WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.791 [I'm using this English GB track to script audio descriptions - CA] [Innovation & its Enemies] 00:00:02.791 --> 00:00:04.580 [<1>] 00:00:04.580 --> 00:00:05.092 So, I apologize that I am going to introduce these 00:00:05.092 --> 00:00:07.054 ideas so early in the morning, 00:00:07.054 --> 00:00:09.049 after such a late night last night. 00:00:09.049 --> 00:00:13.677 But I'll like you to think of an alcoholic. 00:00:13.743 --> 00:00:14.381 [photo of drunk sleeping on the earth] 00:00:14.673 --> 00:00:15.173 And I don't mean the kind of drop-dead 00:00:15.173 --> 00:00:16.083 drunken alcoholic, 00:00:16.160 --> 00:00:16.864 [picture of AA meeting] 00:00:16.972 --> 00:00:20.092 or somebody who is even recovering from AA. 00:00:20.092 --> 00:00:21.035 [Bottles: vodka and other spirits] 00:00:21.035 --> 00:00:23.024 I am thinking just of the regular alcoholic 00:00:23.024 --> 00:00:30.078 who works hard to control the addiction he has. 00:00:30.078 --> 00:00:32.071 But this particular alcoholic, I want you to 00:00:32.071 --> 00:00:36.010 imagine that, in addition to the addiction to alcohol, 00:00:36.010 --> 00:00:39.054 he has a second addiction as well. 00:00:39.068 --> 00:00:43.063 Not the debilitating addiction that keeps him 00:00:43.063 --> 00:00:44.046 down all day. 00:00:44.046 --> 00:00:46.041 And not a recovered drug addict. 00:00:46.041 --> 00:00:48.008 But an addiction nonetheless 00:00:48.008 --> 00:00:51.027 that continues to pull him in another way, 00:00:51.027 --> 00:00:52.089 away from what he wants to do. 00:00:52.089 --> 00:00:59.009 A person with two addictions, pulling different ways, 00:00:59.009 --> 00:01:01.097 making him vulnerable, making him dangerous, 00:01:01.097 --> 00:01:04.082 as he is susceptible to the temptations of each. 00:01:04.082 --> 00:01:09.047 And the trick for this soul is to control 00:01:09.047 --> 00:01:14.053 and to regulate these addictions, to keep them under control. 00:01:14.053 --> 00:01:17.002 Now I give you this picture because 00:01:17.002 --> 00:01:23.096 I think it is a good picture of modern democratic government. 00:01:23.096 --> 00:01:26.000 Modern democratic government too, is pulled 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:28.012 by these two separate kinds of addictions. 00:01:28.012 --> 00:01:31.025 Constantly pulled by craziness. 00:01:31.025 --> 00:01:35.073 Craziness to one side for the people, or at least wrongly, 00:01:35.073 --> 00:01:37.084 as the people push the government to do what 00:01:37.084 --> 00:01:40.035 is not in the public interest. 00:01:40.035 --> 00:01:41.077 Think of Peronism, 00:01:41.077 --> 00:01:44.095 or the kind of populism that drove the 00:01:44.095 --> 00:01:49.029 banking and housing bubble in the United States. 00:01:49.029 --> 00:01:52.038 Or in the other hand, an addiction to special interests, 00:01:52.038 --> 00:01:56.091 let's call them "incumbents", constantly tempting the government 00:01:56.091 --> 00:01:59.030 to do something crazy for public policy 00:01:59.030 --> 00:02:01.030 in the name of benefiting the incumbents. 00:02:01.030 --> 00:02:04.018 And here, in the United States at least, you can think about 00:02:04.018 --> 00:02:08.082 just about every major policy issue where this addiction 00:02:08.082 --> 00:02:10.057 has had its role. 00:02:10.057 --> 00:02:12.084 Each of these pulling constantly, 00:02:12.084 --> 00:02:17.094 constantly tempting, always the government is vulnerable. 00:02:17.094 --> 00:02:22.026 Always, as libertarians insist, it is dangerous 00:02:22.026 --> 00:02:25.028 because it can always be exploited 00:02:25.028 --> 00:02:30.037 by one of these two sources at least, 00:02:30.037 --> 00:02:35.013 the temptations of the incumbents. 00:02:35.013 --> 00:02:39.091 OK now, the Internet is a platform, 00:02:39.091 --> 00:02:41.051 it is an architecture, 00:02:41.051 --> 00:02:46.002 it is an architecture with consequences. 00:02:46.002 --> 00:02:48.062 It is an architecture that enables innovation, 00:02:48.062 --> 00:02:52.052 or at least enables a certain kind of innovation. 00:02:52.052 --> 00:02:56.044 Think of the history of innovation in the Internet. 00:02:56.044 --> 00:03:02.035 Netscape, started by a drop-out from undergraduate university. 00:03:02.043 --> 00:03:04.043 Hotmail, started by an Indian immigrant, sold to 00:03:04.043 --> 00:03:07.003 Microsoft for 400 million dollars. 00:03:07.003 --> 00:03:11.081 ICQ, started by an Israeli kid and then his father, who was here, 00:03:11.081 --> 00:03:14.021 selling it to AOL for 400 million dollars. 00:03:14.021 --> 00:03:17.018 Google, started by two Stanford dropouts. 00:03:17.018 --> 00:03:21.001 Napster, started by a dropout and someone who 00:03:21.001 --> 00:03:22.096 hadn't yet been able to be a dropout, 00:03:22.096 --> 00:03:24.091 sitting on this panel, here, today. 00:03:24.091 --> 00:03:28.002 Youtube, started by two Stanford students. 00:03:28.002 --> 00:03:35.099 Kazaa and Skype, started by kids from Denmark and Sweden. 00:03:35.099 --> 00:03:38.056 And then, of course, Facebook, and Twitter, started by kids. 00:03:38.056 --> 00:03:42.002 What unites all of these innovations? 00:03:42.002 --> 00:03:48.043 They were all done by kids, dropouts, and non-americans. 00:03:48.043 --> 00:03:50.038 Outsiders. 00:03:50.038 --> 00:03:54.075 Because this is what that architecture invited. 00:03:54.075 --> 00:03:58.070 It invited outsider innovation. 00:03:58.070 --> 00:04:05.059 Now, outsider innovation threatens the "incumbents". 00:04:05.059 --> 00:04:08.012 Skype threatens telephone companies. 00:04:08.012 --> 00:04:11.005 Youtube threatens television companies. 00:04:11.005 --> 00:04:13.042 Netflix threatens cable companies. 00:04:13.042 --> 00:04:16.074 Twitter threatens sanity - 00:04:16.074 --> 00:04:18.087 not that sanity was ever an incumbent. 00:04:18.087 --> 00:04:25.000 But then the threatened respond to this threat. 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:30.058 By turning to the addict, modern democratic government, 00:04:30.058 --> 00:04:34.071 and using drug of choice (which in the United States at least 00:04:34.071 --> 00:04:37.089 is an endless amount of campaign cash), 00:04:37.089 --> 00:04:42.056 using that drug to secure the protection 00:04:42.056 --> 00:04:50.011 against these threats that the incumbent faces. 00:04:50.011 --> 00:04:54.045 Now this was the point that I think president Sarkozy missed yesterday, 00:04:54.045 --> 00:04:57.074 and the question that Jeff Jarvis raised when he suggested 00:04:57.074 --> 00:05:00.018 that the principle that should be carried to the G8 00:05:00.018 --> 00:05:03.085 is that the government "do no harm". 00:05:03.085 --> 00:05:05.069 President Sarkozy said, no, but we have important 00:05:05.069 --> 00:05:08.084 policy issues to resolve. But here is the point. 00:05:08.084 --> 00:05:13.025 We get that there are "hard policy" issues here. 00:05:13.025 --> 00:05:17.039 From copyright, to privacy to security to the problem of monopoly. We get it. 00:05:17.039 --> 00:05:22.050 The point is, is we don't trust the answers the 00:05:22.050 --> 00:05:24.036 government gives. 00:05:24.036 --> 00:05:27.056 And for good reasons we don't trust these answers, 00:05:27.056 --> 00:05:31.041 because on issue after issue, the answer that 00:05:31.041 --> 00:05:35.078 modern democratic government has given here, 00:05:35.078 --> 00:05:39.017 is an answer that happens to benefit 00:05:39.017 --> 00:05:41.024 the incumbents. 00:05:41.024 --> 00:05:45.053 And ignores an answer that might actually 00:05:45.053 --> 00:05:49.006 encourage more innovation. 00:05:49.006 --> 00:05:51.068 So think for example about the matter of copyright. 00:05:51.068 --> 00:05:55.024 Of course we need a system of copyright 00:05:55.024 --> 00:05:58.065 that guarantees that creators get compensated 00:05:58.065 --> 00:06:01.041 and secures their independence to create. 00:06:01.041 --> 00:06:05.038 No one serious denies that we have to have 00:06:05.038 --> 00:06:08.015 that system of protection. 00:06:08.015 --> 00:06:12.063 The question is not whether copyright should be protected. 00:06:12.063 --> 00:06:16.027 The question is how to protect copyright 00:06:16.027 --> 00:06:17.055 in a digital era. 00:06:17.055 --> 00:06:19.086 Whether the architecture of copyright, 00:06:19.090 --> 00:06:22.007 built for the XIX century, 00:06:22.018 --> 00:06:25.000 continues to make sense in the XXI. 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:30.056 And what is the architecture that would make sense in the XXI? 00:06:30.056 --> 00:06:36.062 Now, is this the question the government is asking? 00:06:36.062 --> 00:06:38.063 I think the answer to that is no. 00:06:38.063 --> 00:06:42.091 Instead, what the government is proposing, 00:06:42.091 --> 00:06:45.052 around the world, specially here, 00:06:45.061 --> 00:06:47.097 and I apologize to my colleagues from France, 00:06:47.097 --> 00:06:49.080 but this is a technical legal term. 00:06:49.080 --> 00:06:54.063 The proposal suggested here is a "brain-dead" 00:06:54.063 --> 00:07:00.099 3-strikes proposal that happens to benefit incumbents. 00:07:01.011 --> 00:07:05.051 Ignoring the potential of innovation that could come from 00:07:05.062 --> 00:07:07.099 a new architecture for securing copyright. 00:07:07.099 --> 00:07:11.042 And you don't have to take my view for this. 00:07:11.042 --> 00:07:14.051 The recent report from the conservative government in Britain, 00:07:14.051 --> 00:07:17.055 the Hargreaves report, says of copyright: 00:07:17.055 --> 00:07:20.020 "Could it be true that laws designed more than three centuries 00:07:20.020 --> 00:07:23.061 ago with the express purpose of creating economic 00:07:23.061 --> 00:07:25.019 incentives for innovation, 00:07:25.019 --> 00:07:27.086 by protecting creators' rights 00:07:27.086 --> 00:07:31.032 are today obstructing innovation and economic growth?" 00:07:31.032 --> 00:07:33.050 The short answer is: "yes". 00:07:33.050 --> 00:07:37.092 "In the case of copyright policy, there is no doubt 00:07:37.092 --> 00:07:40.026 that the persuasive powers of celebrities and 00:07:40.026 --> 00:07:42.019 important UK creative companies 00:07:42.019 --> 00:07:44.081 have distorted policy outcomes." 00:07:44.081 --> 00:07:48.037 And not just, I suggest, in the UK. 00:07:48.037 --> 00:07:50.080 Think about the question of broadband policy. 00:07:50.080 --> 00:07:53.047 Europe, has actually been quite successful, 00:07:53.047 --> 00:07:57.010 in pushing competition in broadband, 00:07:57.010 --> 00:07:59.088 and therefore pushing broadband growth. 00:07:59.088 --> 00:08:05.066 The US has been a dismal failure in this respect. 00:08:05.066 --> 00:08:09.045 As we watch the US going from number 1 in broadband penetration, 00:08:09.045 --> 00:08:12.017 now to, depending on the scale, 00:08:12.017 --> 00:08:15.049 number 18, 19, or 28. 00:08:15.049 --> 00:08:19.022 And that change is because of policies that 00:08:19.022 --> 00:08:21.094 effectively block competition 00:08:21.094 --> 00:08:25.040 for broadband providers. 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:28.056 Their answer, these broadband providers brought to 00:08:28.056 --> 00:08:30.083 our government, and got our government to impose 00:08:30.083 --> 00:08:36.006 actually benefited them and destroyed the incentives 00:08:36.006 --> 00:08:38.040 for them to compete in a way that would drive 00:08:38.040 --> 00:08:41.084 broadband penetration. 00:08:41.084 --> 00:08:44.002 I think in light of these examples, 00:08:44.002 --> 00:08:47.065 it is completely fair to be skeptical 00:08:47.069 --> 00:08:50.078 of the anwer modern democratic governments give. 00:08:50.091 --> 00:08:53.045 We should say to modern democratic government, 00:08:53.049 --> 00:08:59.088 you need to beware of incumbents bearing policy fixes. 00:08:59.088 --> 00:09:02.020 Because their job, the job of the incumbents, 00:09:02.020 --> 00:09:06.066 is not the same as your job, the job of the public policy maker. 00:09:06.066 --> 00:09:10.033 Their job is profit for them. 00:09:10.033 --> 00:09:12.026 Your job is the public good. 00:09:12.026 --> 00:09:15.065 And it is completely fair, for us to say, 00:09:15.065 --> 00:09:19.050 that until this addiction is solved, we should 00:09:19.050 --> 00:09:23.015 insist on minimalism in what government does. 00:09:23.015 --> 00:09:26.014 The kind of minimalism Jeff Jarvis spoke off when he 00:09:26.014 --> 00:09:28.054 spoke of "do no harm". 00:09:28.054 --> 00:09:32.025 An internet that embraces principles of open and free 00:09:32.025 --> 00:09:35.094 access, a neutral network to guarantee 00:09:35.094 --> 00:09:41.019 this open access, to protect the outsider. 00:09:41.019 --> 00:09:44.065 But here is the one think we know about this meeting, 00:09:44.065 --> 00:09:48.083 and its relationship to the future of the internet. 00:09:48.083 --> 00:09:50.092 The future of the internet is not Twitter, 00:09:50.092 --> 00:09:53.078 it is not Facebook, it is not Google, 00:09:53.078 --> 00:09:57.012 it is not even Rupert Murdoch. 00:09:57.012 --> 00:10:01.035 The future of the internet is not here. 00:10:01.035 --> 00:10:05.062 It wasn't invited, it does not even know how to be invited, 00:10:05.062 --> 00:10:09.063 because it doesn't yet focus on policies and fora like this. 00:10:09.063 --> 00:10:14.047 The least we can do is to preserve the architecture 00:10:14.047 --> 00:10:17.068 of this network that protects this future 00:10:17.079 --> 00:10:19.041 that is not here. 00:10:19.056 --> 00:10:21.099 Thank you very much.