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Earlier today Peter Klein pointed to a very interesting article regarding elite universities from the WSJ aptly titled, “Any College Will Do.” In it, the author notes that only 10% of the chief executives of Fortune 500 firms attended an Ivy League school. In fact, most of the executives simply matriculated to seemingly generic schools (e.g. large State-supported schools).

This piece is germane as The Economist recently noted that because of the advent of relatively cheap and easy-to-use electronic media (e.g., e-reserves, bulletin boards, listserves, electronic digests, etc.), the top universities no longer have a resource-based advantage over their less-affluent counterparts with respect to conducting cutting-edge research.

It also ties into learncasting (educational podcasting) and of particular interest: the case of Robert Schrag, a communications professor at North Carolina State University. At the beginning of the Fall semester he began to sell his lectures in podcast form for $2.50 — to both student and public denizen alike. However, he was recently required to take them down until the University had come up with a formal policy to handle the intellectual property issues surrounding the class material.

This is a perfect example that illustrates my thesis regarding the transformation of the traditional, residential-based college in the “Web 2.0″ era.

The administration and its stake holders are at cross-roads. On one hand they could adopt this technology - as numerous Universities have - and use it as an additional revenue source. Ignoring the much maligned DRM issues, in the long-run this could enable Universities to reach the distance-based education customer who is short on commuting time and/or lacks the ability to pay for lodging each semester. They could even develop these lectures into a full-blown video series, a low-tech product that everyone is familiar with and capable of reaching mass-markets.

On the other hand, if the administration did decide to go this route, they would tacitly be admitting that the competitive advantage of attending classes via meatspace is at a dead-end. This is not to say that there are no advantages of living at a residential college: building a social rolodex can still enable students to gain advantages over their isolated, virtual peers — in theory at least (one could argue that because of chat rooms, newsgroups, blogs, wikis and a slew of other social web services, a self-motivated individual could become just as proficient as their college-bound peers).

See also: 1 2 3

Update: according to The Chronicle, the professor’s podcasts are back online.  However, they are password-protected and thus are currently only accessible to students (and now for free).

You may have heard the term Darknet mentioned throughout your days on the internets.

In a nutshell, it is simply a private virtual network in which its members only share with people they trust. If you have used IRC, there are private, password protected channels that only friends can join. That is a very low-tech, yet effective proto-darknet.

In the era of lawsuits from the RIAA et al, a new generation of wares is being developed to increase a users anonymity and security. This includes the use of file encryption, proxies to continuously route and reroute traffic, and masking schemes designed to prevent the public from peering into their metaverse.

Enter AllPeers. Sean Lynch, a friend of mine, pointed me to it today and after testing it out, it seems like a usable proof-of-concept peer-to-peer darknet.

It is currently in beta mode and it shows, you can only share 300 files at a time and there are no subdirectories.

It plugs into your browser through a Firefox extension (other browsers will be supported later on). And because you only share files with people you know, there is really no way the RIAA can trace this kind of thing unless the developers install a backdoor into the software… or if the RIAA tries to trick you into sharing files with them.

It also claims to use SSL encryption and BitTorrent, however seeing as you are only sharing with a few friends, there shouldn’t be much of a need to distribute and balance the load. Also, based upon a Wikipedia entry, it seems that it is built on a bug that might be “fixed” and in doing so, would terminate its ability to act as a P2P application.

Note: this is different than a “BrightNet” like Offsystem.

Guess what online music service is looking to offer unrestricted (i.e. non-DRM) music? Surprisingly, it is Yahoo.

Anyone else remember that little program called Napster? What about Allofmp3.com?

In rememberance of this historical occassion, I would like to reference the latest factoids compiled by the EFF:

1. The RIAA has sued more than 20,000 music fans for file sharing, yet file sharing continues to rapidly increase both online and offline. When will you stop suing music fans?
2. The RIAA has sued over 20,000 music fans for file sharing, who have on average paid a $3,750 settlement. That’s over $75,000,000. Has any money collected from your lawsuits gone to pay actual artists? Where’s all that money going?
3. The RIAA has sued over 20,000 music fans for file sharing. Recently, an RIAA representative reportedly suggested that “students drop out of college or go to community college in order to be able to afford [P2P lawsuit] settlements.” Do you stand by this advice? Is this really good advice for our children’s futures?

Mark Cuban has suggested that if/when the RIAA does sue someone, the maximum amount they should be allowed to sue for is a $5/month fine, as it is the “prevailing market” rate for unlimited “legal” downloads.

I personally think the whole IP system is bupkis.

Via Martin Geddes.

I always assumed that Vaudeville was a mixture of off-the-cuff sketch comedy and pretentious Soap Opera.

And then I am reminded of Abbott and Costello’s infamous skit: Who’s On First.

Along with Charlie Chaplin, The Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges, Fred Astaire, and Judy Garland, Abbot and Costello were among the few acts that made a successful transition from Vaudeville to radio and television.

Because these disruptive technologies forced enterprises to change business models in order to survive, I wonder if there were many lawsuits from organizations similar to the RIAA and MPAA during that time.

See also, The DMCA, The Most Creative Solution To Preventing Creativity and Without IP who will invent? How about everybody.

Who owns your body? If you do not personally own your body, who does?

Does the State? Does a supernatural entity? Do your parents still own you?

Despite fighting wars in the name of “freeing slaves,” humanity is by-in-large still enslaving one another through acts of fiat legislation. One such instance involves that of organs. Do you own your organs? If you do not, then who does? Regardless as to how you answered, the unfortunate reality of the situation is that the State claims ownership of yourself and your bodily parts — organs included.

Furthermore, this mental ownership exercise can continue to the microscopic level, including that of genes. Who owns your genes?

While these questions of ownership run around in your mind a germane tangent that meanders into this topic is that of genealogy. The National Geographic Society, along with IBM, has put together an endeavor called the Genographic Project. Basically they are trying to get individuals throughout the entire globe to self-administer a test - swabbing your inner-mouth cheeks - whom in return then send these samples back to National Geographic labs for further analysis.

Unsurprisingly, the project is not without its critics who believe the native indigenious people around the world are being exploited by, in their own words, racist scientists. The word “biopiracy” appears several times in their press release condemning the project, which is seen as “eugenics” in nature – suggesting that the results may be used to prove one group is inferior to another. They also suggest that firms may try to commercialize and “patent” whatever oddities or new things they discover.

This same claim of “biopiracy” was recently leveled upon Google whom is helping J. Craig Venter of the Human Genome Project fame. Several years ago Wired magazine published a detailed writeup of Venter’s latest project, which is to sail the seven seas in search of microbes and fish whose DNA he can analyze and hopefully “patent.” Google is reportedly allowing Venter to use their computer resources to analyze and catalogue each genome.

The issues that are being skirted around by all parties involved on both sides of these projects is the issue of property, what is it and who can own it? This is where “intelletual property” (e.g. patents) and the State do a great job of perverting contract law. If I own my body, then I own everything in it, including my DNA. One firm in San Francisco believes that I can copyright my DNA, ultimately suing for copyright infringement. The market for such as service, is being touted as a way for celebrities and VIPs to protect their image and “likeness.”

Sooner or later, the State and proponents of IP will have to face the music in terms of what “intellectual property” is and is not. While this is being sorted out, one thing is for certain: it is not physical.

If it is not physical, then is not property in the classical definition of the word. So assuming that IP concepts such as copyright and patent are heretofore invalid, then how can this quagmire surrounding native peoples and microscopic fish genomes be sorted out?

Another question that should be asked is, can things in nature, things that nature invented, be patentable? While it may be the case that a scientist discovered “gravity” can someone “patent” it? You may laugh at this example, however this is precisely what has happened to the field of biology, as firms and universities have been granted patents for what nature actually built. Techdirt recently highlighted one such instance,

Metabolite claims a patent on the discovery of a correlation between raised levels of the chemical homocystein, and a defficiency in two B-vitamins. This is a naturally occuring phenomenon, but the company demands a royalty any time a B-vitamin defficiency is tested using this knowledge. As the court itself has put it, the case revolves around whether a company can “claim a monopoly over a basic scientific relationship used in medical treatment”. If so, we’ve noticed that legs tend to kick when a mallet hits the knee; it seems like a good way to test a patient’s reflexes. Our application is in the mail.

When the dust clears, in terms of free-market libertarianism, the issue of “biopiracy” should be non-existent. Neither Google nor Venter own anything more than the fish they caught. Similarly the National Geographic Society does not own the people or their genomes it has received samples of. Nor can these firms “patent” something they do not own, such as the various genomes at stake.

By granting a monopoly on research and development in these areas of discipline to these firms, the State and proponents of IP are simply hindering economic development and retarding innovation. Innovation such as the ability to discover genetic predispositions years in advance – deadly defects that may go unnoticed until it is too late to fix and repair.

And if you do not own your body, let alone genome, then who owns your voice?

To: Letters to the editor; mailcall@thebattalion.net

Regarding the recent lawsuit against the Seattle Seahawks, to the chagrin of some over zealous members of the Aggie family, A&M did not invent the concept of team spirit as enshrined by the 12th man tradition. While the legalities and facts will be sorted out in court, this is really no different than a golf course trying to enforce a trademark on the “19th hole” or a media outlet trying to enforce a trademark on the “4th estate.” Similar to Kleenex and Aspirin, the terms have become generic overtime and are not causing any specific brand confusion. If A&M is looking at marketing itself as a world-class institution, perhaps it should begin by showcasing other feats we are truly recognized for, such as: animal cloning research, genetically modified crops and developing exceptional scholars.

Tim Swanson
Class of 2003
Graduate Student

A quick mind-game - it’s not terribly abusive, I promise. [note: this post purposefully ignores the arguments against the very foundation of IP law, along with what constitutes physical "damage" and any other anthropromophized metaphysical disconnect between physical property and mere concepts written on paper].

What if Google were to lose their lawsuits brought by the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers? I mean financially speaking. Google has approximately $7 billion in cash, could they not simply purchase the “copyrights” of those suing them? Even in a “hostile takeover bid” situation?

Perhaps the senior management considered this perspective and was willing to test the waters…

Though it would also set a bad precedent, because everyone whom owned a ‘copyright’ would then sue Google with the hopes of being bought out.

And we know that no one has enough money to purchase the entire adult book industry, let alone J. K. Rowling.

Oh and be sure to check out Cringely’s latest shenanigans: 1 2

It has been all of 3 days since I last mentioned anything about Google. Today is a quick discussion of Google Print.

What this endeavor is in a nutshell: Google is financing a book-scanning operation of material found at Stanford, Harvard, University of Michigan, Oxford and the New York Public Library. All books, including those that are copyrighted, are included in their databases which can be accessed just like their normal web query tool we have grown accustomed to using. In addition, those little text ads on the side will be displayed each time your search hits a keyword someone paid for (e.g. economics, basketball, Britney Spears).

When Google first announced the library portion of the project, two large organizations cried foul. The first was not a surprise, brick-and-mortar publishers. In fact, the Author’s Guild was so upset that it has actually filed a lawsuit to prevent Google from displaying any information from copyrighted books (here is Google’s non-PR speak response). Due in part to these legal concerns, Google stopped scanning copyrighted texts in August, however it will resume scanning in November. The intervening weeks is a time period in which Google has requested that any publisher or writer that wishes to opt-out of the program can do so by simply filling out this form.

The other organization that went up in arms was various nation-states from Europe, most notably France. In April, several uber nationalists such as Jacques Chirac suggested that Google’s actions will invariably bias the scope of material found online to the Anglo-Saxon variety, “Google’s plans have rattled the cultural establishment in Paris, raising fears that the French language and ideas could be just sidelined on the worldwide web, which is already dominated by English.”

This past September, Google announced that it had begun working with various non-English European publishers to participate in this program.

Despite these accommodations, today the Europe Union and various other regulatory bodies announced they are funding an initiative to place the same material online at tax payers expense (versus financed privately via Google).

To add to this helter-skelter trail, Yahoo announced yesterday that it will be working with the University of California, the University of Toronto and various other Archiving services (such as the Internet Archive) to scan and provide access to books in the public domain (it is called the Open Content Alliance).

There is a catch however. Whereas Google will scan every book and allow users to search each text (although you cannot read the entirety of the book unless otherwise permitted by the author or publisher — similar to Amazon’s Search-Inside-The-Book feature), Yahoo is realistically only going to be able scan approximately 15% of the content available in these libraries. Another oddity in Yahoo’s approach is that it will allow anyone to index the text they scan (mining via metadata like RSS), including Google (whereas Google is relatively closed and proprietary). That raises an unanswered question mark in terms of a business model for Yahoo (perhaps they will use it as a tax write-off).

Incidentally O’Reilly Media is opening up their volumes for free access via Yahoo’s book-scanning project — which is odd considering that Tim O’Reilly sits on the advisory board at Google and has publically endorsed Google Print.

So where does that leave you, Mr. Internet User? I think this digitazation movement can be seen almost unanimously as a win-win situation (sans the operations subsidized via taxes). This will enable people from every walk of life to find information that would otherwise be left to obscurity: it is empowering. And on a personal level, it is a fantastic resource to have on hand as a graduate student working on research projects (Google Scholar is also a great service).

Evolution Man, or How I Ate My Father:

The Evolution Man follows the struggle of a small tribe of cavemen in northern Africa as they try to keep one step ahead of Mother Nature. This nameless band of pre-humans has many of the same conceits and concerns that we have today: finding the perfect cave for the whole family (hopefully bear-free), keeping a successful marriage without resorting to a swing of the club, and figuring out how to make ends meet in a dwindling economy when Dad’s accidentally burned down the nearby forest.

Stephan Kinsella points to a germane quote from PatNews :

“which probably describes the first [fictional] murder for intellectual property… The father of a prehistoric horde of wannabe-humans invents fire making. While the father has an “open-source” concept of intellectual property, the son wants to sell the invention to other hordes, give out licenses and make cross-licensing deals. Finally, the father has to die…”

Independent of any individual mentioned heretofore, my groundbreaking EULA also makes light of cavemen IP chicanery.

1. Method Of Shared Erotic Experience And Facilities For Same:

Lock yourself in your private pod, lie back in your hopefully-sanitized hot tub, and relax to the moans of your neighbors.

Is this life in poorly constructed apartment building? Nope, it’s orgy-lite.

Inspired by the success of Japanese “Love Hotels,” which cater to the needs of twenty-somethings that still live at home, pod loving is a half-rung up the respectability ladder from peep show booths. Will the pods catch on? The inventor must share the faith of Kevin Costner’s character in “Field of Dreams:” If you build it, they will come (pun intended).

IP attorney Stephan Kinsella pointed to ‘Patently Silly‘ a site dedicated to showing off the ingenuity and incredulity of the American Inventor.

See also, Insane Preposterousness and Robotic Ethics.

South Korean students engaging digital shoplifting:

The whole thing smacks of a bored journalist blowing a story way out of proportion during a slow news month, but a South Korean newspaper is reporting about a new problem affecting bookstores there: students taking illegal pics of the pages they need from expensive textbooks (to write reports or study or whatever) rather than actually buying the whole book. Not that it’s not happening or anything, just that you’d think students would just hit up a library where they actually have photocopiers right there waiting for you.

I’ll do one better, simply perusing a book (i.e. previewing) should also fall under the same erroneous rubric of “theft” if snapping digital photos is.

You know how Apple’s iTunes Music Store lets you “preview” songs for 30-seconds? I’m just waiting for the day when bookstores have the same policy (no I don’t think it will happen anytime soon, if at all, but it is a worthwhile mental exercise to practice).

Take for example someone who has a “photographic memory” (an ability many readers have: if you can read a passage and recall an idea or sentence from it then you have a PM, albeit to a smaller degree). Should these individuals be required to register or for that matter, should every individual be required to register with some reading comprehension authority and carry around Reading Licenses which state the abilities of the card holder? After all, information is being disseminated, stored, copied and reproduced by a sophisticated electronic machine — a machine which has been known to recite passages and recount knowledge verbatim - adapting for the positive benefit of the host (and detriment as well).

I should also note that I have no problem with private firms constructing a store policy over who they will refuse service to, after all, it is their store and they own the books.

What I do have a concern over is the word-games that Copyright-protected industries play in defense of their business model. Those individuals taking pictures with their cameraphone are not stealing anything. No physical theft takes place nor is any physical damage done. The store owner is not deprived of his property. Rather their activity may fall under Copyright infringement, a different topic altogether and one that is continuously conflated with property theft (with the RIAA trailblazing that endevour — as is SOCAN).

On a related note, a number of book publishers and authors are upset over what has become an increasingly popular feature with virtual stores like Amazon, the sale of good ole-fashioned “Used” books. These transactions break no laws as both publishers and authors are left out of the royalty loop. For more on this, the E-Commerce Times has an in-depth overview and discussion over this poignant issue.

To end on a light note, RIAA Demands End to Unauthorized Humming, Whistling.

Bill Poser at Language Log has a great explanation as to the preposterousness of “owning” a word (note: I own the word “Zork” and hereby demand royalties of $5 for anytime and everytime that word is conjured up by anyone — derivatives of “Zork” [i.e. Linuzork] preemptively included).

He discusses the latest shananigans from the long lost heirs of Edward Kasner, the mathematician who wordsmithed ‘googol.’ In part, they claim that Google has exploited the word for their own gain, capitalizing on his labor without dolling out any kind of ducat in return.

Ending Poser states,

Allowing people to own words would make life as we know it impossible. Only certain people, those with the appropriate licenses, would be able to talk about certain things. You wouldn’t be able to talk or write about genetics unless you held licenses to use repressor and allele and so forth. You couldn’t discuss syntax without licenses for E-language and foot feature and Determiner Phrase, and if you had them, you might find that you couldn’t use, say, functional unification and thematic role in the same paper because of the restrictions in the licenses imposed by the proponents of rival theories. The mind boggles at the insanity of this idea.

To add my own what if… imagine if a Spartan or Athenian demanded royalties for everytime the word “Marathon” was used because their ancestor, Phidippides of whom they are a direct decendent from, is the same guy who allegedly ran the first marathon — (Herodotus later penned it in a Hellenic log or hlog, maybe he “owns” it). They then demand compensation (or reparations even) for the exploitation of their ancestors. If this was truly enforced, imagine all the company names, city streets, books, magazines and so on and so forth that would have to be taxed or purged. Ahh, but in steps Darl McDarius, a calculating Persian claiming direct descendance from King Darius suggesting that he is the one true owner of the word…

What about Hollywood and Bollywood? Do those studios owe descendants of Aristotle moolah for his development of the Three Unities?

Additionally, Isaac Waisberg shows the nonsensical nature of the owning-a-word mentality:

Andrew Galambos argued that ideas were the primary form of property, claimed a property right in his own ideas, and required his students to agree not to repeat them. In Against Intellectual Property (PDF) Stephan Kinsella writes that Galambos “took his own ideas to ridiculous lengths dropping a nickel in a fund box every time he used the word “liberty” as a royalty to the descendants of Thomas Paine, the alleged “inventor” of the word “liberty”; and changing his original name from Joseph Andrew Galambos (Jr., presumably) to Andrew Joseph Galambos, to avoid infringing his identically-named father’s rights to the name.”

The very definition of asinine.

Don’t forget Zug and Ugzug.