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From: revpk@cellar.UUCP (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: he Difference between Electronic and Print Media
Message-ID: <3Xke41w164w@cellar.UUCP>
Date: 12 Jun 91 00:38:01 GMT
Sender: bbs@cellar.UUCP (The Cellar BBS)
Organization: The Cellar BBS and public access system
Lines: 64


      .. for all intents ans purposes, rests in its accessibility.

        Publishing a newspaper of some sort-- which is clearly protected by 
the First Amendment-- is something that was more or less accessible to small 
groups and political organizations. Similarly, by publishing a newspaper, one 
might be in competition with other papers for an audience, but there was no 
real, tangible limit to the number of newspapers that a society could 
provide.
        Radio and television, when they originally became a public influence, 
were not as accessible to the layman as they were to the wealthy and 
powerful. The potential for only one powerful sector of the public 
controlling public discourse is one argument for the regulation of the mass 
media (as far as provisions for equal time-- justy the opposite of 
censorship, which I abhor). Also, as originally designed, the transmission 
bandwiths were limited in the number of channels that an area could carry.
        However, our contemporary digital communications ahve effectively 
wiped away ANY of these limitations. Creation and trasmission of one's own 
signals-- publishing one's own newspaper, for example, is not only open to 
those with a decent printer and word processor, but it can be disseminated 
electronically with far greater ease. And given the advent of digital coding 
of television signals, it's conceivable that nearly everyone could have, 
without limiting anyone else, their own television channel to broadcast on.
        Combine this with the nearly infinite capacity for encoding nearly 
any form of data digitally, and nearly all of the previous definitions of 
'the press' and 'communications' are rendered more or less obsolete. (For 
example, it's conceivable that the code for a word processing program for one 
computer could also be a digital rendering of a nude shot. Voice recordings, 
with efective enough software, could be interpreted both as 'raw sound' and a 
text file.

        It should also be mentioned that information and its manipulation has 
become even more married to mathematics, which can't really be copyrighted. 
Can someone claim a 'patent' on an algorithm? Mathematics isn't an arbitrary 
creation of the mathematician-- mathematics is the discovery of principles 
external to the mathematician. One doesn't create an algorithm-- one 
discovers it. (Try copyrighting the algorithm for a bubble sort, for 
example.)

        So, where does all of this pseudo-New Agey stuff leave us? It lease 
me with the recognition that any kind of generalized limitation on electronic 
communications is going to be a Bad Thing. (I don't mean this to be a defense 
of cracking systems-- frankly, I'd like to keep kids out of my hospital's 
records) Any rule that's established to 'protect' someone, in this context, 
can not only be easily evaded-- information being as malleable as it is-- but 
it can also be used to cut down on the freedoms of others.

        However, as a tactic to follow, I'd urge all of us computer 
enthusiasts-- those of us who realize just how our lives could be changing 
with the freedom the computer gives us-- to stress that there is _no 
difference_ between print and electronic media. If anyone questions this, ask 
them how they'd feel if the typesetting data for tomorrow's New York Times 
was confiscated, should a legal distinction between electronic and print 
media ever be set.


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Brian Siano, aka      [ "Mr. A. Hitler, the old Nazi thing, says      
                      [ Mickey's silly. Imagine that! Well, Mickey is 
Rev. Philosopher-King [ going to save Mr. A. Hitler from drowning or  
                      [ something some day. Just wait and see if he   
 revpk@cellar.UUCP    [ doesn't. Then won't Mr. A. Hitler be ashamed!"
                      [ -- Walt Disney, 1933.                         
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