" Free" Internet Services

Everyone loves a free service, and there seems to be a certain expectancy that services on the Internet - be it news, games, music or even search - should be free. Most of these services fund their free services through a combination of

• Advertising revenue - although the one of the most popular plug-in for Firefox (and Chrome I think) blocks advertising
• Subscription for premier/exclusive content. This works if the content is truly niche - I used to subscribe to Autosport.com because of their exclusive articles on motorsport. My interest waned; so I cancelled the subscription - but it was definitely value for money.
• Donations and product sales - quite popular with online comics etc. and some people make a living out of it
• Subsidised by non Internet products - which is quite common with a number of media sites.

In addition to media services that are powered by "paid" employees (i.e. news sites, etc) there are also user generated content sites; which rely on people contributing their own "free" effort to generate and maintain content.

Occasionally, a service provider tries a different approach - and it is always interesting to see the commentary on the resultant changes. Instagram's proposed change in terms and the outcry from the change was quite illuminating in that respect. The terms of service were actually not that different - a number of different service providers, many notably cloud providers have similar clauses - but Instagram made the conditions quite clear and easy to understand unlike a number of other providers, whose terms on reusability of submitted content is buried deep in the legal text.

For example, see YouTube's terms of service (section 8), where the contect uploader gives YouTube royalty free rights to the submitted content to be used in whatever form YouTube wishes. Yes, YouTube doesn't say it can resell the the videos; but the license doesn't restrict it from doing so (after all making money would be consistent in "provision of Service").

8. Rights you licence
8.1 When you upload or post Content to YouTube, you grant:
A. to YouTube, a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable licence (with right to sub-licence) to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform that Content in connection with the provision of the Service and otherwise in connection with the provision of the Service and YouTube's business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels; and
B. to each user of the Service, a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to access your Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display and perform such Content to the extent permitted by the functionality of the Service and under these Terms.

In fact, the proposed model has already appeared in practice; though in the example neither the service provider nor the photographer made money. In his keynote at the Virtual Goods Workshop in 2008, Renato Iannella covered a similar case; covering the use of a flickr photo in an advertising campaign half a world away. The photographer had shared the content without restriction, but at the same time did not actually have the right to share the content in the first place! Instagram's proposed terms only addressed one part - the rights of the photographer; forgotten in the commentary was the rights of the subject!

xkcd captured the conundrum and some of the absurdity of the backlash in a brilliant analogy; but Instagram has backed down and the problems with financial models for these seemingly free services remain. So far, only Google has really cracked the code of making money from free services - but as companies like Facebook become accountable to shareholders for making money; maybe we should expect more similar terms?

PCFormat's DRM Article

I am not a regular buyer of PCFormat - but when I saw the DRM article advertised on the cover, I could not resist. Since I do consider myself somewhat of an expert on DRM, I was interested to see what the magazine had to say. And in most respects, it was very much what I thought it would be; although a lot less hysterical and to be fair, a lot more balanced. However, there are a number of points I would like to raise - so here it goes.

Firstly - what is DRM? Strictly speaking - DRM is about the control of usage and access to electronic data. It is not about copy control. In fact, every DRM system that has tried to enforce copy control has been a failure - and are usually led the bad rap - such as Sony-BMG's rootkit. It is physically impossible to restrict copying - computers work by copying data all the time. The way copying is controlled is through restricting the use of electronic data - but not physically restricting copying. It is an important distinction.

Secondly, DRM is not strictly about copyright enforcement - it is about license enforcement. This is the reason that music DRM has failed, and probably will never succeed. Music has never been sold as being licensed to the buyer - instead the buyer has always "bought" an instance of a musical performance. To apply DRM directly to this model was stupid, and has consequently failed.

Software is different - it has always been distributed and used as being licensed. You do not own a game. You own a license to play the game. You do not own a copy of Windows XP. You own a license to use Windows XP. Consequently, DRM fits in a lot better to the model for Software Protection - it is a natural extension to what has always been practiced, but never really been enforced.

But does this mean that the economic and usability models being applied to current software is correct? No. Previously, I could get a license to play a game on unlimited number of machines for R400. Now, I get a license restricted to play on 3 machines for R400. That is not economically justifiable. Likewise, usability of phoning a number, hanging on for 20 minutes while reciting 20 letter numbers is not user-friendly.

In my opinion, DRM was rushed to the market - mainly because the old business models in the music industry could not cope with the new economy. There is a lot of research that needs to be done - a lot of it is being done. There is a lot of use for DRM, and the power it can hand to the user could be immense. If done properly, the user could be in a position to determine, how, who, why, when and where another entity could use their personal data - that is powerful. However, competing DRM standards (there are at least three organisations in the standardisation game: OMA, MPEG and W3C), competing interests and a general fuck up due to the immature introduction of the technology has meant that real progress has been really slow.

Perpetual Copyright

In this New York Times article, Mark Helprin presents the case for perpetual copyright.Basically, ownership of property is perpetual - ownership can be transferred, but property is rarely transferred back to the commons. Helprin suggests that a similar concept should apply to intellectual property. The concept of perpetual copyright is not new - it was in fact suggested at the very begining, and for a brief while, perpetual copyright actually existed.

However, intellectual property itself is not like normal property, as it is intangible. It is also used in different form to normal property, and has different characteristics. Firstly, there is no wear and tear in IP, and there is a need to maintain property, to maintain its value. IP is valuable in itself - there is no attached maintainance costs for example.

Secondly, physical property, if fallen into desrepair and left unused, is often recycled and available to the commons. There are means to get rid of ownership of a physical property. IP cannot have perpetual ownership, until there is a means to recover abandoned works without fear of prosecution.

Lastly physical property has a narrow range of uses, morphing physical property to other uses is not easy. However, IP is about the idea - and a design of a house can be morphed to a design of a boat etc.IP is also used differently - you can't really combine physical assets to form new usable physical assets, while retaining the use of the original assets. With IP - you can mix songs and videos to produce something new.

IP and physical property are different types of property. In fact, copyright protection period is too long and need to be shortened; and not the other way around!