Category Archives: Technology

cybers

Does “cyberspace” still exist?

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A food-for-thought/thinking-in-progress post: does “cyberspace” still exist?

I’ve been thinking about this issue recently in connection with several law review articles I’m writing. My feeling at this point is that our earlier conception of networked communications at the dawn of “cyberspace” in 1996 (see Barlow’s Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace) is quite different from the conception we have today. In an era of social networks, smartphones, apps, and customized services, it may no longer make sense to think of cyberspace as a shared place we visit.

One way of showing this is by examining how Google treats searches for formatives of the word “cyberspace.”

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1. Search for “cy”: None of the suggestions include “cyberspace.” Considering the advertising orientation of Google, I’m not surprised that “cyber monday” shows up. But “cyanide and happiness?” Disturbing, much, until I realized that it is a webcomic.

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2. Search for “cyb”: Even more “cyber monday” stuff, with “cyberpower” at the end. Cyberpower makes UPS power strips.

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3. Search for “cyber”: If anything should show “cyberspace,” this should. But I got the same results as for “cyb.” Maybe people just don’t think about “cyberspace” as a place anymore. I’m not sure that I should, either. (“Professor, you’re sooo 20th century….”)

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cybers4. Search for “cybers”: You’d think “cyberspace” would have shown up by now. But it still doesn’t; instead, we see “cybersource” (I had to look it up, it’s a credit card processing company), “cybersquatting” (which I’ve written about), “cyberscholar” (a/k/a, hopefully me), and “cyber security” (a hot topic). But no “cyberspace.” Interesting.

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cybersp

5. Search for “cybersp”: Finally, “cyberspace” is the first hit. The first hit is Wikipedia, and claims that the term is “ubiquitous.” But based on Google’s suggested searches, I’m not so sure.

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Beyond the observations above, I’ll not speculate unduly as my thoughts are still forming. But as Dan Hunter wrote in 2003, “Thinking of cyberspace as a place has led judges, legislators, and legal scholars to apply physical assumptions about property in this new, abstract space.” That’s very true: the assumptions we make about things affects how we choose to regulate them.

But I suspect that we’re now moving into a post-cyberspace era, one of networked communications devoid of “place.” Indeed, I don’t think of either Facebook or Twitter–which I call “Super-Intermediaries” in one of my forthcoming pieces–as a place at all, but rather a connectivity tool. Super-Intermediaries are not thought of as metaphorical “places,” but as things that provide ever-shifting and oftentimes highly complex networks that can vary significantly between individuals (Twitter and Facebook) and sometimes between geographical regions (YouTube).

I suspect that this arguable shift away from place-ness may have a significant effect on how we conceive of the internet, how we describe it, how lawmakers try to regulate it, and how human rights are affected. I’ll demur from saying more as my thoughts are still forming, but I plan to discuss some of these themes next month at the upcoming Internet Law Work-in-Progress Conference at Santa Clara Law School.

Cross-posted to Infoglut Tumblr.

Get out of jail free: how the WWII Allies used the game Monopoly to help POWs escape

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Most of us think of Monopoly as a board game. Intellectual Property folk also think of it as a source of IP issues: trademarks in the name, trade dress of the game, copyright, and even patents. But how about this: a POW escape kit?

Megan Garber writes in the Atlantic about how the WWII Allies used the board game Monopoly to help POWs escape. Turns out that the U.K. manufacturer and licensee of Monopoly, Waddington, had perfected a method of printing on silk, which is in turn an extremely useful way of making maps that can be easily hidden and which make no noise when pocketed or used. (Again patent issues in the method of making the silk!)

The games/escape kits were sent via fake charities:

Posing as “charities” . . ., [the Allies] sent packages to their POWs that featured clandestine escape kits — kits that included tools like compasses, metal files, money, and, most importantly, maps.

And: They disguised those kits as Monopoly games. The compasses and files? Both disguised as playing pieces. The money, in the form of French, German, and Italian bank notes? Hidden below the Monopoly money. The maps? Concealed within the board itself. “The game was too innocent to raise suspicion,” ABC News’s Ki Mae Heussner put it — but “it was the ideal size for a top-secret escape kit.”

As someone who grew up watching Hogan’s Heroes and movies such as The Great Escape, this is fascinating stuff. Although numerous maps were made and helped prisoners to escape, unfortunately, none of the Monopoly escape kits remain.

For more info, see the story Garber links to at ABC News.

Cross-posted at Infoglut Tumblr.

“YouTube Slashes Two Billion ‘Fake Views’ Of Music Video Channels”

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After an audit of views, Google slashed billions of views from music channels, including Universal Music (a defendant in the notorious “dancing baby” DMCA takedown case). The article says:

Record companies representing stars like Rihanna, Justin Biber and Alicia Keys may not be as popular as they hoped – as YouTube wiped two billion “fake views” from their channels on the site video sharing site.

I wonder whether the companies are involved somehow in the inflated views. For example:

Google slashed the cumulative view counts on YouTube channels belonging to Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, and RCA Records by more than 2 billion views Tuesday, a drastic winter cleanup that may be aimed at shutting down black hat view count-building techniques employed by a community of rogue view count manipulators on the video-sharing site.

I honestly don’t know whether the companies are involved. But suppose, hypothetically, the companies were involved. Notably, the feds tried to criminally prosecute a woman for making a fake MySpace profile a few years back. Maybe they’d do the same to record companies? . . . . Not!

H/T Pete Fein @wearpants on Twitter.  Cross-posted to my Infoglut Tumblr.

RIP Steve Jobs

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There is probably nothing I can say about Steve Jobs and his incredible life that hasn’t been said before. So I’ll simply post a memorable, and oft-cited, portion of his 2005 Stanford Commencement address:

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

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Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest

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Despite the slings and arrows of Hurricane Irene hitting Washington a week ago, the recent Global Congress on Intellectual Property Law and the Public Interest has produced an important document calling for more transparency and public participation in the crafting of IP law.The Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest is an important step in the fight for the public interest and against governments that have been co-opted by copyright and patent owners. Truly a global effort, the Global Congress included over 180 experts from 35 countries in six continents and was held (during Irene!) at American University Washington College of Law.

As argued in my recent article on private copyright enforcement and feedback loops, a deficit of transparency and public participation in private copyright enforcement has fostered gross overreach by copyright owners. A recent example of copyright overreach is amply demonstrated by the so-called Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which was negotiated secretly and addresses far more than mere “counterfeiting.” (See here for a law professors’ letter I’ve signed against ACTA.)

It’s good to see such concerns echoed in the Congress’ just-released Declaration. For example:

International intellectual property policy making should be conducted through mechanisms of transparency and openness that encourage broad public participation. New rules should be made within the existing forums responsible for intellectual property policy, where both developed and developing countries have full representation, and where the texts of and forums for considering proposals are open. All new international intellectual property standards must be subject to democratic checks and balances, including domestic legislative approval and opportunities for judicial review.

Along similar lines, the Declaration calls excessive IP enforcement out to task, noting that “Government and private IP enforcement are commandeering greater social resources in order to impose stricter penalties than ever before, with fewer safeguards and less procedural fairness.” The Declaration contains many other important ideas, such as making sure that new IP protections are rooted in transparent research that demonstrates the need for new IP rights, including addressing the fact that fair uses and other IP limitations also generate economic value. Other important mentions are the importance of libraries and archives, strengthening IP exceptions, rejuvenating notice-based formalities, and much more.

I’d go on, but instead you should read the full document at http://infojustice.org/washington-declaration. Even better, sign it. (I did: I’m # 95.).