Michael Connolly

CPS 182s Sec 03

September 9, 2002

Picture this. A prime-time television program pauses for a commercial break, and then a single face fills the screen. The music is slow and mysterious. The face is of a young Asian child. "In the future, I will take a mathematics class...from my home." Cut to a shot of an elementary school teacher smiling at her class through a digital camera. And now a teenage boy of Latino decent: "In the future, all information will travel at the speed of light." Cut to a shot of ripples propagating from a point somewhere in a clear pond. The music starts to rise with momentum as a gentlemanly Black face appears: "In the future, the most valuable capital, will be one's own ideas." Cut to a blurry shot of the hustle and bustle of a chilly subway platform as the music reaches a fast, hypnotic rhythm. And at last, a self-assured White girl in about her mid-twenties: "In the future, anything is possible." As these final words are uttered, a children's choir triumphantly soars over powerful techno rhythms while the camera angle continuously widens its scope and infinitely retracts its view until we see planet Earth as just a dot in the universe and then as nothing at all. And on top of the cosmic darkness emerges a familiar corporate logo and some trite slogan. (Next comes the terror update, Miss Cleo, or perhaps some Craftmatic Model II adjustable beds, but I digress.)

The point is this. For years now, and for as long as I can remember, we have been promised a new and different world as a result of the explosive growth of the internet and the continued developments in computing in general. This now nauseatingly positive message has been thoroughly indoctrinated in us all. I have never studied advertising or marketing, or for that matter, fascist propaganda, but nonetheless I'm sure most people will have been confronted by countless messages similar to what I attempted to depict above. The themes are always quite similar. In sum, things are going to be super, and the whole world is invited. And when it comes to fostering relationships and understanding between peoples and cultures, as expressed in the diversity of the character casting in these ads, then I am absolutely in favor of it. But when it comes to spouting empty rhetoric about how Microsoft, Verizion, General Electric, or one of the half-dozen or so entertainment monsters are supposed to be leading us through some historic revolution of personal and global empowerment, then I begin to have my doubts.

One place to begin sifting through my doubts is the Economy of Ideas paper, by John Perry Barlow. In Barlow's section on "Crypto Bottling," he makes 4 major points: First, strong security is no substitute for a healthy society. Second, traditional models of software distribution may become obsolete due to the potential for a continuous upgrade process. Third, cryptography seems like an obvious component of schemes designed to bring binding signatures and legal tender into cyberspace. And fourth, the pay-per-view paradigm is not in keeping with the Jeffersonian notion of ideas and their possession.

At the start of his paper, Barlow quotes Jefferson's rumination on the nature of ideas and their relationship to property, in which the founding father asserts the notion that ideas are naturally disinclined to be proprietary. In trying to examine the 4 key points in Barlow's section on cryptography, let me first dismiss the paragraphs dealing with electronic signatures and digital cash. These things are not original, creative ideas; the signature is a sign of personal acknowledgement, and the dollar serves to elevate our business transactions above the level of barter. Since neither of these things fit in with Jefferson's notion of an idea, I won't try to examine how cryptography relates to them. Furthermore, while I tend to agree with Barlow's predictions on the future of software distribution patterns, I am not inclined to examine this prediction with respect to Jefferson's beliefs because it seems that these developments will flourish mainly because of increased bandwidth, autonomous program-to-developer communication, and continued growth of the open-source movement. Finally, while I totally agree with Barlow's comment that "the best obstacle to crime is a society with its ethics intact," I again do not relate this to the Jefferson's notion of the idea. Laws and security alone are never going to eradicate the evil in man, but again this is not a question of the property of ideas.

The one key point of the cryptography section that does lend itself to a deeper examination within the context of Jefferson's viewpoint is the section relating to "payment for every access to a particular expression." I agree with Barlow that this model of compensation contradicts Jefferson's notion of the nature of an idea. Furthermore, I believe any ingenious idea or creation is never the result of an individual's intelligence. Great ideas are found, not thought up. What makes "Yesterday" one of the most popular songs of all time? Paul McCartney's ability to compose a tune? Or the fact that its melody has resonated within the hearts of millions of people around the world? Unless other people respond to the song emotionally, the song itself meaningless. The inner emotions and collective thoughts of the members of an audience are what allow art, when it's of some degree of quality, to be effective. And therefore, it is never the artist who makes the art grand, it is the audience. And likewise, it is not the programmer who makes an algorithm remarkable; it is the context of conditions and problems within which the algorithm exists that makes it useful. This notion of art and brilliance is also in keeping with Barlow's idea that familiarity is worth more than scarcity, and it also is in tune Jefferson's notion that, when it comes to ideas, "no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it."

In sum, it seems to me that the pay-per-view model of information consumption does in fact go against the notion of ideas put forth by Thomas Jefferson. Granted, just because Jefferson said something two hundred years ago shouldn't be enough justification to create policy relating to the Internet and intellectual property today. However, by putting forth the proposition that great ideas are inextricably intertwined with the response of the masses and the context of their environments, I think I found myself in to be in agreement with Jefferson and Barlow's views on the subject. Which brings me back to the vision I mentioned at the start of this paper. As far back as I can remember, I have been promised a new, different, and self-empowering world. Since I believe that good ideas are never individually created, I hope that our society takes a very close look at our old notions of intellectual property. However, from what I've seen, especially considering things such as the shut down of Napster, I must admit that I am afraid the "new and improved" world will be no more free and no more empowering than it is today.