62. Home broadband adoption increased from 47% from March 2007 to 55%
in April 2008.
Some 55% of adult Americans now have broadband internet connections at home, up
from 47% who had high-speed access at home lastyear at this time. From March 2006 to
March 2007, home broadband adoption grew from 42% of Americans to 47%.
Trends in home internet access: broadband vs dial-up
Broadband at home Dialup
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
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Increased Bandwidth
The growth rate from March 2007 to April 2008 was 17%; this compares to the 12%
growth rate from March 2006 to March 2007. It is also worth noting that the April 2008
number for broadband adoption at home is little changed from the 54% figure in the Pew
Internet Project’s December 2007 survey. With growth in broadband at home, now just
10% of Americans have dial-up internet connections at home.
66. quot;It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype
campaign,quot;
quot;Somebody is saying this is inevitable – and whenever you
hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of
businesses campaigning to make it true.”
-Happy to be here at U of A
-Talk a little about:
a) The History of Activism for Digital Freedom
b) Changes In Technology
c) How That Might Affect Efforts to Push For Greater Freedom Online
-Any Questions just ask me.
1983 GNU Project/Free Software Movement.
Commercialization of software, which prevents:
-Ability to share
-Ability to study the source of software
-Ability to editing it and republish it.
2004 publishes Free Culture
-What happens when everything is owned and you cannot share?
-The closing of innovation and individual cultural content.
2003 OPG vs. Diebold
2004 Founded Free Culture
DRM/RIAA
Experimenting With Models
From Free Software/Free Culture. Emerging Idea of Copyleft / Copyfight. Digital freedom dependent on fighting for liberal intellectual property.
Coalesced this basic idea.
Times have changed. Groups that used to be indifferent or resist copyleft are now following
In December 2008 the Wall Street Journal reported that the RIAA had dropped its program of mass lawsuits in favor of cooperative enforcement agreements with a number of ISPs. The RIAA still reserves the right to file lawsuits against particularly flagrant offenders, but the article predicted these lawsuits would \"slow to a trickle.\"
Share/ Free Access
or dying. Increasingly more than the other.
These statements seem weird: for many years the copyfight WAS the fight for freedom online. Intellectual property was the battlefield. How does the fight go on?
To understand where the relvant issues are -- we need to talk about the Google Paradox
Debian, Creative Commons, Electronic Frontier Foundation
So clearly, with regards to copyleft and all the things that freedom in technology used to be associated with, Google is progressive. But clearly. with regards to freedom in technology broadly, there are some things that are worrisome here. Digital freedom is about these new threats that companies like Google enter into the mix.
But Google is just one example of many, to understand how the full landscape has changed we need to understand why the companies got to where they are.
Structure of the internet CHANGED, so it was no longer in their interest to fight Chewbacca and fight Copyleft. There were other things more worth controlling.
There are three main differences.
Copyleft because: it became in their interest to promote sharing/remixing, because the main interest was in people being on their site/using their site.
Copyleft because: it became difficult to police. More things could be transferred through the web by more people. Easier to “persuade” people not to use it.
Scope, but also the arenas.
Copyleft because: costs became high of clearing rights between many many services and potential use cases.
Also, sociological angle: these services were created by many of the people in the copyleft, that felt that there were strong advantages in having participate.
So the world that Stallman was creating his agenda around in the 80s, is no longer the universe that we have now. How have they responded?
And where they have, it’s about the same issues. This seems narrow particularly considering the new threats to freedom companies like Google pose, and their willingness in this new environment to adopt copyleft principles.
To refuse, disengage with new technology.
The worry and why I think the landscape has changed: that by focusing exclusively on copyleft to the fight for freedom in technology Free Culture/Free Software will become less and less relevant to a greater proportion of users. There are some new issues that must be dealt with.
What *is* the agenda for this new environment?
To lay that out, it’s important to realize that there’s a reason that the structure of the internet has shift, it produces opportunities. But each opportunity comes with a threat to freedom, that form the new agenda for activists.
1) Data security no loss.
2) Easier sharing with users.
1) More content.
2) More powerful applications.
1) Bring benefits of the web to new endeavors
2)
Campaign for net neutrality, but it’s broader than that.
communities online and the design of institutions
saw in CC, but see more increasingly other than just technical people.
Thanks to Pam and Leah for putting this togethr. Thanks to the Student Union and the University of Alberta organizing committee.