In my own dream

LAST NIGHT I HAD a strange dream. The DRMocrats have just been re-elected, sweeping all three houses of government in a virtual landslide. When MBC/Disney declares the victory at 7 a.m. EST — 10 seconds after the polls open — Supreme Court Chief Justice Jack Valenti certifies the results and activates four more years of rights to the Raikes-Allchin ticket.

President Jeff Raikes and fourth wife Britney Spears celebrate at the Northwestern White House. Vice President Jim Allchin remains secluded, working on the latest update to the U.S. operating system — code-named Bill-o’-RightsXP.

I flash back to the history that brought us to this state of events. The headlines synchronize with Michael Jackson’s authorized Sgt. Pepper II Surgery Edition soundtrack.

“What would you do if I stole all your tunes — would you stand up and walk out on me?”

“Napster Shut Down; Record Sales Plummet” — Hollywood Reporter

“Lend me your ears, and I’ll sue you in court and tie you up in per-pe-tui-ty …”

“Napster Chapter 11, Sonic Blue Trial Begins” — Court TV

Now the images accelerate in a blur as the media conglomerates consolidate their gains.

Microsoft buys out Jack Welch’s severance package; GE throws in NBC as part of the deal. To avoid going out of business, personal video recorder manufacturers agree to only time-shift programs offered by one of the Big Three media giants. TiVo goes to ABCDisney, Dish Network to CBS, and Microsoft’s Ultimate TV to renamed MBC.

Office 2003 ships with DRM controls integrated not just in Windows Media Player but all content-creation applications and Internet Explorer XP. Word’s new DRM-compatible Auto-Correct feature disables unapproved text on the fly, substituting generic terms such as tissue or drink with sponsored brands such as Kleenex and Coke. DRM-enabled showerheads increase water pressure to drown out unauthorized humming and singing of copyrighted material.

Windows Media Player, Karaoke Version, replaces unacceptable lyrics, so that illegal concepts like “Imagine no possessions” become cable-ready slogans like “Imagine no reception.” Outlook sends a MyBirthday event notification to Excel, which automatically deducts a license fee for singing Happy Birthday from MyBankAccount. Oddly, PowerPoint continues to allow bosses to steal good ideas from subordinates and present them as their own.

Suddenly, I awaken from this nightmare to the sound of my iPod alarm. My Liberty Alliance Linux-powered coffee maker is happily perking in the kitchen, while the iScreen picks up where it left off last night in President Ozzie’s chat on Letterman. Vice President Marc Lucovsky remains secluded, tweaking his open-source version of Hailstorm with P2P Secretary Bill Joy and his Joint Chiefs of Staff.

This still being a dream, I flash back to the history that brought us to this state of mind. As I assemble the scenes on my Titanium with Adobe Office, I synchronize the headlines with A Day in the Life from Sgt. Pepper, The Remix.

“Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head.”

“Apple Establishes DRM Free Zone; DFZ Open-source License Gives Creative Control Back to Artists” — Free Press

“Made my way downstairs and had a smoke and somebody spoke, and I went into a dream.”

“Pixar Produces Animated Sgt. Pepper After Michael Jackson Puts Lennon and McCartney Catalogue in DFZ Public Domain to Satisfy Back Taxes” — Rolling Stone

But then I woke up — this time for real. There is no DFZ, no magic bullet to solve this crisis of intellectual property and piracy. And there is a DRM lobby, backed by Hollywood, tolerated by Intel, and slipstreamed by Microsoft into our next-generation desktop.

Arrayed against this is a motley group of Weblogging peers: technology publisher Tim O’Reilly, The Cluetrain Manifesto co-author Doc Searls, Electronic Frontier Foundation member and peer-to-peer veteran Cory Doctorow, Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig, San Jose Mercury News columnist (and brother) Dan Gillmor, and many others.

This group has some powerful intellectual property on its side: the Constitution, the Betamax fair-use Supreme Court ruling, the Internet’s multinational virtual architecture. And it’s instructive to watch how Apple has walked the thin line, preserving the innovation of technology while respecting the rights of both creators and consumers.

That’s why open source and open standards may be the only remedy. Who would have imagined when Windows 95 shipped, that Linux and XML would emerge to challenge the gatekeepers in computing? In the wake of Anybody-But-Microsoft coalitions, the antitrust battles, and the Office and Browser Wars, only open standards remain standing.

Now we need the same commitment from software creators of a different kind — the artists and authors of a new generation. With studio tools for both music and digital video recording now accessible to a new crop of garage band developers, it’s time for choice in music and the visual arts.

We need: a group of new artists who can engage not just the youngest generation but the boomer audience, one with the discretionary buying power to make it worth it for one old-style record company to crack open its vaults. Then a group of wealthy artists who can outlast their current contracts or partner with these new DRM-free artists just as Bonnie Raitt partnered with the generation of black blues artists to return to them their stolen royalties.

And another Linus-someone to manage this new effort — not to destroy the Microsofts and Disneys but to keep them honest. Someone to wake us up before it’s too late.

Source: www.infoworld.com