Hoàng-Ân
Creative Property Of The People Or The Government?
"Darknets" is the name given to the underground or private networks in which people trade files and communicating anonymously: weblogs, independent sites, grassroot media. All this determines the future in the producing of music, movies, television, computer games, and the Internet. The rise of "personal media" utilizes technology to create instead of merely being passive consumers, "couch potatoes" to the powerful mass media. People now produce, publish, reinvent, and share personal media: creating movies, digital photos, animation, niche news sites, hyperfiction, online picture albums. Mass media such as Hollywood and massive commercial music industry feel threatened. Their clash with personal media is being playing down in legislative chambers, courtrooms, and in the design of consumer electronic devices, media player, personal computers, and digital television sets. Progressives think that the government protection for corporative interests would restrict free expression and fair use rights. Conservatives argue that overly restrictive governmental rules and regulations will hamper innovation by entrepreneurial start-up and allow large companies be vulnerable to frivoluous copyright claims by competitors. The creative force such as songwriters, producers, artists fear that the grow of Darknets will harm their livelihood.
Victor La Cour, the 29 year-old creative producer of University of Southern California's Integrated Media System Center, utilizes the server in North Carolina over the ultrafast Internet2 connection to work on his Internet development. (Internet2 is a consortium of over 200 universities working with industry and government to develope the next generation Internet technology.) His work is called Remote Media Immersion: to fuse 3-D technology, video compression, spatially placed sound, and fast pipes: to create visually and sonically rich virtual worlds. He assures that people will soon be able to use a high-definition camcorder, shoot a movie, store it on a supersize hard drive that will be available in 2008, and transmit it instantly around the globe. He said, "The studios won't disappear but they will face stiff competition from individuals and small team of creative people doing very high quality works. The Internet will serve as the gathering space for high quality media creation and exchange that rivals and sometimes surpasses what you see in the professional arena."
Forrester Research predicts, "Broadband's potential isn't in faster Web pages or interactive afterthoughts overlaid on old TV asset. Instead, a new form will emerge to redefine interactivity, immersing the audience in a collage of content and commerce."
In April 2004, U.S. Department of Justice established the Intellectual Property Task Force to crack down on file traders. Congress is preparing bills on regulations that requires people to obtain permission from cable, satellite operators, ISP or phone carrier to hook up a PVR, VCR, PC, modem or webcam. In 2003, Orrin Hatch, Repubican Senator from Utah, chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee said that all future computers should be required to include "kill switches" that could be activated remotely to thwart peer-to-peer piracy; the offender's computer system would be destroyed. He said, "Requiring kill switches seem an extreme step but if the private sector can't stop piracy on its own, the government will."
To fight such governmental effort to control personal media, there are effort to preserve digital liberties: Freeculture.org by students at Swarthmore College; Public Knowledge; Consumers Union; American Library Association; The CEnter for Democracy and Technology, DititalConsumer.org, etc. Blogger Glenn Reynold of Instapudit weblog shared his view: "These legislative initiatives aren't just about copyright. They're about building a regime thats hostile to content that comes from anyone other than Big Media suppliers."
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(Information and quotes from: J.D. Lasica's DARKNET.
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