Mortal Wombat

A quote I came across today from an old Lessig speech:

“The ideal that seemed so central to killing the closed society of yesterday—property—that ideal is now closing the open society of today. The same tool of freedom of yesterday is becoming a tool of control today. Not the same control, or the same control to as evil an end. But, nonetheless, a control on creativity and innovation; a shifting of that control from individuals to corporations; from anyone to the few.”

Since I didn’t include context here, I should point out that Lessig is not arguing for the abolition of either real or “intellectual” property. He is arguing for the importance of a commons to creativity and innovation, as well as the dangers of a permission society where content controllers exert perfect control over uses of content.

I’ll start this blog out by posting something I actually wrote up a few days ago.

So I went ahead and joined the “I want national wireless Internet” Facebook group the other day. I had been sitting on it for a bit, but it seems like it could be turning into a real movement of sorts. I was hesitant to join because neither the group nor the linked MoveOn petition contain information about exactly what they’re asking. [ed: MoveOn has since posted a letter to the FCC with details and lots of important endorsements!] Anyways, the idea is good. And I think I know what the actual Save Our Spectrum movement is about, even if I’m unclear as to what the Facebook and MoveOn groups are about. It’s about applying the following rules to the major upcoming spectrum auction. (This is the auction for the spectrum that will be released when traditional analog TV goes off the air.)

• establish a service rule for broadband services operating in the 700 MHz band that protects the consumer’s right to use any equipment, content, application or service on a non-discriminatory basis without interference from the network provider.

• allow third-party access to spectrum owned by other companies. This “open access” plan to include wholesale access to networks would enable more competitors to offer services
• institute anonymous bidding in auctions to lessen the possibility of bid signalling and bid rigging that studies found to have taken place in prior auctions.

So I’m curious what any Libertarian readers have to say to this. You must admit that the current broadband market could hardly be considered a “free market”. It is built on government giveaways and government protection. I really hesitate to see a few large cell phone companies controlling all of the potential wireless broadband spectrum. (Sprint already controls most of it, iirc.) Of course I don’t think the government should be its own ISP either, because that’s just asking for trouble. I wouldn’t mind the government providing the spectrum if it is able to somehow apply a fair policy allowing companies access to it. (This would work great if open (shared) spectrum really works, which I don’t know enough about yet.) But anyways, since the government has already announced that they are auctioning off the PUBLIC spectrum, is it really too much to ask that they require the highest-bid purchasers to follow certain rules that protect the PUBLIC interest. If there are no regulations, Sprint & co. will simply sit on it (blocking competition) or add it to their proprietary 3G / 4G networks.

Tangentially, and more generally, what do Libertarians have to say about the current tradition of treating wireless spectrum, ideas and creativity (so-called “IP”) as property? What about when these could operate as a commons, thus allowing more freedom and individual autonomy? Got to go or I’d write more now.