Blaming The Bullet

Quote:  “The trade body for UK music, the BPI, asked internet service providers to disconnect people who ignore requests to stop sharing music.

But Charles Dunstone of Carphone Warehouse, which runs the TalkTalk broadband service, is refusing. He said it is not his job to be an internet policeman.”

It seems like the British music industry is keen to have ISPs police their clients’ product usage. At least one ISP, however, has refused. As online piracy drives music, film and video game producers to reconsider their means of distribution, the question arises of whose responsibility it is to police the internet.  On one hand I agree with Dunston; why blame the bullet, especially when its communicative potential is as great as any invention since the printed word? On the other, this could be seen as a question of externalities; Car makers let national governments maintain roads and provide healthcare for people suffering from smog – so when do the costs to industry associated with internet piracy outweigh the benefits of the web’s commercial and communicative applications?

The internet is a new kind of commons. So, on the third hand, how can we avoid overgrazing, and who is likely to stop us if we try? A fourth hand wonders about the possibility of the ‘net itself being seen as a means of production and its neutrality dissolved to turn it into a one-way means of production. Even if we avoid that (on the…fifth hand?), quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

In short, do we blame the bullet, the gun, the manufacturer… or the human impulse to shoot?

Details On Your OpSat

quote: “Drivers or pilots could see a vehicle’s speed
projected onto the windshield. Video-game companies
could use the contact lenses to completely immerse
players in a virtual world without restricting their
range of motion. And for communications, people on the
go could surf the Internet on a midair virtual display
screen that only they would be able to see.”

For those of us still still phrasing questions in the Future Tense, this is very ineteresting.

Update – quote: “let’s face it: once people can get online without even having to get out of bed, they’ll NEVER log off.”

Is Tanith on the money? That’s up to you to decide, but William Gibson agrees.