What’s New with Wu

Coming November —

I filed comments in the Net Neutrality proceeding.   From the first page:

* * *

I offer these comments to make three points.  First, there have been
tions in the media and elsewhere that the FCC’s proposed Net
Neutrality rules represent a radical departure in American federal
communications policy.  I’d suggest, from a historic perspective, that the
FCC’s Net Neutrality rule is rather mild.  In particular, it is far less
aggressive than the anti-discrimination laws imposed on carriers under the
Cleveland or Taft Administrations.

Second, many critics of the Proposed Rules have blurred the crucial
distinction between regulation of the Internet and the regulation of those
that carry Internet traffic.  I point out only that the latter, carriers, have
always been subject to regulation, as we shall, historically much stricter
regulation than that found in the Proposed Rules.

Third, I write to suggest that the FCC’s stated goal of protecting the
Internet as a platform for free speech will depend on how rigorously it
implements a ban on not only the blocking of content, but also on demands
for “Internet Payola.”

A brief comment on a paper entitled

Why the iPhone Won’t Last Forever and
What the Government Should Do to Promote its Successor

Robert Hahn and Hal J. Singer

This paper argues that the iPhone, while popular, will be replaced, and therefore that “regulators should be very reluctant to intervene in the mobile handset market.”

What I don’t understand about this paper is that it takes an undeniably true fact — that the iPhone won’t last forever, and ties it to a conclusion that is much less clear, and, in fact, close to assumed.

The authors argue that exclusive contracts are efficient and promote market entry.  Why?   Essentially, because they exist.   They believe, based mainly on the evidence of the Apple - AT&T deal, that handset producers seek out exclusive contracts themselves.

I’m going to keep this comment brief, but my main comment is that it is hard to generalize from the fact that something exists to the idea that it is a good thing.  It is the same old problem with the efficient market hypothesis, and also goes by the name the naturalist fallacy.  This paper comes close to assuming its answer based on current conditions.

The fact that the carriers have a near-total lock on the retailing of phones, and that it can be hard even for a company like Palm to get a carrier to carry a new handset has an obvious effect on what handset manufacturers do.   What they do now isn’t necessarily what they want to do.  It is what they have to do to reach customers.

It is harder still to generalize from Apple-AT&T to anything.   Apple, or more precisely Jobs, has a preference for closed systems that is not shared by other device manufacturers.   The fact that he sought out an exclusive contract does not mean, by itself, that there are, as a general matter “significant efficiencies associated with exclusive agreements.”

I agree with the argument that the iPhone won’t last forever.   It is as vulnerable as the Mac was in about 1986 or so.   But that doesn’t tell us much about whether wireless carterphone is better or worse for consumers and the nation over the long run.

Harold Gotthelf, Professor of Satire wrote this entry on parody and satire in fair use, in response to my recent Slate  piece on Fair Use.

Satire is a purposeful art; it attempts to unmask folly that is posing as wisdom, or evil posing as good. Since false appearance is accepted as truth, satire must do something out of the ordinary to jar and upset the audience’s vision of things.

…

the real problem with the Court (in which it is only following a certain obtuse conventional idea) is in believing that satire is concerned with making only bitingly-negative (even vicious) attacks on society (what I have termed “the general”).* This is reflected, I think, in the Court’s statement that “society is lampooned” by satire. Thus, the Court has removed the specific (mild or harsh) attacks on a person’s inadequacy of style, language, dramatic range, etc. from their rightful places in the universe of satirical means and modes.

Huxley had alot of it figured out.  His essay the Final Revolution (1959), is interesting, somewhat a prequel to Larry Lessig’s Code — a Code 0.1 you might say. (though I guess you might also say that of Brave New World).

There he says:

“In the examination of history we see that one of the great bulwarks of liberty has always been — inefficiency.  The desire to be a tyrant has frequently existed, but the means for being tyrannical often have been extraordinarily inadequate.

Read here in Slate. If you are paying any attention, this is all actually part of a series.

Who knows why, but the Sugar Hill Gang grabbed my attention today, especially their video

Tom Sawyer

Somehow I have gotten addicted to, of all things RUSH

So the real idea of this was supposedly to say what writing projects are ongoing

1. Cult of the vintage Honda, part of the Slate Obsessions series - coming out soon.

2. Book chapter on block booking; book generally.

3.  Another short piece on Google Book Settlement

4.  A Jeff Rosen - Brookings piece on Free Speech in 21st Century

5. and the brief for the Comcast case

Long overdue update, I’m done a first draft of the book, and I’m slowing workshopping it around the country.

Current title:

OPEN

the fate of an idea