Doc Searls mentioned a great essay by John Perry Barlow (from March 1995), called Death From Above. I hadn't seen this before. It is basically about people trying to keep one-way information channels on the Internet dominant over two-way channels, e.g., my ADSL upload speed is slower than my download speed, so it is easier for me to watch news video from CNN than to broadcast my own news videos.

After reading this, I remembered that, a few years ago, I had read an essay by Barlow that really affected my attitude towards digital rights management (DRM). Before I found it again, I found this library of Barlow's writings, which, oddly, doesn't list the essay I was looking for. But, I did track it down: The Economy of Ideas, which was published in Wired magazine in 1994. Read it (again)--I will.

Doc also mentioned David Weinberger's new article in Wired, Copy Protection Is a Crime . . . against humanity. Society is based on bending the rules. I love the line: "In fact, leeway is the default and rules are the exception." I think that is another great example of the "loosely joined" that David has so well written about (especially in his book, Small Pieces Loosely Joined).

These are good reads. Also, if you are interested in these issues about DRM, check out AKMA'a David W on DRM and more comments from David (start there, and click through to subsequent entries where he keeps saying important stuff about this).

I have an idea for how the iCite net can be used as a network of digital rights expression (DRE) and DRM. But, it is neither about any kind of locked software stuff nor any kind of corporate rights police stuff. It is more like: "here is a way to register your music files with their publishers, and potentially enter into an agreement about how much to pay for their uses." In other words, iCites have nothing to do with preventing someone from violating such agreements--it just might be a good way to conveniently and happily make and abide by such agreements.

I think most of the DRM stuff being proposed by the big industries (RIAA and MPAA, etc.) really should be called Digital Rights Enforcement. It is pretty militaristic--"enforcement", as in law enforcement, even seems a bit weak of a word. Maybe it should be called Digital Rights Enslavement.

Before I give an example of iCite DRExpression (not DREnslavement!) and DRM, I need to give an example of identity iCites--so that is next to do.

FYI, I am figuring out how and where to put things on the icite.net site besides this blog, and am building more pages out. So, some of my entries soon will start including links to things elsewhere on the site, rather than cramming everything into the blog posts.