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• Tenenbaum Trial and Future of the Internet

[The following post was written by Yvette Wohn]

Joel Tenenbaum was one of thousands, perhaps millions of teenagers. When he was 17, he allegedly downloaded seven songs from the Internet using a peer-to-peer file sharing program called Kazaa [Both parties appear to agree this is a downloading case, not (solely) an uploading case like many of the others]. Now, 10 years later, he is being sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), along with Capital Records and Sony BMG. What does the RIAA want from Mr. Tenenbaum? $1 million.

But before we begin to think about the legal details and who is right or wrong, let’s think about why this is a problem. For starters, the current architecture of the Internet does not technically support copyright. It is different from controlled virtual environments such as Second Life, in which any object made by someone will forever contain the “watermark” of the maker. Items or programs in Second Life can be designated at birth whether or not they will be copyable or transferable.

That does not mean copyright has no meaning on the Web– only that the architecture of the Web makes it easy to exchange copyrighted material to a scale that cannot compare to what could happen in the physical world.

Is the Architecture of the Net Creating Problems?


These copyright issues are taking place because the creators of the Internet did not think like proprietary networks. As explained in Chapter 2, the people who designed the Internet were primarily academic researchers and corporate engineers who “had little concern for controlling the network or its users’ behavior.” When they first made the Internet, they probably had no idea that someone (actually two someones) would come along and invent a peer-to-peer file sharing program.

If the Internet were designed by the RIAA, they probably would have made it so that music would not be able to be shared by multiple people. We can make this assumption because one of the attempts made by the music industry has been to impose digital rights management, or DRM, on their products. DRM gives the media maker the authority to control what can and cannot be done with a song. For instance, a music file can be programmed so that it can only be played a certain number of times, or only on certain devices. While DRMs are increasingly fading, they still have a strong presence in much of the content available on online music stores like iTunes.

So what does that mean for an organization like the RIAA? It could continue its current mission of hunting down music downloaders/uploaders and suing them, hoping in the long run that this will discourage people from doing so. Or, it could look for an entirely different business model that still brings in revenues regardless of Internet file sharing. Or… it could try to change the Internet to one that is more controlled by requiring Internet service providers to impose filters.

That last scenario is something that concerns people like Charles Nesson, Harvard Law School professor and Mr. Tenenbaum’s legal representative. According to Prof. Nesson, the RIAA’s lawsuit against Mr. Tenenbaum is more about working to change the infrastructure to make control of content easier.

In the defense of the counterclaim he argues:

They do this, not for the purpose of recovering compensation for actual damage caused by Joel’s individual action, nor for the primary purpose of deterring him from further copyright infringement, but for the ulterior purpose of creating an urban legend so frightening to children using computers, and so frightening to parents and teachers of students using computers, that they will somehow reverse the tide of the digital future.

That is something we should think about. Will the Internet continue to run on the open infrastructure that it currently is? Do we, as users, have any say in what happens to it?

• iPhone and Facebook apps and exploits

Apple continues to exercise its control over the iPhone platform, recently rejecting an app for using too much bandwidth. CastCatcher was a radio streaming app, which had been approved in several previous versions; the latest update was rejected for violating the TOS provision limiting bandwidth use. The developers are upset—they say the updated version didn’t use more bandwidth than previously-approved versions. This move bodes ill for other streaming radio or video services. It also emphasizes the difference between Apple (with partner AT&T) and a traditional ISP. Comcast, for instance, would love to be able to ban applications that use too much bandwidth.

In other news, the writers and commenters at TechCrunch have been having a lively debate over whether a possible iPhone exploit (possibly allowing developers to update code without approval) is cause for concern. Jason Kincaid notes an interesting issue: on PCs, most users are trained to be wary of new code, and look for assurances of safety before the download applications. But because Apple’s platform is considered safe, people download apps without a second thought. This means that, in the event a malicious app is developed and slips through the imperfect approval process, the damage could be extensive. Apple can always yank back malicious apps once they’re discovered, but by then, the harm could be done.

Another walled garden, Facebook, has also found itself facing malicious code lately—so far, relatively tame. Do Facebook users—who are clearly trusting enough to expose lots of personal information to large networks—expect Facebook to be a safe space, free of malware? And if they discover it’s not, will that reduce their willingness to buy Facebook apps, halting the Web 2.0 party?

—Elisabeth Oppenheimer

• More on the G1, the first Android phone

A few weeks ago, Google and T-Mobile rolled out the G1, the first mobile phone to run the open-source Android operating system. As the Android platform and Android Marketplace develop, it will be interesting to see how they compare to the iPhone platform and the App Store. Will the openness provide the benefits the Open Handset Alliance is claiming? And what will the security costs be?

Android developers can already post apps in the new Android Marketplace without going through an iPhone-like certification process—they just register (for a $25 fee), describe the app, and upload it. As with the iPhone App Store, the developer will get a 70% cut. (So far the Android Marketplace is only set up for free applications, but that should change at the end of the year.)



Developers can also distribute apps independently, through sites like Handago or SlideMe, or through individual websites. The developer would then keep the entire fee, but will have to find the audience. We’ll see whether a 30% cut is seen as a fair trade for visibility.

James Johnson at Bright Hub has a helpful explanation of how the Marketplace works. When users click on an app they’re thinking of buying from the Marketplace, they’ll be taken to a list of user comments and ratings, so they can get the collective wisdom about how good the app is.



If the user decides to buy it, she clicks “install,” reads a screen that tells her which of the phone’s capabilities the app can access, and then okays the purchase. Android users, unlike iPhone users, can download an app for a 24-hour trial period, then return it if they don’t like it. It’s not clear how the return will work. Possibly they’ll use technology similar to the kill switch to take the application off the phone, or maybe the user will voluntarily remove the application before receiving a refund.

A couple of examples of currently-available apps for the G1 phone:

The pleasingly simple Android-optimized version of Wikipedia:



Locale, which allows users to preprogram setting changes in response to the user’s location, the battery power, and other variables—so that a user could “ensure . . . cellphone ringers are turned off on Sunday mornings or when the church’s location is sensed,”

and various obligatory useless but fun games, like Bonsai Blast.



Bonsai Blast

The downsides of the G1 phone: the hardware isn’t as snazzy as the iPhone hardware (worse screen quality, poor camera); although it’s not officially a Google phone, Google products (like Gmail) are the best integrated apps; you can’t store many apps on the phone at once, though you can continually re-download them from the Market.

The consensus seems to be that the G1 phone isn’t as good as the iPhone yet, but that may change as more applications are rolled out in the coming months. Most importantly, Android is an operating system, and G1 is just the first piece of hardware running it. Hopefully, there will be many different phones developed to run Android. T-Mobile is already planning to cooperate with hardware providers to offer more Android phones (some of which will be less Google-focused); Motorola has an Android phone planned for 2009. The whole idea of creating an open source mobile operating system is that it can run on better and better hardware while developers create more and more interesting applications. We’ll keep an eye out.

—Elisabeth Oppenheimer

(Brief new blog contributor bio: I’m a Stanford law student and Future of the Internet groupie. I’ll be bringing you updates on developments in contingently generative platforms and other topics.)

• Moving Towards Generativity

After much anticipation and fanfare, the Android made a wobbly debut. A security flaw was discovered just days after it was released and users discovered some fine print that gives Google more power than originally anticipated. Despite these problems, critics are still optimistic about the Android because it encourages generativity.

Android is an open sourced software stack for mobile devices that includes the operating system and applications. It is being used to power the new T Mobile G1 smartphone (dubbed the Google phone) which was launched last week. The Android is unique because most cell phone systems and software are controlled by mobile service providers and manufacturers.

Powered by Android, the Google phone resembles the iPhone. Like the iPhone, third parties are allowed to develop applications.  Both phones are not entirely generative in that the companies have the right to terminate an application. However, developers for the Android do not need approval from Google whereas all iPhone apps are screened by Apple.

While the open architecture of the Android fuels innovation, that characteristic also makes it an easy target. Charles Miller, the security expert who first discovered Android’s security glitch, said that the risk in the Google design was in the danger from within the Web browser partition in the phone. Miller said it would be possible, for example, for an intruder to install software that would capture keystrokes entered by the user when surfing to other Web sites. That would make it possible to steal identity information or passwords.

Perhaps ironically, the openness of the Android may very well be the best way to deal with this kind of problem. As noted in the third “Solutions” section of the book, closing down an open system for sake of security “may work in the short or medium terms for banks and airlines,” but has “crucial drawbacks for consumer information technology.” An open infrastructure, however, could enable people to solve such technical problems together– as in the example of Wikipedia.

Hopefully, Google will not use security flaws as excuses to oppress the phone’s generative functions. Like the example of PCs and the Internet in Chapter Four, Android developers could tap into unforseen resources and engage participation of people who are not technologically savvy to express themselves creatively on a mobile platform.

-Yvette Wohn

• Tethering the Wii

The Wii game console is a perfect example of what the book describes as tethered technology. In designing the architecture of the Wii, Nintendo did not want users to use the Wii for purposes other than playing Wii games. It took a step even further, creating different regional and country codes and segmenting the market so that some games could not be shared.

This, however, did not deter creative hackers who constantly found ways to get around the closed engineering. The hackers discovered bugs that enabled them to install applications that would run independent programs; these applications were dubbed homebrew.  With homebrew, you could turn your Wii into anything from a DVD player to a Linux operating platform.

Nintendo has been trying to stop the homebrewers, but the brewers are still in the lead. As reported recently in Slashdot, Nintendo patched a few bugs in its latest update that disabled certain homebrew functions. The update, however, was cracked within eight hours.

It is interesting that Nintendo is making so much effort to keep the Wii tethered when the console has so much potential for innovation. For instance, Carnegie Mellon grad student Johnny Lee used the Wii remote along with a $5 infrared pen and projector, to create a low-cost interactive whiteboard. Other fun inventions include a digital paint sprayer and a surf board-style remote control that can maneuver a Roomba vacuum cleaner.

Perhaps it will take a little more time before Nintendo realizes that these new adaptions can actually be used for their commercial purposes. As noted in Chapter four, Eric von Hippel has a model that integrates user innovation with manufacturer innovation. Von Hippel suggests that users create “disruptive innovation,” which, in time, expands to widespread demand and eventually– commercialization.

-Yvette Wohn

About Jonathan Zittrain

Jonathan Zittrain is the Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University, and co-founder of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.