InfoTech & Public Policy

During the in-class discussion of the future of television, Professor Felten briefly mentioned the lawsuit brought against ClearPlay by the Directors Guild of America. ClearPlay enables certain DVD players to be customized with specific rating criteria (like nudity or violence levels) by the users so the playback of a DVD will skip or mute certain segments to conform to the rules setup by the users. The Directors Guild charged ClearPlay with copyright infringement for creating an unauthorized derivative work. I was looking for more details about the case and found it to be pretty interesting.

As I stated before, ClearPlay allows for users to setup their DVD player to filter certain content during the playback of the DVD. Users must purchase a DVD player with filtering capabilities (such as this one from amazon.com) and subscribe to ClearPlay to receive new filters. The information about how to filter each particular DVD can be obtained from ClearPlay (via various subscription models). They do a pretty good job of offering filtering for new releases and have a list of over 1900 movies. Once the specific filtering information is obtained by the DVD player, users can configure a filtering menu to specify the type of content that can and cannot be seen. There are four main categories: violence, sex and nudity, language, and other (which, for example, include certain types of drug use). Each category can also be further configured:

Under language, for instance, viewers can filter for six levels, including “vain reference to the deity” or “strong profanity.” [1]

I have never watched a ClearPlay filtered DVD, but here is a nice excerpt from a PC Magazine review :

Spiderman has, I’d say, one truly worrisome or suggestive scene for kids under 13. Mary Jane Watson is walking home alone in the rain when she’s accosted by a bunch of hooligans who, as the scene progresses, appear to want to rob or rape her. Spiderman arrives in the nick of time to save the day in pretty violent fashion. There’s punching, kicking, and more, but no blood. With the bad guys vanquished, Spiderman steals away into an alley. Mary follows him. She’s dripping wet. So wet in fact, that her top is virtually see-through. She and Spiderman engage in a steamy, prolonged kiss, and then he takes off.

Here’s how the same scene played out with the filter on. The guys still chase Mary, but the intensity of the scene is muted because it’s been cut down a bit. Spiderman arrives and beats the guys up, but this scene is also somewhat shorter, with some of the most bone-crunching blows removed—oddly, both versions did include Mary delivering a kick to the crotch to one of the attackers. The scene in the alley receives some serious tightening, and any glimpse of Mary’s see-through blouse has been excised.

The nice thing about all this is that you could never tell when the cuts were happening. There was no delay, no hiccup in playback. I would imagine that trying to maintain some semblance of continuity in a profanity-laced scene could prove more challenging.

This technology seems like a natural replacement for manually pausing or fast-forwarding through certain scenes that parents do not wish their children to view. The Directors Guild of America, however, does not believe that and in 2002 brought a lawsuit against ClearPlay. They claimed that the ClearPlay technology was creating an unauthorized derivative work of the content and this was in violation of copyright law.

“ClearPlay software edits movies to conform to ClearPlay’s vision of a movie instead of letting audiences see, and judge for themselves, what writers wrote, what actors said and what directors envisioned,” The Directors Guild of America said in a statement.

“Ultimately, it is a violation of law and just wrong to profit from selling software that changes the intent of movies you didn’t create and don’t own,” the statement said. [1]

The lawsuit was filed against ClearPlay and other companies that offer similar filtering and is still pending in U.S. District Court for Colorado. Here are the EFF links to the case documentation.

Since the case has been filed, new legislation has been enacted to specifically address some of these issues. Now this is where things get interesting. In 2005, Congress passed S. 167: The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005. The relevant section of this bill specifically enables technology that allows :

the making imperceptible, by or at the direction of a member of a private household, of limited portions of audio or video content of a motion picture, during a performance in or transmitted to that household for private home viewing, from an authorized copy of the motion picture

This bill specifically allows filtering technology such as ClearPlay. It is currently unclear if the lawsuit will continue given this new legislation. S.167 answers the question about this specific type of filtering technology, but did not give a conclusion of the scope of the derivative work restrictions on copyright.

One of the reasons, I believe, the lawsuit may still continue is CleanFlicks. I mentioned before that the lawsuit was brought against ClearPlay and other filtering companies; CleanFlicks is one of the others. The CleanFlicks model is to make a one-time filtering of the DVD content from an authorized (rental) copy and create a new DVD. This filtered DVD is then rented or sold to subscribers. The filtered content is not removed during playback, but rather permanently removed from the media. I don’t believe that this scenario is specifically allowed from S.167, so we are now back to the question of derivative work. I think it will be very interesting if this case continues through the courts.

When I went into class this week I was only mildly familiar with the range of (legal) video content that is available online. Sure, I knew about the giants iTunes, Google Video, and You Tube. I was not really aware of Slingbox (aside from Greg’s earlier demo), MLBTV, Democracy TV, or any of the other video resources online. But even our time in class didn’t come close to giving me a sense of the breadth of sources for video content online.

I left class last week and went to pick up my mail in Frist. The only piece of mail that I had was an issue of Wired magazine. Quite coincidentally, this month’s Wired has a piece called “The New Networks,” which is all about the television revolution that we spoke about in class.

The Wired piece is not so much an article as it is a list of cool new TV oriented technologies. For those of you who are interested, the piece lists about 80 web sites and services. I highly doubt it’s exhaustive. The very first one listed, Akimbo, that really piqued my interest. Akimbo is essentially reverse Slingbox. Rather than broadcasting your television over the internet, Akimbo allows you to download and watch internet video on your TV.

To get Akimbo working on your TV you need to have a broadband internet connection, drop $200 for the box, and be willing to shell out $10 a month for service. In exchange for your continued monetary support, Akimbo provides you with ~100 “channels” of on demand content. Essentially, you pay for their indexing and hosting lots and lots of video (10,000 tv shows alone) so that you don’t have to go looking for it online or on TV. When you want to watch something, it is automatically downloaded to your Akimbo box and played for you.

Akimbo currently has over 100+ channels, with new ones added each week. Unlike TV channels, Akimbo Channels are collections of programs from Akimbo’s partners, and all programs are available for viewing on your schedule.

As you can see, “channels” is really a misnomer. Surfing through Akimbo’s website it looks like these channels are actually just categories of video that exist to make finding what you want easier. There’s a news category, a business new category, a cartoon category, an anime category, a sports category, a baseball category, and yes, even an adult category. There is not even a hint of time restrictions for when you can watch certain content.

For me, though, the most exciting thing about Akimbo is that they seem quite open to partnering with nobodys, so to speak. The following comes from their “Partners” page.

Get your content seen on Akimbo!
Interested in providing video programming to the Akimbo Service? If you have more than 10 titles, totaling more than 5 hours, please contact us directly at partners@akimbo.com.

If you have fewer than 10 titles, click here for information about our Indie on Akimbo program and submit your content online submission.

They also have an option for video bloggers to register their vodcast with the company. As we usually think of corporate partners as other corporations, the term “partner” is also something of a misnomer here. Virtually anyone can be an Akimbo partner. So really the whole thing is a big time-shifting and narrowcasting machine (get excited Greg!).

I find Akimbo much more attractive than Slingbox. I have no particular desire to be able to watch TV more often and in more places than I already do. What I’d love to be able to do is watch the video content that I want when I want to do it. It seems to me that Akimbo is moving the television revolution in a direction that is both sustainable for large companies and really cool for users and small content producers.

Large video producers can deal with Akimbo much like they would a local cable provider. Akimbo collects fees from users and can pay partners for their content. Since the model is so similar to cable TV it should be clear to corporations that there is money to be made here. What is revolutionary about Akimbo is that this process is open to mid-sized video producers as well. You need not be an established cable channel or studio to get your content on there. Funds can be divied up based on the popularity of content. This might even force large to studios to produce more good stuff.
Users can deal with Akimbo much like they would with their Tivo or cable box. The machine allows you to browse through all available video by channel and select what you would like to watch. It allows also allows people to “subscribe” to feeds of certain types like music videos or news. Really small video producers like video bloggers can register their content (which they were producing for free anyway) and use Akimbo as a distrobution platform.

Akimbo brings some good change to the world of television, but not so much as to completely devastate the landscape.

(If you’re interested, here is a review of the Akimbo platform’s hardware and software. There is also a story of how AT&T is using Akimbo as their video on demand provider.)

In this week’s discussion of broadcast regulation, the issue of localization and boarders came up. In particular it was noted that Canadian broadcasts had quotas for Candian and French Language content. The rules are actually quite specific: 35% of weekday radio broadcasts between 6AM to 6PM must be Canadian and 55% within the same timeframe must be in French. They even have specific rules on what qualifies as Canadian content.

Most students expressed the thought that protection of culture was silly. The fact that it was the French Language (of all languages) that was being protected made these regulations even sillier. After all, if there is one thing that is popular across America, it’s France Bashing (if you have any doubt, try “I’m Feeling Lucky” for “French Military Victories”).

The typical argument against cultural regulation (as expressed by some in class) is that people vote with their feet: if Canadians wanted to watch more Canadian Television, they would not need government subsidies for it. I have a few responses to that. First, by living in America, one has a distinctly asymmetrical view of broadcast culture. American airwaves are remarkably impermeable to international content, while international airwaves are filled with American content. Chances are, you have never heard of MC Solaar (a popular French Rap Artist), but many of my friends overseas have heard of Eminem. You have probably never heard of the Spring Festival TV Show, which (at least a few years ago) was the biggest TV event in mainland China. And yet, the students I have talked to (in East Asia and Europe) have all heard of American television shows. (Unfortunately, the most popular example, cited universally, is “Friends.” If you don’t believe my anecdotal evidence, check out the French, German, and Chinese language sites, which are always the first hit in the appropriate national language Google search). This asymmetry goes a long way in explaining the divide between countries concerning cultural protections. So then if American culture does better in the free market, does it mean it is somehow better – more marketable, larger popular appeal?

Not necessarily. The name of Frederick II’s palace in Potsdam is “Sans Souci” – it’s French for “without worries.” Why did this quintessentially Prussian ruler name his palace in French? And more importantly, why does it imitate the intricate Rocco style of Versailles (and for that matter, why do all the palaces of that era?) During the eighteenth century, France was the preeminent power and French culture and language were dominant. It has even been remarked that Russian Aristocrats spoke better French than they did their native tongue. Similar geopolitical overtones exist in the modern debate over culture and language preservation: people in foreign countries view American content as an invasion of something they cherish dearly.

A possible response might be, “well, I’m American; as a policy matter, I should oppose all cultural protections because they hamper the free market mechanisms I believe in and inhibit the spread of my culture.” Its pretty clear that Americans do not always think this way. One of the biggest applause lines in Avenue Q was from “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist:”

Everyone makes judgments
Based on race.
…
Now not big judgments, like who to hire
or who to buy a newspaper from –
…
No, just little judgments like thinking that Mexican
busboys should learn to speak goddamn English!

On the policy front, a provision of the current immigration bill requires that newly “amnestied” immigrants learn English. My point is that Americans are just as culture and language conscious as everyone else.

While I believe that countries have a very legitimate right to support their own culture, I don’t think broadcast quotas are the right way of accomplishing that goal. For one thing, it costs a regulator the same amount of ink to place the quota at 1% for domestic content as 99%; the danger is that policy makers will pick unrealistic numbers without concern for their effects. Subsidizing cultural events is a much better method as increased support comes with increased costs. This is very much in tune with American policy: the current budget for the National Endowment for the Arts is around $140 million. Of course, one could argue that NEA money is squandered too: if the masses choose Britney spears over Itzhak Perlman then let them listen to teenage pop. This is a completely different debate, but I think that most Americans support some form of subsidization for the Arts.

This post discusses recent missives on wireless internet access at Princeton, and the ubiquitous Blackberry in office environments.

Anon’s interesting April 18 post on wireless internet use asserts that – and I am paraphrasing – our university would be a better place without student web access during class. More specifically, Anon is of the view that it would be nice if instructors could limit wireless access with “the flip of a switch.” Anon’s post refers to an article in the Prince that Avi penned. He too is against the use of laptops (to access the net) in class, describing them as distracting. It seems that Princeton has been too generous in providing students with easy internet access in the classroom.

Nonsense. A simpler fix to this dilemma is to leave the laptop at home. If you are spending too much time on your computer and ignoring the lecture you are supposedly attending, then the consequences should be on your shoulders. I am not bothered if you spend time in class messaging your friends; this activity in no way detracts from what I am getting out of a given lecture. Instructors are a different question. They can, and should, be able to ask their students to leave their laptops at home if computer use during class is disruptive. Asking students to come prepared, to participate in class, and not be disruptive can hardly be considered burdensome in a university setting. By the way, those who assume that instructors don’t know who is surfing or messaging (versus who is listening and taking notes) are fooling themselves.

As technology advances and we acquire new gadgets we need to adapt to their use. Public policy has a role, but oftentimes common sense does too. The Blackberry, for example, has changed the way colleagues interact electronically (especially in the evening and on weekends). Sometimes it is appropriate to check your e-mail messages on your “crackberry,” and other times it is not. Too many workplace meetings feature one person speaking and all others consulting their Blackberrys. But this is more of an etiquette issue than a policy question. Banning Blackberrys from meetings might focus the group, but can also detract from sessions that depend on the latest information. The responsibility for appropriate use should rest with the user, not with the chair of a meeting. Likewise, the use of a laptop in class to either take notes or surf should be the decision of the user.

Anon also frets about drivers checking their e-mail. In this instance, I believe public policy does have a role. Some jurisdictions do not allow driver cell phone use (presumably this also applies to the Blackberry) though it must be said that these laws are not well enforced. New Jersey apparently has a law banning driver cell phone use, but also widely encourages (through freeway signs) the reporting of aggressive driving by dialing a number available only to cell phone users. Distracted drivers are a much bigger threat to society than the distracted students discussed above.

In sum, policy can have a role in moderating public behavior when it comes to the latest gadget. But unless there is an over-riding and demonstrable need for explicit written rules or guidelines, then etiquette should guide the user.

            It is relatively easy to make the argument that the market undervalues security in the technology industry.  For example, a denial of service attack could essentially shut down a website like Google.  This attack likely is facilitated by individuals’ computers with minimal if any security.  The users whose computers are hijacked for this attack do not incur a very high cost.  If anything, their computer might run a little slower but for all intensive purposes it works fine as far as they are concerned.  These people would have little incentive to try to figure out how to better protect their computer as from their perspective there is not a problem.  On the other hand, Google has a major problem despite the fact that they have taken every practical security precaution.  One can easily point to many situations similar to this hypothetical scenario and claim that security is undervalued.  However it is very difficult to accurately quantify exactly how big a problem this is.  This difficulty can lead one to point to anecdotal evidence instead of statistics which can lead to inaccurate assumptions. 

            People often put to much emphasis in individual stories.  Consider this hypothetical scenario:  Bob was riding the train while on vacation in New York when he was mugged in broad daylight.  Bob returns home and recounts the story to Larry.  Both Bob and Larry agree that clearly more security is needed on the train.  However, Bob and Larry fail to recognize that for the one mugging Bob and Larry suffered, law enforcement prevented 99 other such attacks that day.  If instead of hearing Bob’s story Larry had heard the statistic that 99% of muggings on the train are prevented than Larry would probably have agreed that law enforcement is doing an adequate job.  

            When people discuss security against computer attacks the anecdotal stories are more readily available than the statistics.  One can point to a number of worms or viruses and the damage they caused and argue that clearly the market is failing to adequately address security.   However these viruses do not necessarily mean that the market is failing.  Searching for bugs or weaknesses in code is much like trying to prevent the next terrorist attack.  One can be successful 100 times in a row.  Then one attack succeeds and the current security measures are viewed as a failure.  One could consider computer viruses and worms in a similar way.  It would be very difficult to quantify the number of viruses and worms that were prevented by current security.  Quantifying the number of prevented attacks would likely be even more difficult than quantifying the damage caused by successful attacks.  However to fully consider the effectiveness of the market one must consider the number of attacks which are prevented.  Millions of people use computers and the internet every single day without incident.  Their stories are less sensational but no less important. 

            As stated during class there will always be a tradeoff between security, functionality and cost.  The goal of this post is not to claim that the market is correctly valuing security.  Rather it is to caution against an argument that begins with “it is difficult to accurately quantify…”  More often than not this can lead to people putting too much emphasis on specific scenarios and not fully understanding the overall issue.  It is easy to see flaws in the current system and question its effectiveness.  However as these flaws are identified we must always remember to consider the strengths of the current system as well.  None of the solutions that have been proposed to this point are without drawbacks.  The system is not perfect and can always be improved upon but in discussing the negatives to the current system one must also acknowledge the positives.

Many students have posted to the courseblog concerning virtual worlds and the need to regulate them. On one side, are those who believe that regulation is ridiculous and unsustainable or that their real world irrelevance makes regulation unnecessary. Others argue that events in the virtual world have real world consequences on players and economics which necessitates real-world regulation

To a certain extent, both sides are talking past each other rather than engaging in a debate because the terms of debate have not yet been set. That is, with many other issues we have discussed the question was clear: online gambling is becoming a problem, find a solution that effectively curbs it given the technical possibilities and respects civil liberties. We knew the objective of intended regulation.

The rationale for regulation follows from societal perceptions of the (usually) economic and (sometimes) social consequences of an activity. For instance, we regulate financial market fraud because we believe having functioning capital market where investors can trade with confidence is necessary for a free market. That is, regulation is intended to foster behaviors deemed socially beneficial. On the other hand, we place many restrictions on gambling because we fear the ills it brings to society.

It is tempting to argue that people who spend all their time engrossed in MMORPGs are contributing nothing to the economy and therefore such activities should be discouraged. If one took this as a premise, then one might take the same attitude towards virtual world regulation as one does gambling[1]. However, simply because one is not churning out widgets in a factory does not mean one is not helping the economy. For instance, few would argue that watching a movie is a productive activity, but this form of entertainment is an important part of the American economy. In fact, we deem it to be so important that we have created a complex set of laws called copyrights to ‘incentivize’ the production of creative content. Without any consumers, products would have no purpose: all work and no play stifle the economy. If one is to justify regulations against virtual worlds, one would have to do so on the basis of negative externalities generated by online addiction, much as one might justify regulation of gambling based on gambling addiction. However, one would have to find significant negative externalities. As a society, we don’t believe in regulating behavior simply because it is “unsocial:” there are no rules barring you from being glued to your TV set or being a workaholic.

But there is another way to view virtual worlds, and that is as a platform for economic activity. The Second Life economy is booming: in January 2006, the Linden dollar equivalent of $5 million US was traded. If a sizable market springs up, then the government has a strong incentive to regulate n order to smooth out the rough edges of the free market. (Alternately, if one is of a libertarian persuasion, one could take the cynical view that the government will find a way to regulate any sizable market, especially when tax dollars are at risk.) Accepting the premise that virtual worlds are a perfectly legitimate (and socially desirable) medium in which to transact business, one would consider regulation (or the lack of it) to promote growth. This is not terribly unlike the stock market analogy: in both economically significant bits are being flipped in servers and these bits are redeemable for real and virtual services. However, it is difficult to say that the LindenX plays the same fundamental economic function that AMEX or NYSE does so any proposed regulation will have be tempered by this “irrelevance.”

The above is a discussion of two views of the purpose of government regulation. I don’t know if I subscribe to either view entirely; both have their strengths and shortcomings. Neither argument deals explicitly with the form and scope of regulation. On this point, I think Tim Wu made a good point. He gave a talk March 30^th on campus entitled “Who Controls the Internet?” in which he brought up the importance of physicality. Internet-based forms of punishment inflictable by game masters – lowering one’s score, or banishing someone from a site – do not seem to have an effect on certain individuals (consider, for instance the attacks by W-Hats on the Second-Life servers). However, even these people are afraid of real world sanctions that the government is capable of imposing – fines, prison time. While virtual punishments should be a first choice they sometimes need to be backed by real-world consequences.

In our class on virtual worlds, we briefly discussed the responsibility developers and operators of MMORPGs take on when they create a forum so sophisticated that the events inside it are hardly “virtual.” Our discussion of the distinction between virtual and real world assets led us to one critical distinction - in the virtual world, totalitarian responsibility ultimately rests with the game’s developers and operator. This leads to many non-trivial questions about whether they should stop in in the event of a “virtual catastrophe” - Linden Labs stepped in when a weapon of mass destruction appeared in Second Life. I think another interesting place this comes up is the question of virtual world “addiction.”

According to Professor Edward Castronova’s Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier, 20% of EverQuest survey responders consider the world of Norrath their full-time home, 22% would spend all their time on the game if they could, and 40% would move to Norrath permanently if it were a “real” place - and that was in 2001, when these games were significantly less advanced. Non-gamers (and closeted addicts) will scoff at these statistics, but it’s increasingly obvious that the millions of devotees aren’t spending 20 hours a day killing dragons. Instead of again rehashing the dizzying possibilities of virtual worlds (though I put a bunch of links at the end), I’ll summarize and say you can do just about everything except eating, drinking, and sex. Plainly put, I’m not convinced that spending 20 hours per day on the net running a virtual real estate company is any more antisocial than spending the same amount of time creating visually appealing company slideshows. But for the many players who use virtual worlds to escape reality rather than test their business acumen, internet addiction is set to outgrow alcoholism in social costs. It’s bringing up an issue that’s been with us since the dawn of video game violence policy - when gaming causes real-world problems, who is responsible?

In China, where online gaming is a $500 million dollar industry, addiction is seen increasingly as a sort of national epidemic, with a rising demand for addiction clinics. The General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), which regulates online gaming, started last year to mandate a “fatigue system” where players are only permitted to play for five hours. After three hours, players experience a cut to in-game benefits and decreasing rewards and experience points, as well as receiving the message : “You have entered unhealthy game time, please go offline immediately to rest. If you do not your health will be damaged and the benefits you can win will be cut to zero.“ They are then not permitted to play the game again before a five hour break. Since online gaming operators need government approval to offer services in China, they have little choice but to comply.

don’t think we are at risk of such overbearing regulation in the United States, but given the frequent and sometimes successful public outcry about violent video games, it will become an increasingly critical policy issue. I believe a great deal of policy decisions concerning virtual worlds will hinge on the question of just how much “real life” importance the government chooses to give them. At some point, we will have to decide whether the income you earn in Second Life is taxable by the IRS and whether business transactions that take place there must be recorded. And if virtual worlds are given this recognition, I think the “addiction problem” should be reconsidered in light of virtual worlds as more than just games.

Interesting links:
U2 Unwittingly Gives Second Life Concert
Virtual Worlds Raise Money for Katrina Victims
Sexual Inequality Issues in V.W.
Virtual world teaches real-world skills: Game helps people with Asperger’s practice socializing