NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/bit/listserv/pacsl/2947

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Date:         Mon, 21 Dec 1992 08:01:38 CDT
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Subject:      Information Age Goods, Pt. 2 of 2
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From: [e-mail] (Brad Cox 703-968-8229)
Subject: Information Age Goods, Pt. 2 of 2

Superdistribution

Lets consider a different approach that might work for any
form of computer-based information. It is based on the
following observation. Software objects differ from tangible
objects in being fundamentally unable to monitor their
copying but trivially able to monitor their use. For
example, it is easy to make software count how many times it
has been invoked, but hard to make it count how many times
it has been copied. So why not build an information age
market economy around this difference between manufacturing
age and information age goods?

If revenue collection were based on monitoring the use of
software inside a computer, vendors could dispense with copy
protection altogether. They could distribute electronic
objects for free in expectation of a usage-based revenue
stream.

Legal precedents for this approach already exist. The
distinction between copyright (the right to copy or
distribute) and useright (the right to 'perform', or to use
a copy once obtained) is long-established in copyright law.
These laws were stringently tested in court a century ago as
the music publishers came to terms with broadcast
technologies such as radio and TV.

When we buy a record, we acquire ownership of a physical
copy. We also acquire a severely limited useright that only
allows us to use the music for personal enjoyment.
Conversely, large television and radio companies often have
the very same records thrust upon them by the publishers for
free. But they pay substantial fees for the useright to play
the music on the air. The fees are administered by ASCAP
(American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and
BMI (Broadcast Musicians Institute) by monitoring how often
each record is broadcast to how large a listening audience.

Dr. Ryoichi Mori, the head of the Japanese industry-wide
consortium, JEIDA (Japanese Electronics Industrial
Development Association) is developing an analogous approach
for software. Each computer is thought of as a station that
broadcasts, not the software itself, but the use of the
software, to an audience of a single 'listener'[MORI]. The
approach is called superdistribution because, like
superconductivity, it lets information flow freely, without
resistance from copy protection or piracy.

Its premise is that copy protection is exactly the wrong
idea for intangible, easily copied goods such as software.
Instead, superdistribution turns ease of copying into an
asset. It actively encourages the free distribution of
information age goods via whatever distribution mechanism
you please. You are positively encouraged to acquire
superdistribution software from networks, to give it away to
your friends, or even send it as junk mail to people you've
never met. Broadcast my software from satellites if you
want. Please!

This generosity is possible because the software is actually
'meterware'. It has strings attached that make revenue
collection independent of how the software was distributed.
The software contains embedded instructions that make it
useless except on machines that are equipped for this new
kind of revenue collection. The computers that can run
superdistribution software are otherwise quite ordinary. In
particular, they run ordinary pay-by-copy software just
fine. They just have additional capabilities that only
superdistribution software uses.

In JEIDA's current prototype, these services are provided by
a silicon chip that plugs into a Macintosh coprocessor slot.
Electronic objects (not just applications, but active and/or
passive objects of every granularity) that are intended for
superdistribution invoke this hardware to ensure that the
revenue collection hardware is present, that prior usage
reports have been uploaded, and that prior usage fees have
been paid.

The hardware is not complicated (the main complexities are
tamper-proofing, not base functionality). It merely provides
several instructions that must be present before
superdistribution software can run. The instructions count
how many times they have been invoked by the software,
storing these usage counts temporarily in a tamper-proof
persistent RAM. Periodically (say monthly) this usage
information is uploaded to an administrative organization
for billing, using public key encryption technology to
discourage tampering and to protect the secrecy of this
information.

The end-user gets a monthly bill for their usage of each
top-level component. Their payments are credited to each
component's owner in proportion to usage. These accounts are
then debited according to each application's usage of any
sub-components. These are credited to the sub-component
owners, again in proportion to usage. In other words, the
end-user's payments are recursively distributed through the
producer-consumer hierarchy. The distribution is governed by
usage metering information collected from each end-user's
machine, plus usage pricing data provided to the
administrative organization by each component vendor.

Since communication is infrequent and involves only a small
amount of metering information, the communication channel
could be as simple as a modem that autodials a hardwired 800
number each month. Many other solutions are viable, such as
flash cards or even floppy disks to be mailed back and forth
each month in the mails.

A Revolutionary Approach

Whereas software's ease of replication is a liability today
(by disincentivizing those who would provide it),
superdistribution turns this liability into an asset by
allowing software to be distributed for free. Whereas
software vendors must spend heavily to overcome software's
invisibility, superdistribution thrusts software out into
the world to serve as its own advertisement. Whereas the
personal computer revolution isolates individuals inside a
standalone personal computer, superdistribution establishes
a cooperative/competitive community around an information
age market economy.

Of course, there are many obstacles to this ever happening
for real. A big one is the information privacy issues raised
by usage monitors in every computer from video games to
workstations to mainframes. Although we are accustomed to
usage monitoring for electricity, telephone, gas, water and
electronic data services, information privacy is an
explosive political issue. Superdistribution could easily be
legislated into oblivion out of the fear that the usage
information would be used for other than billing purposes.

A second obstacle is the problem of adding usage monitoring
hardware to a critical number of computers. This is where
today's computing establishment could be gravely exposed to
those less inclined to maintain the status quo. It is
significant that superdistribution was not developed by the
American computer establishment, who presently controls 70%
of the world software market. It was developed by JEIDA, an
industry-wide consortium of Japanese computer manufacturers.

The Japanese are clearly capable of building world-class
computers. Suppose that they were to simply build
superdistribution capabilities into every one of them, not
as an extra-price option but as a ubiquitous capability of
every computer they build? What if the pair of
superdistribution metering instructions were built into
every next-generation CPU chip, much as ADD and JSR
instructions are built in today?

Review the benefits I've discussed in this column and then
ask: Whose computers would you buy? Whose computers would
Aunt Nellie and her friends buy? What if superdistribution
really is a Silver Bullet for the information age issues
that I've raised in this column? And what if the competition
builds it first?

Brad Cox, Ph.D.
[e-mail], [e-mail]
Information Age Consulting
13668 Bent Tree Circle #203
Centreville VA 22020
703 968 8229 (voice) 703 968 8798 (fax)

Program on Social and Organizational Learning
Center for the Study of Market Processes
George Mason University
Fairfax VA 22030
703 691 3187 (direct) 703 993 1142 (reception)

[TM] Software-IC is a registered trademark of The Stepstone
Corporation; Sandy Hook CT.

[COX1] Brad J. Cox; Object-oriented Programming; An
Evolutionary Approach; Addison Wesley; 1986.

[COX2] Brad J. Cox; What, if anything, is an Object;
Addison Wesley; late 1992. Planning the Software Industrial
Revolution; IEEE Software; Nov 1990. There is a Silver
Bullet; Byte; Oct 1990.

[MORI] Ryoichi Mori and Masaji Kawahara; Superdistribution:
An Overview and the Current Status; Technical Research
Reports of the Institute of Electronics, Information and
Communication Engineers Vol 89 #44. What lies ahead; Byte;
Jan 1989; pp 346-348. On Superdistribution; Byte;  Sep 1990;
p 346.

End of Part 2 of 2