Symbsys 209

9 responses so far ↓

• 1    jarobb3 // Oct 2, 2007 at 12:29 am

  While I agree that restricting access to information generally inhibits innovation and economic growth, Benkler shares with his opponents the common sin of broadly generalizing his views across all transactions involving information.

  Benkler’s point that non-proprietary strategies are disproportionately important in information production with respect to those involving copyrights is insightful; the role of state-funded projects and of the “Joe Einsteins” continue to push the limits of science and technology. But there are limits to their potential, just as there are limits of what the market can do without them.

  I cannot provide counterexamples solely based on our readings of Benkler, but one might ask why many more companies have not tried to replicate IBM’s innovative success by adapting to the rise of free software. If it is such a no-brainer for industry to adapt as IBM has, then I am puzzled why companies would rather spend substantial resources in litigation rather than reforming their strategies.

  On the costs of exclusive rights, I agree with Benkler that increasing the costs of information input into the cycle of information production is counterproductive for economic growth…in most cases. Taking an example from the music industry, the artist Prince produces all of his music in the basement of his house. This includes writing and producing, packaging and shipping CDs (from what I have heard). He gives away CDs to those who come to his concerts and recently angered the music industry when he included his new album for free in an issue of a London periodical. Yet recently, he hired a company to zap copies of his music that were used in illegal downloads. His behavior makes me believe that the issue of intellectual property is more complicated than either Benkler or his opponents would like to let on.

• 2    johnmagdaleno // Oct 2, 2007 at 2:51 pm

  Yochai Benkler makes the following broad arguments in the first two chapters:
  * Applying traditional economic rules and understanding to information production will limit our ability to use and produce information efficiently.
  * Freedom to access and produce information will make us freer as individuals, and improve the societies in which the individuals exist.
  * Entities (not necessarily individuals) satisfy different needs when they participate in the production of proprietary and non-proprietary information.

  For this blog post, I’d like to focus on some of the economic forms of Benkler’s arguments, especially focusing on the empirical aspects of his claims. A subset of his economic economic claims can be summarized in three related arguments:
  * Information is not a typical industrial product because the marginal cost of its production is zero. This argument is the most direct (and so far complete in its evaluation within the first two chapters) as it shows that no additional (relatively little) resources are consumed in the production of the nth copy of the product. It then synthesizes this fact with established economic principles to conclude that the price of an information good should also be zero. Benkler uses these facts to support his argument for the need for different market behaviors related to information production. For example, the market should extract value from information goods from related services (as in the example of IBM) instead of from the patents (control) that current laws provide them.
  * Due to the nature of information, different methods of its production are available (and preferable). Because information production does not consume scarce resources and because a cheap (relatively free) distribution channel is available to producers, the captial requirements for production and distribution are unsubstantial, and therefore, large hierarchical organizations are not necessary in order to front the capital and provide the organization to manage the endeavor. Benkler states that loose organizational models can be employed (and are being employed as in the example of Linux), and in fact, he suggests that they are more efficacious to manage the production of information products. The cogency to this class of argument tends to rely heavily on the reader already having agreed. For example, Benkler makes the precarious claim that “creative individuals can work more efficiently than [they would using] traditional market mechanisms.”1 However, Benkler has yet to provide specific data or describe in detail observations that would support this. We are left to our own preconceived notions of creative people and traditional market mechanisms to determine the validity ourselves.
  * Applying the constraints of the traditional industrial economics will result in some negative economic, political and/or social consequence(s). Benkler provides anecdotal (and mostly hypothetical) arguments to support the claims that applying the commonly accepted model of industrial economics to information products will result in some negative effect. For example, a market inefficiency is created when one prices an information product above its marginal cost of zero. In conjunction with the principle of “on the shoulders of giants,” the negative effect of this pricing is that downstream producers are incentivized to produce less, or to produce less efficiently (by recreating the inputs for themselves as opposed to reusing existing inputs). It would be helpful to have specific observations or research data that not only demonstrated the existence of this relationship in this context, but also the strength of the relationship.

  The force of Benkler’s economic arguments seem to rely primarily on the emotions of active or would-be participants in information production who might feel that their production is unfairly curtailed to protect the economic interests of commercial enterprises. While some of the arguments are intuitively cogent to me, I have questions related to the validity of the claims and to the ramifications of the changes that he proposes, especially when we are asked to consider legal and economic policy changes. Specifically, I would like to better understand the following areas:

  1) Does the social circumstances globally (i.e., not individually) improve by freeing an individual to produce whatever and however they want? Typically individual freedoms do not imply a lack of consequences for exercising their freedoms. In fact, there are circumstances where an individual’s exercise of free speech leads to negative legal, social and/or economic penalties.
  2) A related, but more economically focused, question is: what is the socio-economic view of “free information”, or more importantly of non-proprietary information production? Can we expand the author’s example of Linux and Microsoft to compare the relative values of each approach in terms of contribution to GDP?
  3) Are there empirical studies that exist (and what do they have to say) that show how different organizational models (including “loose organizations” as discussed in these chapters) affect the efficiency of information production? We need to both expand beyond and go deeper into the two examples (Linux and Wikipedia), as well as clarify Benkler’s repeated claim that individuals “do more.”

  While on the surface, my points and questions are somewhat critical (perhaps skeptical), I think that many of Benkler’s claims do have merit. Finally, after hearing Fred von Lohmann discuss the RIAA actions and the impacts on the lives of individuals, I think the legal system, at least, needs to be reformed to protect individual rights. I share Benkler’s hopes that our networked societies will result in a more critical culture and in increased participation in the political process that he states as opportunities as a result of our interconnectedness.

• 3    Todd // Oct 2, 2007 at 5:58 pm

  Posting for Felicia:

  Chapter 1 introduced many interesting ideas that I can only hope will be fully supported in the chapters to come.
  On page 6, Benkler offers a big claim as a weak link in his argument. He says about our a liberal society’s
  values, “Because of their practical policy implications are often contradictory, rather than complementary, the
  pursuit of each places certain limits on how we pursue the others, leading different liberal societies to respect
  them in different patterns.” Benkler needs to explain how he see implications as often contradictory rather than
  complementary, because from my interpretation, I would make the opposite claim~Wthat policies do often restrain
  certain freedoms but only to protect others that we value more highly.

  On page 8, Benkler mentions that the third commercial media style is to “program toward the inane and soothing,
  rather than toward that which will be politically engaging, and they tend to oversimplify complex public
  discussions.” I completely agree with this observation. I think Time Magazine is a perfect example of such
  commercial media. Too many articles attempt to find some type of compromise between controversial sides of an
  issue and in effect leave the reader feeling less bothered than they should be. The Economist on the other hand is
  a great example of the opposite.

  On page 11, Benkler makes a claim about social relations. (This is exactly the topic in which I am interested.) He
  believes that we have become increasingly capable and dependent on fulfilling the “same emotional and
  context-generating functions that have traditionally been associated with the importance of community with a
  network of overlapping social ties that are limited in duration or intensity.” Although I agree with the first
  part about replacing community, as I have observed that in general physical communities have become weaker since
  the rise in popularity of the Internet , it is not the case that the social ties are now more limited in duration
  or intensity. This may be the case for some, but for many, the time that would have been spent, say chatting with
  a neighbor, or getting to know a stranger, is often spent staying in touch with family or old friends instead
  because we now have all the technology that pretty much necessitates maintenance of such relationships.

• 4    Todd // Oct 2, 2007 at 5:59 pm

  Posting for Greg:

  The first two chapters from Benkler and his Wealth of Nations are certainly informative and refreshingly contemporary.
  However, one theme that I have noticed while reading it is that Benkler feels very strongly compelled to sell his
  argument; that we need to look at the new networked environment differently. I use the word “sell” because it seems that
  Benkler is convinced that many of us who read his book would naturally feel compelled to believe that only market driven
  economies are the most optimal. It is as if he thinks that his audience will only be those who are die hard capitalist
  enthusiasts. The result is not ideal, since it makes some of his arguments seem a little more dubious because he puts so
  much pressure in trying to sell it, when in truth I naturally feel inclined to believe what he tells without much
  convincing, especially when he simple lets us asses his argument naturally. For example a comment like “We act for
  material gain, but also for psychological well-being and gratification, and for social connectedness. There is nothing
  new or earth-shattering about this, except perhaps to some economists.” He seems to be taking jabs at economists who have
  a very limited view of the world, and maybe I don’t know enough about the field, but I just don’t think it is necessary.

  There are a couple sections of the reading that I want to expand in particular. Fist when discussing the democratizing
  effects of networks, Benkler mentions the development of local clusters and “peer-review-like” quality. And with these,
  and a large scale of information it allows users to receive information that they could or would not easily get from a
  typical mass media source. If we were to examine this in the context of the blogosphere, I think Benkler is correct in
  asserting that people tend to cluster around certain blogs where these blogs in the themselves are kept to a certain
  standard as a result of other blogs or other users constantly judging their work. Benkler then goes on to say, “the
  actual practice of freedom that we see emerging from the networked environment allows people to reach across national or
  social boundaries, across space and political division.” However, it seems that my understanding of the blogosphere in
  practice people will hardly ever cross the political division. In fact I feel that people like to use political blogs as
  a filter so that they will only hear what they want to hear. I think that this is the darker side of the internet. Yes,
  there is an abundance of political news that is being tackled out there by many different political blogs, but to an
  uninformed person it would take very little to be convinced that the “important” issues are all the injustices committed
  are those that go against what the person really cares about. In other words I’m not always sure that the internet is
  expanding peoples minds or broadening their horizons, but unfortunately allowing certain people to listen to only one
  vantage point, and to think it is credible since it is echoed through many different blogs. This does not necessarily go
  contrary to what Benkler has mentioned, but he did mention the draw backs of mass media and I think it is unfair not to
  mention the drawbacks we are seeing in our networked society.

  The second point that I want to expand on is when Benkler mentions about the “possible strategic regulatory interventions
  to negate monopoly control over essential resources in the digital environment” because I would love to expand that to
  not only cover only monopolies, but to really look at ownership in general of certain environments as being ridiculous.
  Namely, I am pretty frustrated that their is a business of taking up domain names on the internet and than selling them
  to other people. I can’t for the life of me see the utility that this brings to our society. I mean honestly if I had the
  power I would inform all these domain name companies that they had thirty days to make every domain into a functional
  site or they would lose their ownership over them. I honestly do not know the process that goes on to acquire the domains
  in the first place, but I have to admit that I think that it is pretty frustrating that people own certain domains just
  so that they can try to resell them later. I mean thats pretty gosh damn ridiculous. However, I don’t know how the system
  works so I would have no idea about changing it.

• 5    Todd // Oct 2, 2007 at 6:02 pm

  Posted for Ben:

  The classic defense of strict intellectual property rights is that without a financial incentive to produce “information”
  (whether scientific fact, art, music, or other cultural entertainment), people would cease to create new instances and
  scientific and cultural development would slow. Benkler’s counterargument is that there are other incentives for the
  creative process which do not require intellectual property transactions, whether it be personal satisfaction, the desire
  for fame, the development of a lucrative relationship or cuts in the cost of other work a firm may do. However, this
  argument is insufficient to set my mind at ease that we would sacrifice a great deal of cultural progress if the concept
  of intellectual property were entirely thrown aside.

  While the marginal cost of each successive “copy” of an infowidget may be zero, the fixed cost for creating the first one
  is not. He marvels at how, in this information age, the means of production are no longer prohibitively expensive, and
  anyone connected to the internet can make as valuable contributions as the “mass media.” However, while the cost of the
  physical machinery (often, an already-owned computer) may be zero, the opportunity cost is great in that people the
  people who put together the most valuable contributions often spend a great deal of time doing so, which limits the
  amount of time they are able to spend supporting themselves.

  Take, for example, some favorite artists of the Symsys program, Ryan North and Randall Munroe. These two men are among
  the lucky few who make enough money from their webcomics that it has become their full-time job. They have turned their
  free art into a source of income by selling shirts and other merchandise with scenes or slogans from their webcomics.
  Suppose, however, that I opened a competing online store that sold all their shirts for half-price. It would be an
  endeavor of pure profit for me, because I did not expend the opportunity cost (my time) in producing the art, and it
  would rob the artists of their source of income, assuming most consumers were attracted to my lower price. Eventually,
  North and Munroe would be forced to resume their old 9-to-5 jobs and, while they might continue to publish their
  webcomics due to the satisfaction they get from doing so, the amount of time they could spend this endeavor would suffer,
  and the quality and quantity likely would as well. Indeed, some of my favorite webcomics have folded despite the artists’
  desire to continue producing art because the artists were too busy with the necessity of producing income with their
  time. And who knows how many creative minds out there have not been discovered due to the rigors of their everyday life
  keeping them from wasting time on nonprofit creative expression?

  Now, Munroe is a passionate defender of free information, and releases all his work under a Creative Commons license,
  meaning (I think?) that he has no quarrels with you reproducing his artwork, as long as you don’t do so for profit. I am
  sure that Benkler will, in future chapters, outline such a mechanism which would allow freer information than we
  currently have while maintaining a certain degree of control over one’s creative productions. We just haven’t seen it
  yet.

• 6    Todd // Oct 2, 2007 at 6:04 pm

  Posted for Evan

  I will admit first and foremost that I have very little understanding of economic study beyond what I interact with every day. As such, the following opinions are the thoughts that are unpolished and unlearned. Also, I will probably ignore a lot of the stuff presented as it did confuse me and probably will continue to do so until it has worked its way through my brain.

  The first thing that came to mind (ironically perhaps) when reading the two chapters was the comic found here: http://xkcd.com/294/.

  For the link averse, the comic — which is published under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial license — contains someone who accidentally read the whole of an interesting book and set off the anti-thefts detectors with his brain.

  I was also reminded of how copyright can hinder a company in the case of Sony and Beta tapes, which I will not go into here.

  One of the parts of the two chapters that really got under my skin was the discussion of Ideal-Type Information Production Strategies in Chapter 2. I can understand that the world can follow distinct patterns, but I do not think that the world fits
  into such neat little packages as Benkler presents it here. The Joe Einsteins in particular do not seem to be as he presents them. There is, after all, a big difference between a member of community theatre and a philosopher who is writing for the
  sake of “immortality.” A Romantic Maximizer might volunteer to be a Joe Einstein when it suits him. I am especially curious
  how Benkler would view a webcomic artist who presents his or her work for free to those with internet access and yet also runs a store containing merchandise containing the characters to make ends meet.

  I think Benkler is not taking into account how much fun Joe Einsteins have while performing their roles.

  I enjoyed the comparison between the school teachers of yesteryear and today presenting a lesson on Viking ships. It really
  helped drive home the point of how much creative output is available to the proverbial Common Man. Perhaps he means that since it is less difficult to make it should be less expensive to receive. I am unsure and probably over analyzing.

  I shall end this comment with an observation: copyright laws will probably finally reach their limit when “Steam Boat Willie” becomes completely public property.

• 7    Todd // Oct 2, 2007 at 6:05 pm

  Posted for Christopher:

  The following will probably be a little disjointed, given that Benkler covers pretty diverse territory in the
  first two chapters. I’ll try to distinguish thoughts as clearly as possible.

  1.
  ON MOTIVATIONS FOR NONMARKET ACTIVITY
  Benkler offers fairly cogent explanations for why freeing information from the constraints of restrictive
  “intellectual property” policies offers more opportunity for knowledge, R&D, the whole shebang (the nonrvial and
  “on the shoulders of giants” effects) — but he fails to explain why, given the choice, individuals are motivated
  to share their own information for free rather than licensing it for a fee. In other words, why be a Wikipedia
  when you can be an IMDb (which licenses out some of its information to industry through its IMDbPro service)?
  Benkler’s arguments explain why patents disincentivize individuals from investing time in discovering information,
  but he doesn’t explain why individuals have an active incentive to refrain from attempting to restrict use of the
  inforQmation they produce. Benkler does talk a lot of fluff about this issue at some point in the first chapter,
  making broad claims that people enjoy nonmarket production environments and feel more creatively free, but there’s
  really no hard evidence for this sort of attitude.

  2.
  ON ONLINE ADVERTISING
  I think Benkler is romanticizing the freedom of information on the Internet a lot, even as he claims he’s avoiding
  past romanticism, when he assumes that nonmarket production of information is completely distinct from market
  production. In fact, the growing trend is for nonmarket producers of information to remain financially
  sustainable by offering advertising alongside their information; examples include Google, which packages ads with
  its search results, and many blogs, which generate revenue by placing ads in the sidebar beside the main content.
  Benkler might see this as a great example of market production of information that doesn’t rely on copyrights or
  patents for generating revenue, but I see online advertising as a growing threat to the integrity of the
  information that’s being produced and disseminated digitally. Already, there have been murmurs about the impact
  of Google changing its search result rankings to accommodate corporate interests. The trust in nonmarket
  production of information can be seriously compromised in the future by online advertising. I’d really like to
  hear others’ thoughts on this during class.

  3.
  ON COMPARISON TO MASS MEDIA OUTLETS
  It’s true that the new paradigm for information sharing is a lot better than the old mass media paradigm, but this
  really give Benkler or anyone else a free pass when others point out issues with the ways things currently work on
  the Internet. There’s not much reasoning here to explicate. Suffice it to say that “At least it’s better than
  the old way!” should never qualify as a real response when discussing problems. Yes, it’s better than the old
  way, thank you for that; now let’s work on moving even further forward.

  4.
  ON THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
  All that talk about the autonomy of individuals and the reformation of liberal structures in the first chapter
  seriously concerns me. One of the big problems with classical liberalism is that it assumes all individuals can
  be assumed as abstract beings with the same abilities, rights, and privileges, when in fact people are different
  because of their gender, race, and economic background. When Benkler talks about individuals coming together to
  collaborate, improve knowledge, and generate democratic discourse, he ignores the fact that these individuals are
  mostly rich white males with technological access and proficiency. The projects created by these individuals,
  like Wikipedia, are biased accordingly. I’m hoping Benkler addresses this in much more detail elsewhere in the
  book, because right now he seems to simply ignore it altogether.

• 8    fwy08 // Oct 8, 2007 at 1:11 am

  this is a test

• 9    dulcinea // Oct 10, 2007 at 3:36 pm

  I’d like to focus on a couple of aspects of Chapters 1 and 2 in my comments:

  *** The Role of the State ***

  First, I think one of the most important questions that Dr. Benkler raises is: “Where in all this is the state?”

  Dr. Benkler proposes that he comes from an individualistic (not to be confused with libertarian) perspective. As he says, he is “concerned first and foremost with the claims of human beings as human beings, rather than with the requirements of democracy or the entitlements of citizenship.” I find this an extremely interesting perspective, as I agree with him that the state, corporation, and NGO in their present form will be undermined by technology. It is becoming clear to me as well that the current state of property law is based on a technological paradigm that no longer exists. I am eager to hear more about Benkler’s proposals to remedy this situation.

  I also applaud his statement that he “[treats] property and markets as just one domain of human action, with affordances and limitations.” I think it is time that economists throw out the old models and think critically about what the new models will consist of. I also agree with his statement that “the state in both the United States and Europe has played a role in supporting the market-based industrial incumbents of the twentieth-century information production system…Most state interventions have been in the form of either captured legislation catering to incumbents, or, at best, well-intentioned but wrongheaded efforts to optimize the institutional ecology for outdated modes of information and cultural production.” As a student in the Economics department here at Stanford, I can say with confidence that this has been my experience as well. I wish that the Economics Departments of Stanford would give credence to courses such as this one, that examine new and emerging economic frameworks.

  *** STS ***

  The next point that I would like to address is how neatly Benkler presents the main points of Science, Technology, and Society (not coincidentally, my other major). The central realization of science and technology studies is the recognition that science and technology affect society, and vice versa. In other words, science and technology are products of their social, cultural, and economic environment as well as creating it. In addition, technologies are not deterministic; the decisions of individuals in creating them are extremely important to the way they develop. As Benkler says, “Neither deterministic nor wholly malleable, technology sets some parameters of individual and social action.”

  His recognition of this fact makes his presentation of the technological marvels that are so commonplace to us more palatable. He realizes that these things are dependent on a ideological framework and that the next technological innovation can be prevented from coming into existence by a series of laws that disable the ability to (or remove the incentive for) creating new technology.

  *** Newspaper Revenue ***

  As a former bookstore owner, I’m very aware of print media economics. I know that time-sensitive print media don’t make money off of copyright; they make it off of advertising. (Although overseas rights, book rights, and other rights may muddy this picture.) It will be very interesting to see how micropayments and other interesting future revenue structures will adjust this.

  *** One Final Point ***

  Finally, I think that his characterization of Joe Einstein, Romantic Maximizers, Mickeys and others in his cast of characters is a bit too simplistic and not cogently presented. The rows in his chart should have a common level of abstraction and the columns the same. I would love to see (or create) a similar chart with consistent differentia.

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