To let someone do what they want without helping them or trying to control them (usually passive)
- Farlex Free Dictionary
In this final, culminating, chapter, Siapera takes the time to recall all subjects of this undergraduate book and summarizes all thoughts and opinions discussed into one big potential future for new media, the internet and the world around it. One of the main talking points at the end of this chapter is the potential benefits and deficits of regulating the internet. The chapter ends with the famous words of Stiegler, claiming that the internet is and should remain a free good for all, free from corporate, governmental or other organised interests.
Perhaps the biggest argument in favor of regulating the world wide web stems from the media industry. Piracy is still a much discussed issue, and the defense of copyrights is seemingly the main goal of anti-piracy advocates. As a free and unregulated repository of data, the internet is often presented as a breeding ground for piracy and the illegal sharing of data that others have a claim of ownership to. One of the main reasons is often claimed to be that people simply don't want to pay. One subject that is often lost inside the turmoil of debate, is the innovations originating from the internet that have changed the face of the media industry. While one side is staunchly defending copyrights and artist's rights, and the other is supporting freedom and a new vision of copyrights, it's not surprising that many of these developments are overlooked.
Gabe Newell, CEO of game development house Valve and retail platform Steam, had a very different opinion on the matter. In an interview with the Cambridge University student newspaper 'the Cambridge Student', he claimed that piracy was not so much a pricing issue, but a service issue. He said the following:
"In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable. Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customers use or by creating uncertainty".
And there have been new developments of late that seem to cater to this exact problem. Game sales have moved to online distributors like Steam and Origin, music to platforms like Spotify and Itunes, and movies to Netflix. These services provide the region free, 24x7 online service that used to be exclusive to the pirates of the web. This gives providers of copyrighted material a chance to actually compete with the pirates, instead of taking a powerless victim role. Just last week a study by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre showed that legal online music retailers were not in any way harmed by piracy. In fact, they actually had a deterrent effect on piracy. (source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/131005609/JRC79605).
So perhaps this tendency to try and regulate the internet, not only when it comes to piracy but also in other cases, stems from a narrow vision of what the internet can actually provide for people, governments, corporations and interest groups alike. There seems to be an inherent lack of understanding surrounding the new media in general. Perhaps the foremost underlying factor might be the fact that the internet, and new media on the internet, are not one single technology. It's rather a patchwork of interwoven technologies, many of which are not yet fully understood and mature enough to be predictable.
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| Gartner's Hype Cycle for 2012. Web technologies nowhere near maturity are: Internet of things, Crowdsourcing, Big data, Gamification, HTML 5, (Hybrid/Private) cloud computing, and Internet TV. |
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