7 ms·

Doctorow echoes, more clearly and vividly than most, Sid Meier's succinct formulation: "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart

Doctorow echoes, more clearly and vividly than most, Sid Meier's succinct formulation: "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master." Because that's what this is ultimately about: whether we want our children to be digital sharecroppers or citizens whose right to read is respected and who can be positively enabled to stand on the shoulders of giants when it comes to access to knowledge.

chasing 12y ago
There's a difference between information and media. While Doctorow uses the term "information," he's really talking about professionally produced media. And mostly entertainment media, at that (NBC shows, his kid's book, etc.). That stuff just doesn't get produced if there's not some way of generating income from it. And that requires some kind of barrier to distribution. Although the nature of that barrier -- technical, social, legal, whatever -- is very much up for debate.
- wpietri 12y ago
  Does that require some barrier? I don't think that's at all obvious. Previous models for funding content are built around natural distribution barriers. E.g., it was hard making and getting books to people, so you used the distribution channel as the revenue channel. So I think most of our experience is like that. But we now live in an age where distribution is effectively free. I just bought a book (yay, Ancillary Sword is out!). I paid for most of the distribution (I bought the tablet and pay for an Internet connection); the publisher, distributor, and retail channel together have a marginal cost measured in fractions of a cent. That changes things. I think our closest historical example is broadcast radio and TV, which has never had a barrier to distribution. One way to fund that is ads, but there are others. For example, US public radio and the BBC produce a lot of high-quality, professionally-produced media and have for decades. Or we could look at newspaper serials, the format that gave us The Three Musketeers: newspapers print so many copies that sharing is easy; people paid because it was cheap and convenient. But the interesting stuff is just getting started. Plenty of professional writers give a lot of stuff away for free on the web. I've helped fund a few different Kickstarter films, and would have been perfectly happy to throw in more if they had wanted to make the films available freely. Micropatronage is just getting going.
  - deciplex 12y ago
    >I think our closest historical example is broadcast radio and TV, which has never had a barrier to distribution. Eh? Sure it has, in that the radio spectrum was appropriated as public property, and auctioned off to the highest bidder (or, the one with the most political connections - lot of corruption here to be sure). And you have to do it this way or the technology basically doesn't work, or at least it doesn't work very well with all the noise generated by competing broadcasters on the same frequency.
    - wpietri 12y ago
      I'm using "barrier to distribution" here as from the person I'm replying to, a thing providing a choke point where you can collect revenue. You're using the words in a broader sense. Also, I don't think you're right about the history of licensing. Spectrum auctions are relatively new, at least in the US. I'm pretty sure that during the time radio and TV were figuring out their business models, license fees were negligible. See, for example, Coase's 1959 paper, "The Federal Communications Commission"; his proposal of treating spectrum as a tradable property right was considered novel and radical.
      - deciplex 12y ago
        > I'm pretty sure that during the time radio and TV were figuring out their business models, license fees were negligible. Didn't know that - that's interesting. Still, the spectrum itself was regulated, right? That sounds even worse, IMO. The fees may have been low, but even in the 50s, the right to broadcast on a particular frequency was worth heaps of money. So, if they weren't auctioning to the highest bidder, the frequency would go to whoever knew the right people in government (and paid them or gave them gifts, I would imagine).
        wpietri 12y ago
        That's an interesting hypothesis, but I'd want to see some evidence for it. Public service is an actual thing.
eropple 12y ago
Nit: that almost certainly wasn't something Meier wrote. It was either Brian Reynolds or somebody on the writing staff (likely Michael Ely, who wrote a lot of the fluff). Meier's involvement with Civ and Civ-alikes steadily decreased after Civ I.

chasing 12y ago

There's a difference between information and media. While Doctorow uses the term "information," he's really talking about professionally produced media. And mostly entertainment media, at that (NBC shows, his kid's book, etc.). That stuff just doesn't get produced if there's not some way of generating income from it. And that requires some kind of barrier to distribution. Although the nature of that barrier -- technical, social, legal, whatever -- is very much up for debate.

wpietri 12y ago
Does that require some barrier? I don't think that's at all obvious. Previous models for funding content are built around natural distribution barriers. E.g., it was hard making and getting books to people, so you used the distribution channel as the revenue channel. So I think most of our experience is like that. But we now live in an age where distribution is effectively free. I just bought a book (yay, Ancillary Sword is out!). I paid for most of the distribution (I bought the tablet and pay for an Internet connection); the publisher, distributor, and retail channel together have a marginal cost measured in fractions of a cent. That changes things. I think our closest historical example is broadcast radio and TV, which has never had a barrier to distribution. One way to fund that is ads, but there are others. For example, US public radio and the BBC produce a lot of high-quality, professionally-produced media and have for decades. Or we could look at newspaper serials, the format that gave us The Three Musketeers: newspapers print so many copies that sharing is easy; people paid because it was cheap and convenient. But the interesting stuff is just getting started. Plenty of professional writers give a lot of stuff away for free on the web. I've helped fund a few different Kickstarter films, and would have been perfectly happy to throw in more if they had wanted to make the films available freely. Micropatronage is just getting going.
- deciplex 12y ago
  >I think our closest historical example is broadcast radio and TV, which has never had a barrier to distribution. Eh? Sure it has, in that the radio spectrum was appropriated as public property, and auctioned off to the highest bidder (or, the one with the most political connections - lot of corruption here to be sure). And you have to do it this way or the technology basically doesn't work, or at least it doesn't work very well with all the noise generated by competing broadcasters on the same frequency.
  - wpietri 12y ago
    I'm using "barrier to distribution" here as from the person I'm replying to, a thing providing a choke point where you can collect revenue. You're using the words in a broader sense. Also, I don't think you're right about the history of licensing. Spectrum auctions are relatively new, at least in the US. I'm pretty sure that during the time radio and TV were figuring out their business models, license fees were negligible. See, for example, Coase's 1959 paper, "The Federal Communications Commission"; his proposal of treating spectrum as a tradable property right was considered novel and radical.
    - deciplex 12y ago
      > I'm pretty sure that during the time radio and TV were figuring out their business models, license fees were negligible. Didn't know that - that's interesting. Still, the spectrum itself was regulated, right? That sounds even worse, IMO. The fees may have been low, but even in the 50s, the right to broadcast on a particular frequency was worth heaps of money. So, if they weren't auctioning to the highest bidder, the frequency would go to whoever knew the right people in government (and paid them or gave them gifts, I would imagine).
      - wpietri 12y ago
        That's an interesting hypothesis, but I'd want to see some evidence for it. Public service is an actual thing.

eropple 12y ago

Nit: that almost certainly wasn't something Meier wrote. It was either Brian Reynolds or somebody on the writing staff (likely Michael Ely, who wrote a lot of the fluff). Meier's involvement with Civ and Civ-alikes steadily decreased after Civ I.