| Play from beginning |
| 00:00:00 | Interview with Yochai Benkler |
| 00:00:06 | When I say user autonomy, what I'm talking about |
| 00:00:08 | is at the simplest level the ability
of people to do more for themselves, |
| 00:00:15 | by themselves,
without having to ask anyone's permission |
| 00:00:19 | and without having to submit to anyone's |
| 00:00:27 | control over what it is they are doing. |
| 00:00:30 | What happened in the industrial
information and cultural economy |
| 00:00:39 | was that people shifted from being
relatively free to use a limited range |
| 00:00:49 | of materials that they had in social settings
that were open for conversation. |
| 00:00:55 | Family friends,
relatively small localities for the majority of people. |
| 00:01:01 | To an industrial model of cultural production |
| 00:01:05 | where the materials were produced by |
| 00:01:08 | some set of commercial professional producers,
who then control the experience |
| 00:01:15 | and located individuals at the passive
receiving end of the cultural conversation |
| 00:01:22 | so that efforts to take these materials and remake them, |
| 00:01:29 | or efforts to participate as a cultural speaker, |
| 00:01:32 | by and large required permission. |
| 00:01:38 | What we're seeing now is that
through a combination of technology, |
| 00:01:45 | both digital processing and computation technology
and networking technology, |
| 00:01:52 | people can take more of their cultural environment, |
| 00:01:56 | more of the information environment,
make it their own, |
| 00:02:01 | use it as found materials
to put together their own expressions, |
| 00:02:04 | do their own research,
create their own communications, |
| 00:02:07 | create their own communities,
when they need collaboration with others. |
| 00:02:11 | Rather than relying on a
limited set of existing institutions. |
| 00:02:17 | Or on a set of materials
that they are not allowed to use |
| 00:02:20 | without going and asking
"please may I use this? |
| 00:02:25 | Please may I create?" |
| 00:02:27 | What happens when people can do more for and |
| 00:02:30 | by themselves is that the set of actors; |
| 00:02:35 | primarily companies,
and in some places governments |
| 00:02:38 | that control the experience -
those whose permission was required, |
| 00:02:45 | are resisting this transistion because |
| 00:02:47 | control is a good thing to get
if you can get it. |
| 00:02:49 | Or at least control is a good thing to have
if you can get it. |
| 00:02:54 | And what we're seeing today
is a series of different kinds of campaigns, |
| 00:03:01 | Some of them quite self conscious, |
| 00:03:04 | I think for example,
Hollywood's campaign to expand |
| 00:03:08 | technological constraint
on use of cultural materials |
| 00:03:13 | digital rights management, trusted systems, |
| 00:03:16 | is a self conscious campaign. |
| 00:03:18 | Some of it much less conscious
much more based on anxieties, |
| 00:03:27 | and speaking out anxieties.
So for example |
| 00:03:30 | when you hear the persistent concerns
over internet security, |
| 00:03:35 | and what will happen if people crack your system |
| 00:03:39 | when you hear the constant concerns about quality |
| 00:03:43 | and where will good quality come from? |
| 00:03:44 | and the error rate in wikipedia,
these are all much more subconscious expressions |
| 00:03:51 | of a fear that ends up being used as justification, |
| 00:03:55 | for embracing the control system
that is being displaced |
| 00:04:00 | because of the technological and social actions, |
| 00:04:04 | because of the technological characteristics
and the social practices, |
| 00:04:11 | that are being adopted in widespread
cooperative networked practices. |
| 00:04:17 | So we're seeing sometimes legal moves to change, |
| 00:04:25 | and require legal control where
practically it's no longer necessary. |
| 00:04:30 | Sometimes we see... I wouldn't call them propaganda, |
| 00:04:36 | but I'd call them public debate and public enactment |
| 00:04:41 | of anxiety, in order to increase the perceived importance, |
| 00:04:47 | of the traditional controllers.
The most important place where you see this is, |
| 00:04:51 | teachers tell students not to use Wikipedia. |
| 00:04:55 | Because that use shakes up the sense that I'm a teacher, |
| 00:05:02 | I know exactly what the set of materials are
that I have approved |
| 00:05:06 | and are capable of being approved. |
| 00:05:07 | I am used to seeing Kids,
appealing to authority |
| 00:05:13 | rather that cross referencing multiple resources. |
| 00:05:16 | I don't want to teach them
that they should see this as a source, |
| 00:05:20 | But not as a source of authority, a source of insight, |
| 00:05:24 | a potential move in a research that's always sceptical. |
| 00:05:29 | One of the things that has to happen
in the context of the radically decentralised system |
| 00:05:34 | Is that we all have to become sceptical beings,
all the time. |
| 00:05:38 | Which is a fundamental change from
the traditional cultural system |
| 00:05:43 | Where we would talk.
'How do I know if it's true? Well you've said it.' |
| 00:05:46 | Where did they publish it?
And looking for indicia of authority |
| 00:05:51 | that will tell me this is authority. |
| 00:05:53 | Instead I have to begin to develop new capabilities |
| 00:05:59 | of looking at five sources,
assigning them different levels of weight |
| 00:06:04 | and saying I have reasonable confidence
that the correct answer is |
| 00:06:08 | x rather than y without really assigning
full authority to any single site. |
| 00:06:15 | So that's another locus of control trying to, |
| 00:06:19 | get people to continue to hang on
to to this sense that you need |
| 00:06:24 | the expert authority,
you need the person whose is in charge, |
| 00:06:29 | to tell you what is good and what is not good.
what is high quality, what is low quality. |
| 00:06:33 | What is reliable information,
what is not reliable information. |
| 00:06:38 | And that's another domain
where we see the controllers, |
| 00:06:42 | in this case I think less strategically, |
| 00:06:49 | than in the context of the way that for example,
Hollywood backs digital rights management. |
| 00:06:53 | I think it's a cousin in terms of self preservation. |
| 00:07:03 | But I think it's also a public enactment
of deeply held beliefs |
| 00:07:08 | about why it is, that the particular people,
that play a particular role |
| 00:07:12 | of authoritative speakers,
in the older system |
| 00:07:16 | continue to believe in the values
that made them authoritative, |
| 00:07:20 | and made their authority important.
And so that's much more cultural resistance, |
| 00:07:25 | than it is practical,
legal or technical design resistance. |
| 00:07:31 | But were seeing resistance from
different kind of actors who played the role, |
| 00:07:37 | of controllers in the older models,
trying to preserve |
| 00:07:42 | their relatively privileged position as controllers, |
| 00:07:45 | through different systems of constraint. |
