The Technology Liberation Front - Latest Comments in Big Business vs. Regulation

Re: Big Business vs. Regulation

Steve_R — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 22:21:44 -0000

Points well taken. I am "floating" a hypothesis that may not have much validity. So I welcome any comments.

I don't think I missed Tim's point, what I was attempting to accomplish in my post was to suggest to Tim to explore the concept that the business/government "cartel" interaction may have evolved into something new. That something new being the ability of corporations to assume ersatz governmental powers. It's really not much of a stretch, why have government regulators if you can create your own self-serving regulations.

Tim wrote in his paper "Circumventing Competition, The Perverse Consequences Digital Millennium Copyright Act" "The DMCA is anti-competitive. It gives copyright
holders—and the technology companies
that distribute their content—the legal power to
create closed technology platforms and exclude
competitors from interoperating with them." (emphasis added). Tim also wrote "The DMCA also gives Apple a club that is
never available to parties in ordinary contract
disputes: criminal penalties. If Apple reneges
on the terms of a contract with its customers,
they may sue the company for monetary damages.
But no matter how egregious Apple’s
breach of contract may be, customers cannot
have Apple CEO Steve Jobs thrown in jail. Yet
Apple can ask the federal government to throw
those who circumvent its DRM system in jail—
even if they never engaged in piracy."

On the issue of "surrendering" and DRM, you are absolutely correct that I am NOT asserting that DRM is a power granted to government. What I am saying is that government has police powers. Corporations, through the use of DRM technologies, are now assuming ersatz police powers that they are not entitled to. Hence, government is "surrendering" to the corporation by failing to keep the corporations out of government.

Re: Big Business vs. Regulation

bradencox — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:43:59 -0000

Steve, you seem to miss Tim's point. Companies will use regulation to increase their power (and therefore profits) vis a vis competitors and potential competitors, not to increase legal authority in the abstract governmental sense. So I don't know what you mean by "surrender?" Thanks to our Constitution, state and federal governments have limited authority, and those not enumerated are reserved to the people (individually or collectively through corporate entities). Surely you can't be asserting that DRM is a power traditionally reserved to governments, such that it would qualify as a police power? Or network traffic management? Or enforcing IP rights?

Re: Big Business vs. Regulation

Steve_R — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:09:23 -0000

A lot of our government "regulations" are sponsored by corporations seeking to protect their business models. The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act being one of the poster-children for this aggrandizing regulatory process.

What may be a more interesting topic to pursue (as a natural evolutionary outgrow of the railroad industry as a government-run cartel) is how corporations today seem to be acquiring (claiming) police powers normally reserved for the government.

I have not had the opportunity undertake follow-up research on this, but the East India Company was a "Company transformed from a commercial trading venture to one that virtually ruled India as it acquired auxiliary governmental and military functions" (Wikipedia citation) (As a humorous note, many years ago on either Saturday Night Live or the Daily Report a spoof news story stated that Microsoft bought Canada.)

Clearly, the business environment today is substantially different from that of the early 1800s. Nevertheless, we have proposals for internet filtering that would require private companies to act as "traffic cops". We even had the unilateral claim by the NFL that it has the legal authority to "ban" the use of TVs larger than 55" in certain places to limit public viewing. Each of these incremental power grabs by corporations creates a form of regulation that diminishes the rights of citizens. These unilateral impositions also deprive citizens of due process.

I hope that you will have an opportunity to follow-up on the concept that use of DRM technologies and laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act are surrendering government regulatory authority to corporations.