Reputation-Based Systems

Some of the power that can emanate from social networks created through “trusted source relationships” are illustrated in this quote from Jonathan Peizer, the Chief Technology Officer of the Open Society Institute in a recent article on trusted source relationships: “A good non-profit trusted source relationship can influence other non-profits, government and commercial actors to want to partner with and promote it…..The trusted source relationship is viral in nature. Often people and institutions adopt a positive view on a particular project, and de facto, the organization managing it through first hand dealings or, very often, through other trusted sources informing them of it. The "branding" of the organization managing the project flows directly from how effectively it carries out its mission and the number of trusted sources it accumulates.”

Social networking software has seen great advances in recent years, most of which relies on the concept of trusted source relationships. While the social networks in the independent media and library communities are relatively small, such as the VideoLib (Video Librarian) listserv with 750 members, some groups in the social networking space like Care2 (www.care2.com) have almost 5 million members. Members are often aligned by interest groups that match up well to the sales markets identified by the independent distributors.

A recent study from the Pew Internet Project found that 33 million American internet users have reviewed or rated someone or something as part of an online rating system. The study went on to say that 26 percent of adult internet users in the U.S. have rated a product, service or person using an online rating system. These systems, also referred to as “reputation systems,” are interactive word-of-mouth networks that assist people in making decisions about which users to trust or to compare their opinions with the opinions expressed by others. “Internet users see these systems as a way to help them figure out what information and people they can trust online,” said Paul Hitlin, a Research Associate at the Pew Internet Project in a text connected to the release of the study

The independent “brand” is all about reputation, and the good news is that “we” are bigger, better and have more assets than we may think. The bad news is that we have to do better at contacting, working with each other, and cooperating. New technologies have a way of making people think there are short cuts to the hard work of building and maintaining communities. The multiple outcomes of new technological changes are fraught with gaps between rhetoric and reality and with unintended outcomes. Nancy Kranich addressed this when she said, “New technology stuff needs to be viewed from two sides and needs to be a team effort. There needs to be assessing, talking to people, doing tests and pilots, and to do evaluations from there. Then you can make some moves without just responding to the marketplace.”

Reputation-based systems are moving quickly into the marketplace. For example, television executive Michael Jackson, the former Chief Executive of Britain’s Channel Four, and author/editor Kurt Andersen are working on a new reputation-based company that will be a monthly subscriber-based system for delivering DVDs, CDs, music, magazines, and hard and soft cover books. The two have a lot of curatorial firepower between them and a wealth of associates who will help build a brand out of the filtering that will ensue. The venture is designed to be a trusted editorial filter for people who want the cool stuff, but who don’t have the time to find the cool stuff in the delirium of popular culture and the internet.

Social Downside : Copyright Wars and Intellectual Property Issues

Although the transition to DVD comes at a time when a great deal of new social networking tools are available, there are also new tools and economic forces that inhibit the full flowering of DVDs. Artists have more and more options for delivering their work to audiences, which is fantastic. What is not so fantastic is that the multiple delivery options and multiple venues for audiences encountering work make for a bewildering array of rights issues. The escalation of digital rights management systems has only just begun, and the recent heavy-handed tactics by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against perceived file-sharing pirates have confused, frightened and angered a lot a people.

The issues around copyright protection at the legal and technical levels are very intertwined with DVD culture, although this doesn’t have to be the case. In this area, DVD differs from VHS culture, at least until the resolution of the potential scope of recordable DVD players plays out. For now the major industry players generally have succeeded in restricting the ability of consumers to have the freedom currently afforded with VHS tapes and VCRs. For a list of content protection tools on DVDs, see section 1.11 in Jim Taylor’s great DVD FAQ list at www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html.

The battle for copyright protection and the creation of the overreaching Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) act as a restraining force on DVD culture. Independent media makers and distributors are very divided on this issue. On the one hand, they have a reflexive sympathy for advocates of public commons and file sharing coming from generous and public-minded impulses. On the other hand, they remain wary of what they see as a slippery slope leading to their not being able to guarantee a fair financial return on their talent and labor.

Groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge are doing excellent work at framing the issues around the DMCA and related intellectual property rights issues. They, along with noted theorist and legal expert Larry Lessig, are working toward ways to synthesize the needs, aspirations and concerns of makers and audiences in a win-win scenario.

Talking about Digital Rights Management (DRM) issues is difficult. “So many of the issues that we deal with are really abstruse,” said Wendy Seltzer, an intellectual property attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the principal creator of the Endangered Gizmos campaign. “And yet they touch a whole segment of the public that we want to reach out to.” Rick Weingarten of the American Library Association’s Office of Information Technology and Policy echoes this, saying, “It’s hard to put it on a bumper sticker. It’s hard to explain to a consumer that there could one day be a lot of restrictions on what you can do with new technology.” For example, he wondered if and when the public will understand that if they want to use the Internet as a library, copyright law has to allow that to happen.

On the other hand, all but the most strident file-sharing advocates agree that illegal file sharing is counterproductive in the long run. New groups and delivery platforms/tools have built consciousness of a fair return to producers and content creators into their tools and work.

A hopeful sign of changes in the battles over content management systems is that DVD analyst Jim Taylor said that some changes are being made in the specifications and design for the next wave of DVDs envisioned in 2006 or later. The restrictions on copying will be less draconian because content industries understand the need to be more flexible with audiences, markets and technologies. This is hopeful sign that commercial content providers won’t play legal hardball forever and that some of the potential of DVD technology might be better realized.

The Future

What could be the future of DVD culture and independent media if the full activation of social, economic and technological possibilities is brought to bear? What possibilities and opportunities would then exist for independent media? The following provides some examples of new directions for the future of DVD. Many of the examples listed below use social networks to leverage the potential power of DVD. Social networks are increasingly being used to advance particular programs and ideas, particularly social critiques. An effective blend of the social and the technological can be a powerful combination. Connecting mature and large-scale social networks with independent DVD culture would seem to be a natural move.

Robert Greenwald and MoveOn.org

A good example is producer Robert Greenwald’s work with the documentaries Uncovered and Outfoxed. His use of social networks and activist orientations provides a useful guide to how the independent media arts field might employ social networks. Greenwald has done exceptionally well with selling DVDs of his films. For example, Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War sold more than 200,000 DVDs and his most recent film, Outfoxed, played at more than 3,000 house parties around the country.

MoveOn.org is another useful example. MoveOn had great acceleration in a short amount of time, with more than 2 million members. They played a large role in raising tens of millions of dollars for the Presidential campaigns of Howard Dean and John Kerry. MoveOn is still figuring out what attracts and binds their community of members. A central fact of social networks is that groups and individuals have to balance the urgency of needs with people’s ability to take in and respond to messages, however trusted the source might be. Therefore, MoveOn is weighing the proportion of how many messages to send to their trusted network. Too many messages make members feel overwhelmed, so it is necessary to balance a reasonable cadence of messages with political imperatives.

The power of MoveOn can be found in the inspiring map that they did in the aftermath of house parties screening Robert Greenwald’s Uncovered. The maps use data visualization tools to demonstrate the quantity of house parties, and also provide photos of the individual parties and the people who attended them. The project works on the macro level and on the micro level, with individual participation being reflected back as a larger quantity of collective participation. Easy and swift DVD distribution was at the center of the process together with active social networks. While the data visualization is inspiring, it couldn’t have happened without social networks and DVD distribution. The link for the MoveOn map can be found at: action.moveon.org/uncoveredusa/index_flash.html

DVD, Television and Bit Torrent

BitTorrent is one of the most successful peer-to-peer programs ever, but not many people know it exists. BitTorrent lets users quickly upload and download enormous amounts of data, files that are hundreds or thousands of times bigger than a single MP3. (Sidebar #5: BitTorrent: A Powerful Tool for File-Sharing) A recent article described BitTorrent’s unique character stating, “Paradoxically, BitTorrent’s architecture means that the more popular the file is the faster it downloads — because more people are pitching in. Better yet, it’s a virtuous cycle. The more files you’re willing to share, the faster any individual torrent downloads to your computer. This prevents people from leeching, a classic peer-to-peer (P2P) problem in which too many people download files and refuse to upload, creating a drain on the system.”

More than 20 million users have downloaded the BitTorrent application, which means that BitTorrent now accounts for more than 30 percent of all of the internet traffic in the world. An example of its impact was the recent circulation of the famous John Stewart televised battle with the hosts of CNN’s Crossfire program. More than 2.3 million people streamed the clip, but CNN’s audience for Crossfire was only 867,000.

BitTorrent provides an alternative to the media conglomerates who have focused on the cables and wires and other conduits for transmitting programs by allowing people to access and distribute programs outside of that system. Eric Garland, CEO of the P2P analysis firm Big Champagne, says “The real work isn’t acquisition. It’s good, reliable filtering. We’ll have more video than we’ll know what to do with. A next-gen broadcaster will say, ‘Look, there are 2,500 shows out there, but here are the few that you're really going to like.’ We'll be willing to pay someone to hold back the tide.” The real value of the so-called BitTorrent broadcaster would be to highlight the good stuff, much as the collaborative filtering of Amazon and TiVo helps people pick good material.