The Final Acts of ACTA

Although the current excitement over the gradual release of the Wikileaks documents is justified in that it concerns what is undoubtedly an important development for the future of the Internet, it has rather overshadowed another area where crucial decisions are being made: the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). In fact, ACTA finally seems to be nearing the end of its slow and painful crawl through the secret negotiation process that only recently we have been allowed glimpses of. And the more we learn, the more troublesome it is.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Open Invention Network in the Spotlight

Back in September, Mozilla made an announcement:

This week Mozilla joined Open Invention Network as a licensee. OIN is an organization which helps protect the Linux ecosystem by building a variety of defenses against patent attacks. These defenses include both traditional mechanisms, like defensive patent pools, and more innovative approaches, like the Linux Defenders project, which uses a variety of methods to proactively prevent the publication of particularly egregious patents. As a licensee, we’ll have access to OIN resources in case we’re threatened by operating entities with patents, and over time we’ll likely become more involved in providing our own ideas and resources to OIN projects.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Jaron Lanier's Virtual Reality

There is now a well-established class of writers about the digital world whom I fondly dub the Old Curmudgeons. Basically, they agree, things there are getting worse all the time; this modern online nonsense is bad for us, and will give us all fallen arches or something. Leading exponents of this view include Nicholas Carr, Andrew Keen and Jaron Lanier.

I think Mr Lanier is the most interesting of these, because he has a solid technical background and has been creative in the digital sphere a long time. That makes his Savonarola-like denunciations of the same particularly striking.

Against that background, it was perhaps inevitable that he would weigh in on the Wikileaks business – and equally inevitable what his line would be, as his title makes clear: “The Hazards of Nerd Supremacy: The Case of WikiLeaks”.

If I had several hours to spare, I might try to go through it addressing his various arguments, many of which amount to unsubtantiated assertions about “The ideology that drives a lot of the online world”; ad-hominem sniping (for example, “we didn't necessarily get to know where Mr. Assange was at a given moment” - maybe because he is doing things a lot of governments and organisations don't like, and so discretion is the better part of valour); outright misapprehension (“Wikileaks isn't really a "wiki," but it is designed to look and feel like the Wikipedia” - er, well, no actually, it doesn't look like it in the slightest); and various straw men: “What if we come to be able to read each other's thoughts? Then there would be no thoughts. Your head has to be different from mine if you are to be a person with something to say to me” - as far as I am aware, nobody is calling for mandatory telepathy.

But I'd rather examine Lanier's peroration, because I think it exposes the fundamental flaw in his indubitably entertaining essay:

Anarchy and dictatorship are entwined in eternal resonance. One never exists for long without turning to the other, and then back again. The only way out is structure, also known as democracy.

We sanction secretive spheres in order to have our civilian sphere. We furthermore structure democracy so that the secretive spheres are contained and accountable to the civilian sphere, though that's not easy.

There is certainly an ever-present danger of betrayal. Too much power can accrue to those we have sanctioned to hold confidences, and thus we find that keeping a democracy alive is hard, imperfect, and infuriating work.

The flip side of responsibly held secrets, however, is trust. A perfectly open world, without secrets, would be a world without the need for trust, and therefore a world without trust. What a sad sterile place that would be:A perfect world for machines.

What the Wikileaks cables show is precisely that those sanctioned “secretive spheres” are not currently accountable to the civilian sphere. They show all the shady deals made in backrooms, the outright lies told to the public to keep us quiet, the connivance with big business to ensure that profit comes before ethics.

Lanier's logic seems to be that everything's fine and the revelations of Wikileaks will only mess things up. And until Wikileaks' revelations, people might have gone along with that analysis, since that was the story that governments were feeding us. But in the wake of Wikileaks, that is simply not a tenable position: as the words of diplomats delineate time and again, everything is not fine, and the social pact of accepting those “secretive spheres” in return for a responsible use of the advantage they bring has been broken.

I would love it to be the case that Lanier's analysis were true, and in some scaled-up, digitised version of Athenian democracy we could have a responsible wielding of state powers, with secrecy applied wisely and justly. But Wikileaks has confirmed what many have suspected, but hitherto been unable to prove: that politicians use secrecy to hide their continual and continuing breaches of the trust we placed in them.

Until they change in the light of what Wikileaks is showing, we cannot trust them as we did before. And the more they – and their defenders, however well intentioned – deny the situation revealed by their own words through Wikileaks, and try to stop us seeing it, by hook or by crook, the longer that is likely to take, and the messier it will be.

And given that proven record of abuse, when they do finally change we will need more transparency about what they are doing – but not *total* transparency, which is neither feasible nor necessary – to make sure that they are not falling back into their bad old ways under the convenient, comforting cover of secrecy.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Lessons from WikiLeaks: Decentralise, Decentralise, Decentralise

Whether or not Wikileaks turns out to be a watershed in politics, there's another question of more immediate interest to the open source world: can the latter learn a key lesson from the measures taken against the Wikileaks operation?

These have included booting it off Amazon's servers and stopping donations through MasterCard, Visa or PayPal. That this happened without warning serves as a timely reminder that such centralized services have absolute and largely arbitrary power over their users.

On The H Open.

Why Governments Should Use Open Source Licensing

Here's a wonderful cautionary tale:

Systran created a specially adapted version of its Systran-Unix machine translation software for the [European] Commission, calling it EC-Systran Unix between 1997 and 2002.

On Open Enterprise blog.

European Interoperability Framework v2 - the Great Defeat

Long-suffering readers of this blog will know that the European Interoperability Framework has occupied me for some time - I wrote about the first version back in 2008, and have been following the twists and turns of the revision process since.

These included the infamous leaked version that redefined “closed” as “nearly open”. Now we finally have the final version of EIF v2 - and it's not a pretty sight.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Microsoft: Hoist by its Own Petard

I always look forward to reading Microsoft-funded research, because over the years it's evolved into a kind of game. The results - of course - are always amazingly good for Microsoft, but hidden away in there, like a secret at the heart of a complex puzzle, there's something that we're not supposed to notice that undermines the final result.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Can Open Source Be Trusted?

Theo de Raadt is one of the key hackers outside the mainstream GNU/Linux world. Here's his self-penned bio:

I am the founder of OpenBSD -- a freely redistributable 4.4BSD-based operating system with an emphasis on security. Donations allow me to put my efforts into OpenBSD and related projects. In 1999, I created OpenSSH with other members of OpenBSD. It is now incorporated into all Unix systems plus hundreds of other network enabled products. It is now the most "vendor re-used" piece of open source software, with more than 90% of the SSH market.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Linux Embeds Itself Yet Further

One of the many confusingly-similar groups in the open source space is Linaro:

a Not For Profit (NFP) organization that aims to make embedded open source development easier and faster. Linaro will create a common software foundation for software stacks and distributions to land on and provide the best open source tools for developers to develop on. The focus is on low level software around the Linux kernel that touches the silicon, key pieces of middleware that enable new markets and tools that help the developer write and debug code. Linaro aims to maximize the potential of the latest features of ARM-based processors, helping provide optimized performance in a lower power envelope.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Big Tobacco: Saving Lives is "Expropriation"

Although I knew that there is yet another trade treaty being discussed between New Zealand, the US and others, I hadn't heard about this aspect before:

The Green Party is calling on the Government to reject attempts to introduce investor-state disputes mechanisms into the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations in light of evidence that the Philip Morris tobacco company is planning to use the TPP to block anti-smoking laws.

The issue is this, apparently:

Philip Morris is currently taking action against Uruguay’s proposed anti-smoking laws under the investor-state disputes mechanism of the trade agreement between Uruguay and Switzerland. Uruguay is proposing to introduce new measures requiring 80 percent of cigarette packaging to carry graphic warnings against smoking. The company argues such measures effectively expropriate their investments. Under the investor-state disputes mechanism a World Bank panel will decide if Uruguay must pay Philip Morris for this ‘expropriation’.

So let me get this straight. Philip Morris - and all the other tobacco companies - make hefty profits by selling highly addictive substances to people that the company knows will probably give them cancer and/or a host of other life-threatening and painful diseases. Their deaths will cause huge losses not just personally, but economically - to their families, and to the state.

And yet, thanks to this wonderful "investor-state disputes mechanism", an unelected World Bank panel made up of people whose interests are probably aligned with big business rather than individuals in developing countries, "will decide if Uruguay must pay Philip Morris for this ‘expropriation’."

"Expropriation": that's what they want to rebrand the fight against these profits that result directly from the suffering of millions of people. Stopping these global, massively-powerful drug dealers is not common sense, or a wise health policy, but is now branded "expropriation". If you ever wanted a symbol of how sick and twisted capitalism and the structures that support it really are can be, you could do worse than choose this new "expropriation" of profits born of death.

Let's hope New Zealand tells the TPP negotiators pushing for this "investor-state disputes mechanism" that they can stick it in their carcinogenic pipes and smoke it. (Via @juhasaarinen.)

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Netflix Opens up About Open Source

Even though it is generally accepted that open source is used widely throughout the business world, it doesn't hurt having a few high-profile examples to point at when people doubt its suitability for this role. Obvious ones like Google and Amazon have been joined more recently by the likes of Facebook and Twitter. And now here's another well-known name opening up, Netflix:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Whatever Happened to the EU Interoperability Policy?

As readers of this blog will know, interoperability is a key issue in Europe at the moment. We are still waiting for the imminent version 2 of the European Interoperability Framework, where we will find out whether true restriction-free open standards will be recommended, on deeply-flawed ones based on FRAND licensing that for practical purposes exclude many free software projects.

On Open Enterprise blog.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Patent Overlords

A significant event took place yesterday: potentially the biggest software patent troll of all has finally woken from its slumbers:

Today Intellectual Ventures (“IV”) enforced its rights and filed patent infringement complaints in the U.S. District Court of Delaware against companies in the software security; dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and Flash memory; and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) industries.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Not All Chrome Glisters

The unveiling of Google's Chrome OS is rather extraordinary - not so much for what was announced, but how. After all, the first details of Chrome OS were revealed nearly 18 months ago:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Things Fall Apart; the Centre Cannot Hold

One of the many fascinating aspects of the Wikileaks #cablegate saga is that, unusually, computer technology plays a central rather than peripheral role in all this. And not just any old computer technology, but specifically aspects that are key to the open source world.

On Open Enterprise blog.

The Limits to Openness

Unless you live in certain countries or read certain newspapers, you will have been deluged over the last few days with “revelations” from those US diplomatic cables that have been released by Wikileaks (if you somehow missed all this fun, try this excellent “Wikileaks Cablegate Roundup”.)

On Open Enterprise blog.

Why I'm Rooting for Microsoft

It will not have escaped your notice that the patent system has been the subject of several posts on this blog, or that the general tenor is pretty simple: it's broken, and nowhere more evidently so than for software. Anyone can see that, but what is much harder is seeing how to fix it given the huge vested interests at work here.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Dissecting the Italian Non-Squirrel

A couple of days ago I wrote about the deal between the regional government of Puglia and Microsoft, noting that it was frustrating that we couldn't even see the terms of that deal. Well, now we can, in all its glorious officialese, and it rather confirms my worst fears.

Not, I hasten to add, because of the overall framing, which speaks of many worthy aims such as fighting social exclusion and improving the quality of life, and emphasises the importance of "technology neutrality" and "technological pluralism". It is because of how this deal will play out in practice.

That is, we need to read between the lines to find out what the fairly general statements in the agreement will actually mean. For example, when we read:

analisi congiunta delle discontinuità tecnologiche in atto e dello stato dell’arte in materia di ricerca e sviluppo informatico, sia in area desktop che nei data center (come ad es. il cloud computing e la mobilità);

[joint analysis of the technological discontinuities underway and of the state of the art in research materials and IT development, both on the desktop and in the data centre (for example, cloud computing and mobile)]

will Microsoft and representatives of the Puglia administration work together to discuss the latest developments in mobile, on the desktop, or data centres, and come to the conclusion: "you know, what would really be best for Puglia would be replacing all these expensive Microsoft Office systems by free LibreOffice; replacing handsets with low-cost Android smartphones; and adopting open stack solutions in the cloud"? Or might they just possibly decide: "let's just keep Microsoft Office on the desktop, buy a few thousands Windows Mobile 7 phones (they're so pretty!), and use Windows Azure, and Microsoft'll look after all the details"?

And when we read:

Favorire l’accesso e l’utilizzo del mondo scolastico e dei sistemi dell’istruzione alle tecnologie ed agli strumenti informatici più aggiornati

[To encourage the educational and teaching world to access and use the most up-to-date IT systems]

will this mean that teachers will explain how they need low-cost solutions that students can copy and take home so as not to disadvantage those unable to pay hundreds of Euros for desktop software, and also software that can be modified, ideally by the students themselves? And will they then realise that the only option that lets them do that is free software, which can be copied freely and examined and modified?

Or will Microsoft magnanimously "donate" hundreds of zero price-tag copies of its software to schools around the province, as it has in many other countries, to ensure that students are brought up to believe that word processing is the same as Word, and spreadsheets are always Excel. But no copying, of course, ("free as in beer" doesn't mean "free as in freedom", does it?) and no peeking inside the magic black box - but then nobody really needs to do that stuff, do they?

And when we see that:

Microsoft si impegna a:

individuare e comunicare alla Regione le iniziative e risorse (a titolo esemplificativo: personale tecnico e specialistico, eventuali strumenti software necessari alle attività da svolgere congiuntamente) che intende mettere a disposizione per sostenere la creazione del centro di competenza congiunto Microsoft-Regione;

[Microsoft undertakes to:

specify and communicate to the Region the initiatives and resources (for example: technical personnel and specialists, software necessary for the joint activities) which it intends to make available for the creation of the joint Microsoft-Regional centre of competence centre]

are we to imagine that Microsoft will diligently provide a nicely balanced selection of PCs running Windows, some Apple Macintoshes, and PCs running GNU/Linux? Will it send along specialists in open source? Will it provide examples of all the leading free software packages to be used in the joint competency centre? Or will it simply fill the place to the gunwales with Windows-based, proprietary software, and staff it with Windows engineers?

The point is the "deal" with Microsoft is simply an invitation for Microsoft to colonise everywhere it can. And to be fair, there's not much else it can do: it has little deep knowledge of free software, so it would be unreasonable to expect it to explore or promote it. But it is precisely for that reason that this agreement is completely useless; it can produce one result, and one result only: recommendations to use Microsoft products at every level, either explicitly or implicitly.

And that is not an acceptable solution because it locks out competitors like free software - despite the following protestations of support for "interoperability":

Microsoft condivide l’approccio delle politiche in materia adottato dalla Regione Puglia ed è parte attiva, a livello internazionale, per promuovere iniziative rivolte alla interoperabilità nei sistemi, indipendentemente dalle tecnologie usate.

[Microsoft shares the approach adopted by the Puglia Region, and is an active part of initiatives at an international level to promote the interoperability of systems, independently of the technology used.]

In fact, Microsoft is completely interoperable only when it is forced to be, as was the case with the European Commission:

In 2004, Neelie Kroes was appointed the European Commissioner for Competition; one of her first tasks was to oversee the fining brought onto Microsoft by the European Commission, known as the European Union Microsoft competition case. This case resulted in the requirement to release documents to aid commercial interoperability and included a €497 million fine for Microsoft.

That's clearly not an approach that will be available in all cases. The best way to guarantee full interoperability is to mandate true open standards - ones made freely available with no restrictions, just as the World Wide Web Consortium insists on for Web standards. On the desktop, for example, the only way to create a level playing-field for all is to use products based entirely on true open standards like Open Document Format (ODF).

If the Puglia region wants to realise its worthy aims, it must set up a much broader collaboration with a range of companies and non-commercial groups that represent the full spectrum of computing approaches - including Microsoft, of course. And at the heart of this strategy it must place true open standards.

Update: some good news about supporting open source and open standards has now been announced.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

What's New about the Novell deal?

The announcement that Attachmate would acquire Novell for $2.2 billion has naturally provoked a flurry of comments and analyses in the free software world. But it's important to pick apart the news to find out what is truly new – and to distinguish between what this changes, and what remains the same.

On The H Open.

Wikileaks: the Web Watches and Waits

It's clearly still far too early to attempt to assess the impact of Wikileaks' latest mega-leak, this time of US secret cables, which is certainly a biggie:

The full set consists of 251,287 documents, comprising 261,276,536 words (seven times the size of "The Iraq War Logs", the world's previously largest classified information release).

The cables cover from 28th December 1966 to 28th February 2010 and originate from 274 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions.

On Open Enterprise blog.

How To Say "Ooh, Look, a Squirrel" in Italian

There's a nice little argument bubbling away over in the south of Italy. It concerns the decision of Nichi Vendola, the president of Puglia, to sign a deal with Microsoft. The motivation, according to Signor Vendola, in the translation of Marco Fioretti, who has been tracking this episode, is that this:

“represents the beginning of an important collaboration partnership, whose goal is to promote innovation and excellence in creation, development and usage of ICT technologies and solutions, adding value to the role of the Region in direct relationships with the biggest international groups of that sector”.

So far, so depressingly normal you might think. Well, it would be, were it not for the fact that the party that Signor Vendola leads in the region, Sinistra Ecologia Libertà (SEL), has the following to say on the subject of technology:

Crediamo che parlare di copyleft, di software libero, di neutralità della rete sia una necessità per un partito moderno, così come lo è parlare di lavoro, ambiente, economia e diritti civili.

...

Per questo abbiamo ripreso l’espressione Ecologia della Conoscenza, perchè crediamo che tutti quei movimenti che si oppongono alla privatizzazione della conoscenza debbano essere unificati in un’unica istanza. Chi si oppone ai brevetti sul genoma o sul software, chi chiede una riforma radicale delle leggi sul copyright, chi sostiene il software libero condivide un’idea di base, che la cultura debba essere libera.

[We believe that speaking about copyleft, free software and Net neutrality is a necessity for a modern party, just as it is to speak about work, the environment, the economy and civil rights.

...

For this reason, we have adopted the expression "the Ecology of Knowledge", because we believe that all those movements which are opposed to the privatisation of knowledge must unite. Those who are opposed to gene or software patents, or ask for a radical reform of copyright law, and those who support free software share a common idea: that culture must be free.]

Fine words, but hard to square with a deal that places an entire region in the very unfree grip of Microsoft, hardly a great supporter of free software or opponent of software patents.

Understandably, then, Italian free software activist have been questioning this very inconsistent move, and now Signor Vendola has responded to the barrage of criticism:

La sottoscrizione del Protocollo d’intesa con Microsoft ha suscitato le perplessità di chi crede che con questa iniziativa si possa mettere in discussione il software libero e la libera circolazione dei saperi. La tentazione di lasciarsi andare a un impulso referendario è fortissima. Per la Puglia, per l’Italia il nemico è Microsoft? O uno qualsiasi degli altri colossi dell’informatica? A mio parere dovremmo guardare a queste dispute con lo stesso coraggio che ci aiuta a decifrare la politica di questi giorni bui. Combattendo i luoghi comuni.

[Signing the protocol of understanding with Microsoft has given rise to some perplexity in those who believe that this initiative could put in question free software and the free circulation of knowledge. The temptation to call for a referendum is very strong. Is Microsoft the enemy of Puglia, or of Italy? Or are the other giants of IT? In my opinion, we must look at this dispute with the same courage that helps us decipher the politics of these dark days.]

Whoa, hang on a minute: "courage"? We're talking about making a decision based on the technical facts. But anyway, let's go on and hear what the man has to say in explanation:

Dovremmo ammettere che in un secolo nuovo che si apre al cloud computing, all’open data government, alla neutralità tecnologica, al crollo dei prezzi delle Apps, il compito delle politiche pubbliche non è più tanto di scegliere tra competitori, ma quello di allargare le autostrade della società dell’informazione.

I veri nemici nel 2010 (e forse nel 2015 sarà più chiaro) non sono più Windows, Google, Leopard o l’iPad. Il vero nemico è il digital divide in cui il paese è prigioniero. Meno rame e più fibra.

[We must admit that in a new century that is opening up to cloud computing, open data government, Net neutrality, and to the collapse in the price of apps, the job of politics is no longer to choose among competitors, but to broaden the motorway of the information society.

The true enemies of 2010 (and perhaps it will be more clear in 2015) are not Windows, Google, Leopard or the iPad. The true enemy is the digital divide in which this country is imprisoned. Less copper and more fibre.]

What on earth is he talking about? After having made an unjustified choice to sign a deal with Microsoft (one whose terms haven't even been revealed, as far I can tell now available - see my detailed comments on the text), he tries to simply avoid the central question "Why?" by saying in true Tony Blair fashion that it is time to move on, and that it's not about competitors, but about the iPad and fibre optic cables, the price of apps and Net neutrality. He then changes subject yet again by bringing in the topic of Italy's digital divide.

Now, closing the digital divide is certainly a hugely important undertaking, but if anything can do that it is *free* software, which can be distributed to everyone in Puglia - to every school, and to every business. Microsoft's offerings are precisely the last thing that will close that digital divide.

Indeed, the divide is there largely *because* of Microsoft. By virtue of its monopolistic hold on the desktop market it has been able to impose artificially high prices on a sector whose marginal costs of production are zero. This implies that that natural price of software is also zero - as is exactly the case for free software. Anything higher than zero makes the digital divide deeper - which means that Microsoft's inflated prices have helped excavate not so much a digital divide as a digital chasm.

So Signor Vendola's bizarre "explanation" of his move - which, of course is a non-explanation, and the Italian equivalent of saying: "ooh, look, a squirrel" - is in fact a superb reason why he should in fact be supporting open source, just as his party professes to do on its Web site.

However, there is some good news here. And that is the fact that Signor Vendola felt impelled to offer some kind of explanation, however unsatisfactory. This means that he is feeling the effects of the outcry, and knows that he cannot simply ignore it.

The message is clear: Italian free software activists must (a) continue to pile on the pressure until he cancels this deal with Microsoft, and (b) non guardare lo scoiattolo.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Copyright Law is a 404 Not Found

It is a truism that slow-moving law cannot keep up with fleet-of-foot digital technology, so that makes the rare court decision dealing with the details of how people use the Web of particular importance. Here's an interesting case that has just been handed down.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Wikipedia as (Multilingual) Word-Hoard

Wikipedia is often regarded as little more than a poor person's encyclopedia, providing a handy reference collection of basic facts. But there's another side that I predict will be recognised increasingly: as a key corpus of texts in languages that lack traditional large-scale publishing to preserve their cultures.

Here's a good example:

"Some Indian-language Wikipedias are already the largest online repositories of information in their respective languages," Bhati said. "Regular community meetings such as the one we had today in Ahmedabad can help spread the word about our mission."

This facet is even more important for languages with a relatively small numbers of speakers, or perhaps threatened with outright extinction. Wikipedia acts as a natural focus for the creation of texts in these languages that might otherwise be missing - a repository of linguistic wisdom that can be shared and built on. In this way, it plays an important role not just in spreading knowledge about the world, but also about the languages that people use to talk about that world. (via @klang67)

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Give Us All Open Data - But Not Yet

As a I wrote a couple of days ago, the current flood of open data announcements, notably by the UK government, is something of a two-edged sword. It's great to have, but it also imposes a correspondingly great responsibility to do something useful with it.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Why ACTA is Doomed (Part 2)

A couple of days ago I wrote that ACTA was doomed because its attempts to enforce copyright through even more punitive measures will simply alienate people, and cause more, not less, copyright infringement. Here's indirect support for that view from a rather surprising source: a paper [.pdf] published by WIPO (although it does emphasise "The views expressed in this document are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Secretariat or of the Member States of WIPO").

In the context of enforcement it has the following to say about the continued failure to "educate" (= indoctrinate) people about the sanctity of copyright, noting that it is a lost cause because piracy is so widely accepted today:

The most comprehensive comparative analysis of these issues to date is a 2009 Strategy One study commissioned by the International Chamber of Commerce. Strategy One examined some 176 consumer surveys and conducted new ones in Russia, India, Mexico, South Korea, and the UNITED KINGDOM. Like nearly all other surveys, Strategy One’s work showed high levels of acceptance of physical and digital piracy, with digital media practices among young adults always at the top of the distribution. The group concluded that “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil’ has become the norm” (ICC/BASCAP 2009). At this point, such findings should come as no surprise. In the contexts in which we worked, we can say with some confidence that efforts to stigmatize piracy have failed.

There is little room to maneuver here, we would argue, because consumer attitudes are, for the most part, not unformed — not awaiting definition by a clear antipiracy message. On the contrary, we consistently found strong views. The consumer surplus generated by piracy in middle-income countries is not just popular but also widely understood in economic justice terms, mapped to perceptions of greedy United States of America and multinational corporations and to the broader structural inequalities of globalization in which most developing-world consumers live. Enforcement efforts, in turn, are widely associated with the United States of America pressure on national governments, and are met with indifference or hostility by large majorities of respondents.

It also makes this rather interesting point about the changing nature of people's music collections:

The collector, our work suggests, is giving ground at both the high end and low end of the consumer income spectrum. Among privileged, technically-proficient consumers, the issue is one of manageable scale: the growing size of personal media libraries is disconnecting recorded media from traditional notions of the collection — and even from strong assumptions of intentionality in its acquisition. A 2009 survey of 1800 young people in the UNITED KINGDOM found that the average digital library contained 8000 songs, with 1800 on the average iPod (Bahanovich and Collopy 2009). Most of these songs — up to 2/3 in another recent study — have never been listened to (Lamer 2006). If IFPI’s figures are to be trusted, up to 95% are pirated (IFPI 2006).

Such numbers describe music and, increasingly, video communities that share content by the tens or hundreds of gigabytes — sizes that diminish consumers’ abilities to organize or even grasp the full extent of their collections. Community-based libraries, such as those constituted through invitation-only P2P sites, carry this reformulation of norms further, structured around still more diffuse principles of ownership and organization.

What's really fascinating for me here is that it clearly describes the trend towards owning *every* piece of music and *every* film ever recorded. The concept of owning a few songs or films will become meaningless as people have routine access to everything. Against that background, the idea of "stopping" filesharing just misses the point completely: few will be swapping files - they will be swapping an entire corpus.

The whole report is truly exciting, because it dares to say all those things that everyone knew but refused to admit. Here are few samples of its brutal honesty:

To be more explicit about these limitations, we have seen no evidence — and indeed no claims — that enforcement efforts to date have had any impact on the overall supply of pirated goods. Our work suggests, rather, that piracy has grown dramatically by most measures in the past decade, driven by the exogenous factors described above — high media prices, low local incomes, technological diffusion, and fast-changing consumer and cultural practices.

...

we see little connection between these efforts and the larger problem of how to foster rich, accessible, legal cultural markets in developing countries — the problem that motivates much of our work. The key question for media access and the legalization of media markets, in our view, has less to do with enforcement than with fostering competition at the low end of media markets — in the mass market that has been created through and largely left to piracy. We take it as self-evident, at this point, that US$15 DVDs, US$12 CDs, and US$150 copies of MS Office are not going to be part of broad-based legal solutions.

Fab stuff - even if it is not quite official WIPO policy (yet....) (Via P2Pnet.)

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.