CONNECTICUT LIBRARIES
July/August2005, Vol. 47, No. 7
The anarchist in Siva Vaidhyanathan's library is not a rogue librarian intent on eliminating the Dewey decimal classification system and giving away books instead of lending them. What Vaidhyanathan has in mind is something far worse. Vaidhyanathan fears that today's digital technology has spawned a culture war between the forces of anarchy and those of control. In the middle of this war, and perhaps one of its first casualties, is the library.Do not read Vaidhyanathan's book if you want to end up feeling all warm and fuzzy about the important role libraries will continue to play in American democracy and culture. The new technologies of peer-to-peer networking, digital copying, and encryption have changed how individuals, businesses, and governments choose to control culture and its libraries. Vaidhyanathan sees two contrasting ideologies. On one side, an oligarchy of government and corporations attempts to control culture through laws and technological restraints. In opposition, the hacker's world seeks to create its own anarchist culture, using software and distributed networks. Both ideologies are dangerous! Too few people are working for the compromise alternative advocated by Vaidhyanathan.
Here is the anarchist world, according to Vaidhyanathan. The anarchist world is one of open, distributed networks. This is a non-hierarchical world, where copyright is meaningless, where any information that can be digitized will be copied and widely distributed. Artists, musicians, and writers will have no means of cashing in on their creativity (and therefore, no incentive to create), since only one copy of anything need be purchased before it proliferates over the Internet. This is a convenient and accessible world where every creation, no matter how ugly (e.g., pornography), is readily and cheaply available in almost any setting. This is a non-secure world where the terrorists and criminals have their own encryption technology, letting them communicate at will with little or no fear of detection. This is a world where important scientific research can be stolen and patents circumvented. And finally, this is a library world where many of the above activities will take place first, and for free.
In contrast, Vaidhyanathan sees the oligarchy's world of control. This world is one of controlled, centralized networks. This is a hierarchical world where corporations and government place controls on access to the Internet and where copyright is no longer used as an incentive to create, but only as a tool to protect property. This is a world where Digital Rights Management (DRM, a technology tool) is used, in conjunction with laws against circumvention, to prevent any fair use of digital content. In this world, restrictive copyright law and DRM technology stifle innovation and creativity in both the arts and the sciences. This is a world where the government controls encryption technology, where anonymity is impossible, and where all digital communication must pass through centralized networks. This is a world where only a handful of providers control the distribution of digital content. This is a library world where Patriot Act II allows the government limitless access to library records, where CIPA and its descendants control every public access computer, and where all access to digital content is a pay-per-view arrangement, no different than buying time at an Internet café. With all digital content licensed, libraries would no longer provide the nation with a record or archive of its achievements because the library would not own any content.
So, take your pick. Vaidhyanathan claims this "war of the worlds" has already begun in the music file-sharing controversy, in attempts by the government to limit encryption technology, and in the Patriot Act legislation. For Vaidhyanathan, copyright is the canary in the coal mine, the first sign that our culture is beginning to suffer. The extension of copyright terms and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act are proof that the oligarchy of corporate and government control is trying to win this war for culture at the expense of creativity, innovation, and democracy. To this oligarchy, libraries are merely a leak in the commercial and security information system.
Vaidhyanathan rejects both worlds. He advocates a vague middle ground, a place where we "formulate ethics, guidelines, habits, or rules to shape an information environment that provides the freedom liberal democracy needs as well as the stability that commerce and community demand." This is not the freewheeling world where Microsoft, Sony, Disney, and Hollywood die a thousand deaths at the hands of hackers. Rather, this is a world in which we engage in a healthy public discussion over accessibility of information and its importance to democracy. Who better to start the discussion and continue the fight for open access than librarians? Who worse to control the debate than the current crop of politicians in Washington?
Tom Newman is the Assistant Director
of the Connecticut State Library's Middletown Library Service Center
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