Net Neutrality

As someone that aspires to be an entrepreneur, Net Neutrality is absolutely critical to my future. Without net neutrality it will become more and more difficult for small companies to grow and will become much easier for larger companies to leverage their size to bully out their competitors.

According to the FCC net neutrality says:  “A person engaged in the provision of broadband internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not impair or degrade lawful internet traffic on the basis of internet content, application, or service, or use of a non-harmful device, subject to reasonable network management.” This basically means that the companies are not allowed to throttle traffic to users and make companies pay for priority. However, as Netflix has argued, the order does not place the same restrictions on connection points which could lead to the throttling occurring there rather than at the end before the user.

The argument for net neutrality deals with cost and innovation. It is expensive to be an internet service provider and companies such as Netflix take a huge amount of the network up. The sunk cost of building the network could mean that it is hard to make money with broadband hogs like Netflix or Hulu about. The argument also deals with innovation. If the ISP’s do not have incentives to grow and build the network that come from the ability to throttle the network and use their power to have companies pay them for faster speed, there could be millions of jobs that are lost.

I firmly am on the side for net neutrality. While having the government regulate the ISP’s in this manner may mean the loss of millions of jobs and less innovation in the industry, I believe that net neutrality is critical to the growth of new companies and entrepreneurship. Without net neutrality it could become too expensive for startups to negotiate and pay the ISP’s to not bottleneck the network when accessing their sites and data.

I personally believe that access to the internet should be considered a basic legal right of all Americans. The internet is the library of the future and the amount of information and teaching it provides is extremely important. This coincides with my decision to support net neutrality and have no artificial bottlenecks be made in the system.

As I support net neutrality and believe that access to the internet should be a basic right, I think that the internet service providers should be treated like other utilities and monitored like a utility. There is already existing infrastructure in place that could be used as a backbone for this monitoring body. While this may have a small inverse impact on innovation, I believe that impact is a small price to pay in order to allow better access to the internet for all users.

Project #3: Security and Encryption

I think that encryption is not something that we should take for granted and is a fundamental right. I know that privacy is a major concern, but I believe that if the data is used properly and there area set of checks and balances to protect the people from abuse I don’t think that encryption needs to be needed at all.

Mostly my stances stems from the feeling that I have nothing to hide. If the government were to release my internet search history and everything I have done on the internet I wouldn’t be happy, but I really wouldn’t get in too much trouble, besides for maybe my parents getting mad at how many movies and TV shows I watch. I am no saint by any means, but I am not too worried about encryption and privacy. I can see how the lack of encryption is seen as a governmental invasion of our privacy, but as the world becomes more and more digital, operating in that world is a choice that you make.

Since I have nothing to hide, encryption is not a big deal to me. It does not affect how I view candidates and has no affect on how I vote. I know this is different then a lot of my peers, but it is just how I am.

I think in the end national security will win out over privacy. Already my generation is more and more comfortable sharing more and more information on the internet. I think this will continue to be true and eventually personal privacy will be a thing of the past. In some ways this extreme is kind of scary, but in others, I think it will help to make us safer. In an age of global terrorism, I think that national security will be picked over privacy, and as long as I am kept safe, I am pretty happy with that.

Copyright and Piracy

Copyright is a difficult topic in regards to computer science and piracy. Piracy is extremely prevalent especially among computer science majors and the more technologically adapt users of the internet. The DMCA has helped Hollywood and other media groups to protect their IP and has helped to grow the industry.

The DMCA protects copyrighted works from infringement and gives the aggrieved party a method to fight back if an area is infringed on. This can result in monetary fines, the works being taken offline, and many of legal possibilities. The DMCA also has the “safe harbor” section that has been critical to the growth of the internet. Section 512 states that companies like Youtube can not be held legally responsible for the content that is put on their website by third party users. This protects ISP’s and many other internet based companies from being sued into Oblivion by something an errant user does. Safe-harbor has been crucial to the growth and quick adoption of media and I believe is one of the best parts of the DMCA.

Copyright and its relation to piracy is actually a more complex issue than I had first thought. I had no idea that the DMCA protected companies with the safe-harbor act. Also just the ethics behind piracy are complicated and challenging to decide on what is right. I think in most cases it is wrong to pirate media from the internet and share it with others. I do believe that if the users already own the media and they are not being allowed to access it in a certain way and want to show it to their friends they should be allowed to. However, this is a really challenging issue.

I have used pirated movies and media. I always justify it by saying that I am in college and do not have the money for this media and they are making tons of money anyways. However this is a pretty weak argument. While these things are true, it is no reason to steal content from others. I should not do it, but I do anyways. It is something that is tough to stop once you know how easy it is to do.

I think one of the biggest reasons people use and steal copyrighted material is the ease of access. With all the illegal sites for streaming and stealing the material, it is often easier for me to get the material illegally than it is to procure it by legal means. I think that if material is easier to access and cheaper, it will be less stolen through illegal sites.

I think stealing copyrighted work is a problem, but not a major one. In order for the work to be stolen it usually has to be big enough to be at least slightly popular and likely is making the producer at least some money. I think this is a problem that will never be completely solved but with better access to content and more work on protecting content we can see the problem at least diminish in scale.

Patents and Trolls

A patent is a piece of intellectual property that protects an inventor and allows him or her special privileges with that invention. The definition of patents has changed as time goes on and with the advent of the computer. At this point code is not considered patentable because a patent has to deal with a unique process or invention. Code can be protected as a trade secret or possibly copyrighted.

A patent lasts 20 years and helps to protect the inventor. It is a moral protection in that it is an attempt to make sure that the inventor can make money off their work and can’t have it stolen from them. Patents also has economic reasons for existence. If the inventor gets financial benefits from their new ideas they are more likely to keep trying to invent and push technology forward.

I think that patents should be granted but they need to be changed. Currently the patents last too long and don’t actually protect small companies from larger companies stealing their ideas. It is too easy for a large company to just use their larger law team to make it impossible for a small company to fight to protect their patents. Patents should be easier to protect and not cost millions of dollars in lawyers to do so. Currently the big players in tech will regularly sue each other for immense amounts of money. This has no impact on their profitability and instead just shows any emerging company that they will have to compete with massive companies and fight them for legal patents.

One of the only ways to protect a patent and sue a larger company that is infringing on the patent is to use a patent troll. The companies that specialize in patent trolls will take the case and get partial ownership of the IP with the stipulation that they will pay the company that hired them if they win money in the lawsuit. I think this whole part of the system is wrong. The patent trolls halt innovation and are a detriment to people that are trying to invent new methods and products. However, I still think that patents should be given out and protected. If the patents are easier to protect a smaller company does not have to worry as much about a larger giant stealing the IP and when sued for the infringement just lawyering up with expensive attorneys that makes the smaller company unable to ever win the suit. By making patents easier to protect we can protect the little guy and increase innovation.

The other thing that I would want to change with patents is how long they last. I think patents should last a specific length of time based on the industry. For rocket science and long lifecycle industries I am ok with a patent lasting 20 years as it does now. However for a quicker product lifecycle industry I think that patents should be much shorter. When new phones with new features are coming out almost every month, it doesn’t make sense for one company to patent a piece of a phone and that patent lasts 20 years. 2 years is enough time to profit off the patent but is also a short enough time to not stop innovation and instead would encourage it.

In conclusion I agree with the concept of a patent, but think that they should only be protectable if the inventor is attempting to commercialize the invention. This would get rid of patent trolls. I also believe in making the longevity of patents based on industry standards, and that patents should be easier to protect. I think these changes to patents would increase innovation and help the economy.