revpk@cellar.UUCP (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano) (06/12/91)
.. for all intents ans purposes, rests in its accessibility.
Publishing a newspaper of some sort-- which is clearly protected by
the First Amendment-- is something that was more or less accessible to small
groups and political organizations. Similarly, by publishing a newspaper, one
might be in competition with other papers for an audience, but there was no
real, tangible limit to the number of newspapers that a society could
provide.
Radio and television, when they originally became a public influence,
were not as accessible to the layman as they were to the wealthy and
powerful. The potential for only one powerful sector of the public
controlling public discourse is one argument for the regulation of the mass
media (as far as provisions for equal time-- justy the opposite of
censorship, which I abhor). Also, as originally designed, the transmission
bandwiths were limited in the number of channels that an area could carry.
However, our contemporary digital communications ahve effectively
wiped away ANY of these limitations. Creation and trasmission of one's own
signals-- publishing one's own newspaper, for example, is not only open to
those with a decent printer and word processor, but it can be disseminated
electronically with far greater ease. And given the advent of digital coding
of television signals, it's conceivable that nearly everyone could have,
without limiting anyone else, their own television channel to broadcast on.
Combine this with the nearly infinite capacity for encoding nearly
any form of data digitally, and nearly all of the previous definitions of
'the press' and 'communications' are rendered more or less obsolete. (For
example, it's conceivable that the code for a word processing program for one
computer could also be a digital rendering of a nude shot. Voice recordings,
with efective enough software, could be interpreted both as 'raw sound' and a
text file.
It should also be mentioned that information and its manipulation has
become even more married to mathematics, which can't really be copyrighted.
Can someone claim a 'patent' on an algorithm? Mathematics isn't an arbitrary
creation of the mathematician-- mathematics is the discovery of principles
external to the mathematician. One doesn't create an algorithm-- one
discovers it. (Try copyrighting the algorithm for a bubble sort, for
example.)
So, where does all of this pseudo-New Agey stuff leave us? It lease
me with the recognition that any kind of generalized limitation on electronic
communications is going to be a Bad Thing. (I don't mean this to be a defense
of cracking systems-- frankly, I'd like to keep kids out of my hospital's
records) Any rule that's established to 'protect' someone, in this context,
can not only be easily evaded-- information being as malleable as it is-- but
it can also be used to cut down on the freedoms of others.
However, as a tactic to follow, I'd urge all of us computer
enthusiasts-- those of us who realize just how our lives could be changing
with the freedom the computer gives us-- to stress that there is _no
difference_ between print and electronic media. If anyone questions this, ask
them how they'd feel if the typesetting data for tomorrow's New York Times
was confiscated, should a legal distinction between electronic and print
media ever be set.
======================================================================
Brian Siano, aka [ "Mr. A. Hitler, the old Nazi thing, says
[ Mickey's silly. Imagine that! Well, Mickey is
Rev. Philosopher-King [ going to save Mr. A. Hitler from drowning or
[ something some day. Just wait and see if he
revpk@cellar.UUCP [ doesn't. Then won't Mr. A. Hitler be ashamed!"
[ -- Walt Disney, 1933.
======================================================================learn@piroska.uchicago.edu (William Vajk (igloo)) (06/12/91)
In article <3Xke41w164w@cellar.UUCP> Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano writes: >Creation and trasmission of one's own signals-- publishing one's own >newspaper, for example, is not only open to those with a decent printer >and word processor, but it can be disseminated electronically with far >greater ease. And given the advent of digital coding of television signals, >it's conceivable that nearly everyone could have, without limiting anyone >else, their own television channel to broadcast on. >So, where does all of this pseudo-New Agey stuff leave us? It lease me with >the recognition that any kind of generalized limitation on electronic >communications is going to be a Bad Thing. I believe we must not become so enamored of specifics as to lose sight if the linking among the various freedoms too often taken for granted. Under the Ceasceau regime in Romania, all typewriters had to be registered with the state, along with a sample of the type it produced. It was a capital offense to be in posession of an unregistered machine. It was a capital offense to make modifications or repairs to the machine without submitting a new type sample to the police. How many legible carbon copies can be made on an ordinary manual typewriter by having someone sit there and beat in the impressions ? Perhaps as many as 8 at a time, original included. Assuming the text iis of general interest, news not available any other way (and trustowrthy as well) how many readers is each copy likely to have ? Perhaps as many as thirty. And of course a few of those retyped and started their new networks of readers. The registration requirement was in response to "underground" newsletters circulating among the populace outside government control and censorship. It was also illegal to produce a newsletter without official government approval. The government reacted to the specifics by registering typewriters (please note this all of you arguing about gun registration) although not regulating them. We talk about the chilling effects of the prosecutions we've seen regarding "computer crimes" in the past couple of years. There's a real correlation between the Romainan experience and what this country seems hell bent to do. As I was growing up, I remember various groups of nuts who developed their own political agendas, gathered into some loose group or another, and did their protests. I used to wonder why they would behave like such fools. I wondered why they weren't simply locked away someplace, permitting the mainstream to go about their important business as usual. It took a long time for me to understand that "the fringe" is a safety valve, releasing tensions which exist in society as a whole (just moreso in "the fringe".) The things some of them protested eventually were resolved within the mainstream. The Viet Nam tragedy was ended. It could just as easily, given earlier mindsets, still be going on. The Volunteer Army became a reality. Homosexual activities aren't generally arrestable actions. Severe clampdowns have taken effect in place of the free wheeling pollution which was previously so very prevalent. Lake Michigan and many of our waterways are clean today. In fact, so far as I can recall, every one of those fringe lunatic movements has had a highly positive outcome on societal behaviors and thought, although the missionaries were "in the pot" (double entente intended.) It is the combination of freedoms which permitted all the positive things in our society to happen. The government, to a great extent, kept hands off, notwithstanding the sorts of data which was gathered and maintained on purely legal political activities by the FBI prior to the Media Pennsylvania breakin. And even that illegal activity had a highly positive outcome in adding to the burden of proof which lead to the Freedom of Information Act. Ultimately, while I understand the author's points in the referenced article, I don't wish to narrow the perspectives of the readers in this newsgroup to discussions which detail computer equipment and equate it to printing presses. I made a few people angry last time I got involved in this discussion. A computer isn't a printing press, never can be, never will be. But if the attention you're paying to is limited by some blinders arbitrarily installed in some technonerdish fashion, the importance of the discoveries of this new age will be lost just as it has been till now, by locking rights to the technology we have. Instead of discussing "freedom of the press" and making the new machines fit the old technologically bound precept why aren't we discussing "the rights of the people to communicate shall not be in any way limited by the government." Maybe this time we'll peek over the horizon a bit. Bill Vajk