Infobahn-oriented strategies are emerging [for dealing with the business of bits and assurance of payment]. For example, providers of news archives and other large, frequently updated databases may charge users not for the information that they download but for the time spent logged in … Invention of mechanisms like these is one part of the answer to the problem of constructing a workable framework for cyberspace business – one that adequately protects the originators and distributors of bits, while avoiding unnecessary impediments to the free flow of information. Another part is the development of intellectual property law to cover the new situations that arise in cyberspace. Yet another – perhaps most important of all – is the emergence of a broadly shared sense of morality in these matters.
Predictor: Mitchell, William J.
Prediction, in context:In his 1994 book “City of Bits,” MIT computer scientist William J. Mitchell writes: ”Useful information is now continually harvested from the world by keyboards, microphones, video cameras, surveillance satellites, point-of-sale terminals, and desktop document scanners, and then stored in databases like wheat in silos. There are innumerable small operations, and there are a few massive bit-extraction and refining enterprises … Raw bits are transformed into information products and distributed to consumers … Potentially, each node in a computer network is both a production and a consumption site for information products, and the channels carry a complex, multiway information trade … Manufacturers of information products can find suppliers and raw materials on the Net, then ship their finished work back out. Sales people and professional consultants can set up shop at network addresses instead of at locations on Main Street … People have come to value bits … they are willing to spend resources on creating, acquiring, storing, tranforming and transferring bits. They find that they are interested in trading bits, and in many cases they want to protect their bits. Lawyers like to look at valuable bits as a form of intellectual property … But the ‘property’ metaphor can be misleading, since digital artifacts differ from tangible property like land, buildings, automobiles and printed books in several crucial ways. They can be reproduced indefinitely at trivial cost, and through telecommunications networks they can be distributed almost instantaneously throughout the world. They take up very little storage space, and they can often be moved around undetectably. In many contexts, it is quick and easy to transform and combine existing digital information to produce new works that may seem very different. Most importantly, perhaps, one person’s use of a file or some application software need not interfere with or prevent another’s use of the same resource. Land is different: If I build on a lot, then you cannot. So are automobiles: If I have the family car, then you do not … The growing cyberspace business community is finding that it cannot rely on either the traditional legal mechanisms for protecting the bits that it sells and barters or on familiar ways of assuring payment. Infobahn-oriented strategies are emerging. For example, providers of news archives and other large, frequently updated databases may charge users not for the information that they download but for the time spent logged in … Invention of mechanisms like these is one part of the answer to the problem of constructing a workable framework for cyberspace business – one that adequately protects the originators and distributors of bits, while avoiding unnecessary impediments to the free flow of information. Another part is the development of intellectual property law to cover the new situations that arise in cyberspace. Yet another -perhaps most important of all – is the emergence of a broadly shared sense of morality in these matters. Whatever technical and legal controls are implemented will succeed only to the extent that they have community acceptance; unresolved moral disputes will create conflict among members of cyberspace communities just as surely as they do in other contexts.”
Biography:William J. Mitchell was a professor and dean of architecture at MIT and the author of the predictive book “City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn” (1994). He also taught at Harvard, Yale, Carnegie-Mellon and Cambridge Universities. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues
Subtopic: Copyright/Intellectual Property/Plagiarism
Name of publication: City of Bits
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 6: Bit Biz
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-books/City_of_Bits/index.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney