by Derek Morrison, 3 May 2008
The central argument of Jonathan Zittrain’s book The Future of the Internet: And How to Stop It is that the concept of “generativity” that has been unleashed by Web 2.0 is being increasingly compromised by increasingly ubiquituous appliances that may do limited things well but which lock or tether the appliance owner to the range of services offered by a supplier, e.g. games consoles, iPods, iPhones, internet phones etc. The result, Zittrain argues, is that these appliances may appear to offer a level of security, efficiency, and usability that the sometimes choppy seas of the internet cannot, but that they also compromise the innovative culture of the internet and reduce freedoms. In previous Auricle postings I’ve commented on the loss of freedoms that the advent of hardware/software internet appliances can represent.
For example in my posting, BBC iMP has rights (Auricle, 26 May 2005) I said:
The iMP proposal has implications way beyond the BBC trial. As the internet grows in importance as a means of media distribution, if we are not careful users will find themselves using services and devices which are more, not less, restrictive than what we are currently used to. Ironically, unless we straighten out our thinking the net result will be an increase, not a decrease, in piracy and other illegal activity as users and developers move to cirucumvent such restrictions on their former freedoms.
Since I wrote that post the BBC iPlayer has now gone mainstream in the UK and has proven to be a very popular software ‘appliance’. But because, as my 2005 posting suggested, it offers a new freedom with one hand but takes away a previous freedom with another, the rights management has already been circumvented by the ‘dark side’ and so we begin another energy sapping arms race in which BBC developers attempt to ‘harden’ the rights management and the geek/nerd inclined see this as a test of their machismo.
One of the real irritations with quasi video-on-demand services like iPlayer is that each broadcaster insists on using their own appliance software, e.g. the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 in the UK all insist that viewers download their appliance although they are all using the same underlying technology. That’s the equivalent of having to have a different video recorder for each channel you watch. The Kangaroo project aims to correct that anomaly. It’s a joint venture by BBC, ITV and Channel 4 which is headed up by Ashley Highfield the BBC’s ex Head of Future Media. We may see something emerge from this project in the middle of the year but the removal of the digital rights elements of the a joint player is not likely.
For the time poor, a couple of media articles about Zittrain’s book give a flavour and offer some further analysis/commentary. First there is Tom Standage’s review in the Sunday Times (27 April 2008). Second is Are Gadgets Killing the Internet (Oliver Burkeman, Guardian, 1 May 2008).
The Wikipedia entry on the BBC iPlayer is also very informative.
