More Lessig

Julian Sanchez has an interview with Lawrence Lessig in Ars Technica that outlines more concretely what he hopes to do in Congress.  While he is “liberal Demcorat” and “a free-trade, pro-market liberal”, the one thing that would set him apart from just about any Congressperson would be the main focus of his legislative push - the internet.

“Silicon Valley needs a representative who can speak for the interests of the Internet, of making it flourish,” he says. “As we’re leading into this moment when the owners of telecommunications platforms are trying to leverage their ownership into control of the Internet, yammering about the need to turn it into the old Bell System, we need someone in Washington who’s going to be able to stare them down.”

But while Lessig wryly notes that the RIAA and MPAA “won’t be excited to have an opponent of extremist copyright legislation in Congress,” he also stresses that a congressional run would not be some kind of crusading extension of his work on “free culture.” For Lessig, the central policy question will be, “Who ultimately controls innovation on the Internet? That’s the net neutrality fight; that’s the open spectrum fight.”

Spectrum licensing, copyright law and telecom is one of those bundles of complex legislative issues that doesn’t have a ton of a bunch of energized activists who can successfully push legislators - even Democrats - to taking anything besides the industry line.  Simple public choice logic basically dictates that in a world where all the pressure on telecom regulation and copyright is coming from one side with a bunch of money, it’s their interests that will be represented in the government.

What compounds this logic is that these issues are very complex and it’s not always clear what the correct liberal line on them are.  When it’s hard to build up the expertise necessary to oppose smart, wealthy, telecom interests, it’s basically a rigged game for bad, corporate driven telecom and copyright policy.  Lessig, on the other hand, has all the money and influence and fame he needs, and has built up his entire reputation and platform on being incorruptible and is the most informed on these issues and has a grassroots following with which he can actually build up some popular support on these obscure regulatory issues.

There really aren’t any other congressional candidates like this. And because you’re reading this blog, you care about the Internet and the free-flow and transmission of content (have I mentioned that he’s the CEO of Creative Commons), so you should check out his site and give him some cash.

Verizon Is the Future

What makes the entire iPhone phenomenon very odd is that if one wants the coolest handset, ones has to sign up for crappy Cingular service. If you want Verizon, which is the consensus best service, you can’t have the iPhone.* Now, it would follow that Verizon, whose advantage is their network, would open up their service to those who don’t sign contracts and get deals on Verizon affiliated phones. The Times Bits blog reports:

Verizon Wireless has stunned the wireless world by announcing that by sometime next year it will open its network to “any apps, any device.”

There is a lot of fine print, but the essence appears to be that Verizon will offer two flavors of service: its traditional bundle, which typically includes a subsidy for phone purchase and various other features, and “bring your own” device service, which will be open to any device that meets “minimum technical standards.”

The downside, or the trade-off, if all networks adopt open access, is that the price of cell phones will shoot up because the networks would have no reason to subsidize them. The long term effect could still be beneficial. If people buy and own their own cell phones, networks will compete solely on the basis of their quality, rather than the deals they’ve locked up with Apple. A more speculative outcome will be that, in the long run, handset makers will transition to cell phones that are likely to function for more than 18 months. So maybe the growth in phones overladen with new features will slow down as phone-churn decreaes, but the actual ability to make phone calls will surely go up.

* This is an oversimplification.  Even if Verizon and Cingular both had open networks, you still wouldn’t be able to run an iPhone on the Verizon network.  Verizon is CDMA, while the iPhone is GSM.