Life in the Network

The Issue

The real question is seems to be centered around ownership. Jack Velenti, who runs the MPAA is the head of the music and movie industry’s attempt to retain ownership of their content, while John Perry Barlow seems to be an intellectual that is behind an idea of “Cyber communism,� where ownership and creativity are shared amongst the masses.
The man who seems to be walking the line between the two is Steven Jobs, who has to license his products, but wholly acknowledges that his product is being used to play stolen material.

Reaction.

I think that this event is a repeat of history, only this “revolution� has Steve Jobbs at the center of it laughing himself silly every night (because he’s placating the music industry, appeasing his Mac lovers, and cornering his market all with one stone). File shareing on the Internet is a classic repeat of the enclosement of the commons in England 500 years ago. On one hand, you have business (rich people) that seek profit, and use ownership as a means to accomplish this end. One the other side of the battle, you have the techno-robbinhoods, who are using the Internet as a common place to share intellectual property. Just as English peasants/freemen shared graze land with the landed gentry in England 500 years ago. This time however, it seems as though the rich people are having a harder time defining ownership in cyberspace. Most likely because it is so new a medium, and until recent years, no one has owned the Internet. I mean, I think this is a very interesting event in this time and age where everything is changing so rapidly. The most interesting thing I ran across was Barlow’s thoughts on ownership in his “Next Economy of Ideas.� There he states that claiming ownership to theories (and other non-tangible mediums) is what has caused the internet to be so popular, and up till this point mostly free. This is according to him; because our entire economic model is based upon tangible, and tradable goods. He contends that ideas, while tradable, are not tangible enough to have a profit made upon them. Especially because theories and the like, can be reinterpreted and recreated by those who encounter them. The reason why I think this to a groundbreaking idea is because this theory attacks the entire system of ownership that brought down the English commons 500 years ago. I states that ideas, “like land used to be,� are to serve the public good, and not necessarily meant to serve an individual interest.