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Don't make the play button a pay button.
Joe Kraus was one of the six young founders of Excite, the Internet company born as Architext in a Palo Alto garage in 1993. It's a familiar story: Excite got big in a hurry during the boom, merged with @Home in 1999, and then just as quickly flamed out in the ensuing firestorm, filing for bankruptcy in September 2001. Kraus was the last cofounder out the door.
James Coleman. "Don't make the play button a pay button."
Now Kraus has something new to excite him: the politics of digital copyright. Last spring he launched DigitalConsumer.org, a grassroots organization that wants to give consumers a seat at the bargaining table. The group has signed up 50,000 members, hired a full-time lobbyist in Washington, and sent more than 100,000 faxes to members of Congress. In March, Kraus testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on digital rights management. His next conquest: passage of a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights.
WIRED:What makes an Internet millionaire start a public policy group?
KRAUS: I was a poli-sci major at Stanford, and I've always wanted to engage in politics. After I left Excite, I took six months to chill out, and then I got involved in copyright issues. I think we're at a critical time with copyright laws and fair use.
Why is this time so critical?
Historically, there's always been a balance between the rights of copyright holders and the rights of consumers. The holder controlled profit and distribution, and the consumer, having legally acquired the work, had control of its use. But lately, the balance has shifted. Copyright owners control use.
How is that playing out?
If you buy a copy-protected CD, you can't legally transfer it onto your MP3 player or dub it to take to the gym. If you buy a movie on DVD, often it's encoded so you can't fast-forward through the previews. And it's illegal to manufacture any device that circumvents that. It's illegal to take clips from a DVD and put them in home movies. The industry's arguments are cloaked in the language of preventing piracy, but when you examine the proposed bills, it's clear the agenda is much more about control.
What does the future look like if Jack Valenti and Hilary Rosen get their way?
The Play button becomes the Pay button. Say you buy a CD and want to copy it onto your MP3 player - that'll cost you a few extra dollars. If you want to record something off the television, you can't do it unless you pay a fee; then the copyright expires after 24 hours.
Would Excite@Home have supported your position on digital copyright?
Boy, that's a tough one. I actually think most of the folks at Excite@Home and at AT&T would have supported what we're doing because they don't want to see content suppliers having exclusive control over how their content is used.
But if a content company had bought Excite@Home before it went under, wouldn't that attitude have changed overnight?
Oh yeah. Guaranteed.
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