It is idle to quote statistics on the current number of web sites around the planet; such figures are out of date before they are published, and are beyond the mind's ability to comprehend in a meaningful way. Suffice it to say that the number of sites is very large, and continues to grow.
Not surprisingly, the quality of sites varies greatly, as the ease of creating a home page, unconstrained by design rules, colour sensitivity, layout or accuracy of information ensures that those who wish to establish a presence on the web, will do so.
Nevertheless, entering some keywords into any one of the many available search engines will reveal with amazing rapidity that there is a great deal of "serious" information moving onto the web. While much of this information is newly arrived, coming from publishers, researchers, universities, government agencies, libraries and proprietary sources, it should be remembered that some of that information is not unknown in the digital format, having migrated to the web from ftp and gopher sites which have existed for some time. (The advantages of hypertext linkage in web documents, as well as the ability to display graphics, colour, sound, movement and three dimensional effects have caused a decline in the world gopher population similar to the effects of myxomatosis on Australia's rabbits in the 1950s.)
Universities and schools are coming to grips with the medium of the web and its potential in an uneven way, some have established large presences, while many have yet to find the Internet, this is not a criticism, but a statement of fact: most educators accept that even minor innovations can take more than a generation to be accepted, so it is not surprising that a change as revolutionary as the Internet itself will take time to be fully appreciated and its potential realised.
That caution and reluctance notwithstanding, the rapidity and enthusiasm with which educators world-wide have begun to use the web as a vehicle for course delivery for both external and full-time students suggests that we are on the edge of a major change to the way we think about teaching and learning. Stewart Adam [MML1](1), in a paper presented at Ausweb '95, listed at least eight Australian universities which were already delivering award course material using the web. This number has increased in the intervening twelve months.
Similarly, in the United States, the 1995 Campus Computing Survey reports that: " ... the use of the World Wide Web is growing rapidly on college campuses. More than half (55.2 percent) of the institutions participating in the 1995 survey report a WWW home page; still more campuses (25.8 percent) plan to raise an institutional flag in cyberspace during the current academic year. Research universities and other institutions with a well-developed technology infrastructure are most likely to have home pages on the WWW."
Innovative use of the web has not been confined to delivery of actual course materials; at the time of writing, a number of Australian universities are engaging in trials involving the use of the web and Netscape to provide access to library closed reserve materials. Students either on-campus or at a distance will be able to call up the special readings for their particular course, download them, and if required, print them out. If these trials are successful, and certainly the technology is available and capable, then long waiting times, queues, and frustration caused by documents missing from the reserve room will be things of the past.
University administration has not been slow to make use of the web; university home pages now deliver course information, policy documents, enrolment details and other esoterica in a quickly accessible form, and universities with an eye to attracting overseas fee-paying students are attempting to make their home pages comprehensive, eye-catching and informative.
That the web as a source of information for all ages is coming into its own is beyond doubt. In a recent post to an email discussion group, a university professor in the United States reports setting a class assignment involving Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. At least a quarter of the class presented full colour facsimiles of the original hand-written document, downloaded from a web site unknown to the teacher, as part of their presentations. (It is interesting to note in this context that the students concerned were ESL students who were obviously not disadvantaged by inexperience in English when conducting their searches on the web.)
Universities are not the only educational institutions making use of the web. A perusal of the daily "Net-Happenings" list from Gleason Sackman at the University of North Dakota reveals primary schools, kindergartens, colleges and school districts coming on-line at a rapid rate. In addition, pages are being mounted by church groups, hobby groups, vast numbers of individuals with special interest information, and commercial sites of all kinds, offering an increasing array of services, in fields as diverse as publishing and law enforcement. And this is to say nothing of the valuable work done by community and free nets, and self-help groups, which are springing up everywhere, providing citizens with the opportunity to interact with their fellow-beings across the world.
It is not possible in a paper of this kind to even begin to hint at the extent and range of resources available now on the web, from museums of antique vacuum cleaners, the treasures of the Vatican, and postmodernist dictionaries to thirteenth-century manuscripts, on-line degree courses, mail order music stores and government legislation, but one may begin to get a glimmering of what the future could be like, bandwidth permitting, as the web continues to proliferate:
Enlightened governments strive to provide universal cheap Internet access to their populations, the exchange of information across the planet increases, boundaries of time, distance and politics become of much less consequence. It is not unusual for people to be living in Capetown and taking degrees from Moscow; collaborative research projects in science and the arts involving widespread contributors produce astounding results in a short time; international understanding grows apace as world-wide interest groups correspond; medical information exchanges mean that giant strides are made in the conquest of disease, and it becomes increasingly difficult for extremist propaganda to be effective, as people share experiences and aspirations across the globe. The nature of the web and the net itself promotes literacy; boundaries of ignorance are pushed back.
Fanciful? Perhaps. Nevertheless, it is a situation to aspire to.
Unfortunately, the possibilities of this rosy picture begin to recede, as governments in many countries, in response to various lobby groups and interests, attempt to regulate the use and accessibility of the web through increased censorship and changes to the copyright regime, with little or no understanding of the "mechanics" of the system.
Some time ago, the United States Supreme Court handed down a judgement in an indecency action known as FCC v. Pacifica. This was a suit involving a radio program about indecency which used a number of "indecent" words. The court decided that these words were indecent, and this decision now constitutionally defines indecent in this context. It would, then, be reasonable to assume that the transmission of this court decision would be permissible, because one would need to know just what was thought by the court to be indecent, and therefore be able to avoid transgression. Not so. The Court's decision, and now the Communications Decency Act, have resulted in a Monty-Pythonesque situation where transmission of the court document - a paper free of copyright and in the public domain - is illegal because it contains examples of indecent words. Such a transmission could attract a fine of $2500, and/or a 2 year jail term. So, "We won't tell you what the naughty words are, but if you use them, we'll punish you!"
The full text [HREF2] of the Supreme Court decision is available on the web at http://www.eff.org/pub/Legal/Cases/FCC_v_Pacifica/fcc_v_pacifica.decision and an ftp version [HREF3] is also available.
Nor is the Communications Decency Act limited to outlawing the use of a few words which are to be heard in any primary school playground. The wording of the act would make it illegal to run web sites, discussion lists or newsgroups on such topics as breast cancer, AIDS, homosexuality, and depictions of the human body, to name but a few, if these are accessible by minors. The Act does not specify what form the protection for minors might take, and so offers no help to webmasters or bulletin board operators, or for that matter, university administrations, as to what might be deemed reasonable and sufficient safeguards.
The Communications Decency Act also makes service providers, as well as individuals, liable for any indecent material which passes through their systems. Now, anyone with even a modicum of understanding of how traffic moves around the net, - how it is moved in packets, how it can be encoded, how it moves by different routes, - and with some rudimentary knowledge of the sheer speed and volume of traffic, - will have some comprehension of the impossibility of monitoring traffic to avoid liability. It would appear that the legislators do not have this understanding.
In addition to the dangers of prosecution for not monitoring transmissions, there already exists a court decision in the United States which supports the idea that if a service provider monitors traffic through their site even by sampling, then they have a responsibility and a liability forall traffic which passes through the site. They are deemed to be publishers. Although this particular decision related to a defamation case, there is every reason to believe that the precedent would be applied in other instances involving regulation and control of traffic.
It can be seen, then, from these few examples, that being a service provider in the United States, whether that service is AOL, or a Sports Club Home Page, is not at the moment something one undertakes with any degree of insouciance; indeed it is feared that, if the present legislation remains in place, many service providers within the US will decide that the difficulty of maintaining a service without fear of prosecution is too great, and opt out of the business. And so part of our bright vision of the future begins to disappear. I am already observing caution being exercised on various discussion lists as to choice of words and expressions - people are beginning to look over their shoulders.
In Germany, in response to concerns expressed by the Public Prosecutor's Office, access for subscribers to a number of sex-related newsgroups via AOL was disabled recently.
The government of Singapore, anxious to preserve its "squeaky-clean" image, has announced controls on the type of information that may be accessed by its citizens using the internet, again, mostly banning sex-related material.
A Swedish government committee has prepared a proposal for a Swedish law to control the Internet, partially corresponding to the U.S. Communications Decency Act.
Unipalm Pipex, the U.K. Internet access provider associated with UUNet in the U.S., will provide a means for British companies to block staff access to electronic pornography.
China, concerned over the access its citizens might have to outside opinion, has imposed very strict controls on internet access.
Controls are being applied in other countries; in Australia there were, at last count, three separate enquiries into the regulation of online content, being run concurrently, and even more draconian measures are being applied in some African countries.
While the above may present a dimming of the bright colours of our web pages, there is worse to come. As Howard P. Knopf (2) writes in Canada's Globe and Mail,
"In fact, censorship is not by any standard the greatest Threat to the Net. Judicial censorship and the censorship of public opprobrium will always be with us. Neither can be neatly prescribed, proscribed, or circumscribed by legislation. Neither can be effectively enforced. Tastes and time evolve. Oscar Wilde was once a criminal. Now he is coffee table fare. It would be a waste of scarce political capital in the pursuit of an unjust cause to fight to the end for the right of paedophiles and other criminally inclined miscreants to enjoy unrestricted freedom of speech, whether in libraries, schools or on the Net.
Rather, it is overly zealous intellectual property legislation and litigation that have the potential to inhibit, if not completely stop, the development of the information highway as the road ahead toward freer speech and greater enquiry..."
Because there is a great deal of misunderstanding about copyright, it is useful to examine the nature and reasons for its existence; as Jamie Wodetzki(3), in "A Stronger Copyright - Death of the Public Domain?" says:
"Although we are often told that an author's work is his or her property, such pronouncements have the potential to be quite misleading. It would be ridiculous for example, for me to claim this article as my property, and to accuse you, the reader, of trespass. You are no more trespassing on my intellectual property by reading this article than I would be trespassing on somebody's real property by gazing across their land. The 'property' label is an ambiguous one, particularly when used in connection with something intangible like copyright."
The rights an author has under copyright law are quite limited. He or she may copy the work, perform it in public, broadcast it, and publish it; however, there are other rights which are not held by the author, and copyright law is about preserving a balance between the author's rights and the rights of others to access the work.
The rights not vested in the author include the right to borrow and read the work, and, under certain circumstances, to make a "fair dealing" with that work; that is, to make a copy or copies of part or all of the work for certain specified purposes. These purposes include, in the Australian jurisdiction; research and study, criticism or review, court proceedings, news reporting, and the giving of legal advice. (It is worth noting here that the United States law includes the words "such as" before describing these acts, thus making the American law somewhat more liberal in the fair dealing or fair use area.) The doctrine of fair dealing then, is designed for the encouragement of learning as well as advancing the public interest, stated rather more poetically by the United States Constitution "....for the advancement of Science and the Useful Arts..."; thus the fair dealing doctrine is designed to, at least in part, ensure the free and fair flow of information.
The fair dealing doctrine was, of course, written and devised in a world of printing presses and paper, and continued latterly in the world of photocopiers. The paper paradigm is now beginning to break, and, as we start to deal with electrons rather than atoms in our information industries, the viability of the doctrines which worked for print and paper is being questioned. Not, I hasten to add, by information users, but certainly by providers and regulators.
The activities and determinations of the Information Infrastructure Task Force, lobbied heavily by publishing interests, in the United States are typical of the various legislative attempts around the world to control and profit from the flow of information; they pose serious consequences for all users of the web if they are translated into legislation.
The Digital Future Coalition, in an email message posted to copyright interest groups has expressed some of its concerns as follows:
"Concerns over the approach taken by the IITF have prompted 28 organizations from the library and academic communities to coalesce forming the Digital Future Coalition. DFC is alarmed over the basic premise used in the White Paper and reflected in the bills of equating intellectual property issues to those of a child's understanding of property - the sharing of a toy decreases enjoyment not enhances its value. It sees the challenge of digital format as threatening and something to be overcome rather than as potential for the greater good. Copyrighted works are seen as requiring virtual containers protected through fees and PIN numbers. In fact, the repercussions of the White Paper would make digital information less accessible than hardcopy."
Likely effects of the White Paper passing into legislation, as seen by the DFC, include changes to the "right of first sale" doctrine, which currently gives the first owner (i.e. the first purchaser) the right to pass the information along to another, and changes to the "fair use" doctrine, which currently allows, in the United States, the public browsing of documents, the making of personal copies, and transitory copies. The proposed changes are seen by the DFC as undermining the premise on which libraries operate. Even the simple act of browsing could become illegal.
The current wording of the NII report - which has been accepted by both houses, is supported by business and at the time of writing is at the marking up stage in its passage through to becoming law - also raises serious concerns as to the liability of libraries and educational institutions for copyright infringements by users of their computer networks. The wording makes it unlawful to browse through online digital libraries, either Internet or local. The Telecom Report, March 1996, an electronic digest devoted to communications issues, suggests that the wording could be interpreted so as to criminalise browsing. Moreover, the clauses dealing with the illegality of constructing or importing devices designed to circumvent copyright protection, it has been suggested, could make photocopiers illegal.
More information on this issue can be found at The Digital Future Coalition's Web Site[HREF4] and The USACM Site. [HREF5]
The Chronicle of Higher Education, on 3 May 96 reports that in the US State of Georgia, lack of understanding of the nature of the World Wide Web and its operation has resulted in the following:
"Legislation recently signed into law by Georgia Governor Zell Miller is aimed at preventing fraud in cyberspace, but critics say it could force developers of World Wide Web pages to remove links to other pages. The law makes it a crime to "falsely identify" oneself on the Net, or to direct people to someone else's computer without the other person's explicit permission. "The law is written so poorly, and it criminalizes things that are a very basic way of operating on the Internet, that we're not sure how it would be enforced," says the legal counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation." (Chronicle of Higher Education 3 May 96 A29)
This kind of restrictive activity is neither confined to the United States, nor exclusively to government. In Canada, The Canadian Government's Information Highway Advisory Council (IHAC) proposes that copyright laws may need to be strengthened to prevent unauthorized "browsing" on the information highway; while a private organisation in the United States, the Church of Scientology, has already used copyright litigation to attempt to suppress free and critical discussion of the writings of L.Ron Hubbard. Details of this action can be found at The Church of Scientology vs The Net [HREF 6]
As Cochrane and Lean (4)said: "For years, copyright has been to a great majority of the population a non-issue. For years, intellectual property issues have seemed unnecessarily complex and difficult. For years, many with responsible administrative positions in industry, commerce, education and cultural institutions, have preferred to leave the detail of copyright enforcement and compliance to those who have rare and peculiar propensities for minute detail and administrivia." But, to quote John Perry Barlow(5):
"The increasing difficulty [in the electronic future] ... of enforcing existing copyright and patent laws is already placing in peril the ultimate source of intellectual property, the free exchange of ideas. That is, when the primary articles of commerce in a society look so much like speech as to be indistinguishable from it, and when the traditional methods of protecting their ownership have become ineffectual, attempting to fix the problem with broader and more vigorous legislation will inevitably threaten freedom of speech."
Barlow's words, written in 1993, have the ring of prophecy. Already we have seen the "Exxon Amendment" introduced and challenged in the United States on constitutional grounds. We have seen the tabling (and presumed adoption) of the NII Task Force report, advocating stronger copyright measures, with similar sentiments echoed by Canada, stern copyright measures proposed by the European Community, and calls to the Australian Copyright Law Review Committee for the repeal or abolition of the fair dealing sections of the Act. In addition, proposals for the extension of the terms of copyright protection from the current and general 50 years to 70 years and more, based on very specious grounds, are gaining currency. The European Community has already moved to increase their term of protection, and the United States is also moving on the issue. This means that the possibility of a work coming into the public domain and being used by others to build on recedes yet again.
Yet another area of copyright restriction is in the protection of computer software itself. The following case, as described in Investor's Business Daily, is further evidence of how the decision of a court in a copyright matter might have more far-reaching consequences than originally anticipated:
COURT UPHOLDS SOFTWARE COPYRIGHT PROTECTION The Supreme Court yesterday upheld a lower-court ruling that said the act of making a temporary electronic working copy of a software program, which happens automatically when a software program is accessed on a computer, can violate the software company's copyright -- especially if the person using the computer is someone other than its owner. The original case arose when Triad Systems Corp., which sells customized computer systems to auto parts stores, had sued Southeastern Express Co., an independent computer repair firm, for violating the copyright on its diagnostic software. Triad maintained that while the diagnostic software was included in the systems it sold, it was intended to be used only by either the owner of the computer or Triad. Critics say the ruling potentially turns every person who uses someone else's computer into a criminal. (Investor's Business Daily 27 Feb 96 A11)
The European Union has recently drafted a document called the Database Directive. The Directive's sui generis right will give 15 years of protection to uncopyrightable compilations of uncopyrightable elements. The protection will be extended every time major additions or enhancements are added to the database. The same practice is almost certain to be adopted by other countries to protect their own databases from extraction by European Union competitors.
Fair Dealing, or fair use provisions, which have worked successfully for some 250 years for the benefit of students and researchers, for the free flow of information, and for the advancement of learning, are under the most serious attack in the history of their existence. What this means to citizens of the web, where fair dealing and the free exchange of ideas and information is the norm, is awful to contemplate. Our screens grow dimmer.
Who will scrutinize such information? How secure will it be? Might the copyright owners who legitimately use this information for assessing and collecting royalties be persuaded to pass it on? Will it be safe from hackers? Might such information be subpoenaed? Senator Joseph McCarthy tried in the 1950s to persuade libraries in the United States to divulge the reading habits of their clients, but was defeated on constitutional grounds. What, however, might happen in today's world of electronic information? Might the information be accessed 'before the fact'?
And what of cost under new copyright regimes? Negotiations in Australia, at the time of writing, between libraries and copyright owners' representatives on the establishment of public access electronic databases are having considerable difficulty with costing and remuneration, with copyright owners on the one hand seeing an exciting new source of revenue, and libraries, looking forward to supplying new services for their clients, on the other hand wondering why material in electronic form should be paid for, when those same clients can get hard copy at no cost under the fair dealing provisions of the copyright law. Will the increased costs raised by copyright collection agencies further widen the gulf between the information rich and poor?
Some of those attacks will be defeated by the trans-jurisdictional nature of the net itself, which recognises boundaries of neither state nor nation. Some of the attacks will have to be fought; eg. legislation for change in copyright law may well be needed, if only to address such anomalies as RAM storage and screen display; but while there is a need for change, there is also a need for continuity. Copyright must continue to serve the promotion of creativity in the fields of science and the arts, while not denying society reasonable access to the results of that creativity. Such changes must continue to protect the rights of the creators, without creating unreasonable obstacles to public use of the works protected.
One of the problems common to web developers and users is that research and development is time-consuming. Our focus tends to be within the area of our research, and often we are unaware of developments which will impinge on what we are doing. Unfortunately, to choose to ignore the changes going on around us is a luxury we can no longer afford. Remaining aloof and uninvolved in moves for change of laws and regulation of content, not exercising a voice on such matters, and leaving the discussion and organisation of comment to others is dangerous. Too often, public opinion, and therefore legislative opinion, is swayed by media stories that are uninformed and sensational, while the voices of experience and rationality remain silent.
Governments call for submissions on issues. They need advice. Contribute your knowledge and experience. Point out the anomalies that may be caused by a particular legislative move - it's quite likely a point that hasn't been considered.
Electronic discussion lists on issues such as privacy, copyright, freedom of speech and communications regulation are out there in abundance. Subscribe. Be informed.
Make contact with the media on issues where you can provide an expert opinion. Most media organisations can be contacted by email, many are now offering web pages.
In closing, I commend to you John Perry Barlow's One Man's Declaration on the Independence of Cyberspace [HREF7] , at the Electronic Frontier Foundation's web site, where there are other interesting Barlow pieces as well. This is not a document which should be embraced uncritically, but certainly provides food for thought.
2. Knopf, Howard P. (1996)Copyright Zealots are the Real Threat to the Net Globe and Mail, Friday, January 5, 1996 Canada.
3. Wodetzki, J. (1996) A Stronger Copyright - Death of the Public Domain? National Library of Australia News, March 1996 Canberra.
4. Cochrane, T. and Lean, M. (1995) Copyright, Libraries and the Electronic Future. Australian Library Review, November 1995 Wagga Wagga, NSW
5. John Perry Barlow (1993) "Selling Wine Without Bottles - The Economy of the Mind on the Global Net". Wired, San Francisco 1993
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