the information on the net
> will determine who accesses their information and ultimately the structure of
> the net. Just as they do now. IMHO, a network setup by universities, NSF,
> and r&d departments will give way to a network owned by copyright holders.
I've heard this view expressed a number of times and it
somehow doesn't quite ring true. Perhaps I'm just missing
the point, but as far as I can see there is nothing
inherent in the arrival of a commerce model for
information (and thus a commercial Internet) that would
force the existing free information sources off the net.
Sure, the net will become larger, but those who give away
information today will be free to continue to do so
tomorrow. Why should they be "giving way" to the copyright
holders and shutting up shop?
What I expect to happen in the very near future is that
those who today offer information and services for free
will find it cheaper to do so tomorrow, as they should be
able to profit from improved economies of scale as
commercial information exchange brings on more users and
thus drives down costs. I fuly expect affordable T1 to the
home in my lifetime, heck I expect it in the next five or
so years. Speaking as someone who once had to support all
four Montreal universities through a single 9600 baud
link, that prospect is pretty appealing.
Now, certainly is a potential problem in that it is harder
to offer a free service to 60 million than it is to
20,000, but the time is long past when it was feasible for
_anyone_ to offer a service to the entire Internet.
Restrictions have been there for years, although disguised
as overloaded machines, saturated links and angry
supervisors.
I can assure everyone that it was no easier to feed the
insatiable consumers of free information two or three
years ago than it is today. Thus, I suspect we'll see
some of the operators of free services blocking certain
networks or types of sites from their offerings because of
cultural clashes or resource short-falls. Surprise! Some
do that now. And if joe.freebie want to block IBM
corporate IP addresses from his free archive because he
hates AIX that's his choice. If conversely, IBM wants to
offer free information only to their customers, that seems
okay to me, too (although I think the Internet equivalent
of sponsoring a softball team is both good morals and good
business so I expect to see quite a bit of it).
So, lets not assume it can only get worse. In some ways,
it can only get better...
- peterd
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My proposal for funding the Internet is pretty simple. I vote we institute
an "Information Superhighway" tax, the proceeds of which will be used to
fund network infrastructure. The way this would work is simple - every time
someone uses the words "Information Superhighway" or any of its derivatives
we strike them with a sharp object and make them pay a $10 fee (of course,
the sharp object is not actually needed to make this scheme work, it's just
in there because it seems an appropriate thing to do...)
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