Cool head, good insight

I read an article today on C|NET's news feed by Nancy Prager, who seems to be very intelligent and balanced on issues of intellectual property and the entertainment industry. I popped over to her blog and poked around and she has some interesting things to say about Radiohead's experiment. I suppose I'm biased because she agrees with some of my sentiments but it's hard to argue with her when she writes, "the longterm impact that Radiohead and Trent Reznor may have on the music industry is that the major labels may be forced to go to rehab to reform their business practices."

After reading a few of her posts, I will admit that I am rethinking my position on a musician's ability to make it on his or her own from scratch. I am not convinced that it is necessary today to have the backing of a label, but there is certainly some wisdom to Prager's assertion that a label can build a fan base better than an independent artist can alone.

e-Books are (not quite) here

I have been thinking for at least 10 years that e-books' time has come but the technology world has either not gotten it or I'm too optimistic about the costs. Basically I advocate that we need electronic reading devices that can duplicate all the good features of paper books (ruggedness, ease of reading, little power requirement). Yes, there are things that technology can do to improve on the 500 year old paper book but the enhancements must not come at the cost of simplicity. People do not want and will not use a reader that is anything more than marginally more complex than current paperbacks. That means you can't have buttons all over the place and it can't be big and heavy and it can't be hard to read in daylight. People just don't care enough about "power features" to give up the convenience of reading an old fashioned book.

It also needs to be cheap.

Amazon today released Kindle, a machine that satisfies some of the requirements of a hit product but not others. It is allegedly light, has a long lasting battery and is easy to read in daylight. It even improves on traditional books by having built-in wireless for purchasing new books over the airwaves.

Unfortunately it's too clunky. What's with all those buttons? Didn't Amazon get the memo from Apple? Touch screens and software-based keyboards that appear when you need them are where it's at. And the price is outrageous. I'm not saying that it doesn't cost that much to build—it very well may—but we're trying to supplant paperbacks here! Who wants to pay US$400 for for a machine to read books when you can buy actual books for $10 or for less than a buck if they're used?

The price needs to come down, the screen needs to be bigger (and colour would be nice), and they need to get rid of all those ridiculous hardware-based buttons. If only Apple would bring their brilliant design skills to this market.

Yes, I know this has nothing to do with law. I'm a philomath. Sue me.

I told you so

As I speculated recently, the ball is beginning to unravel for the traditional music industry companies. Their perennial woes (falling sales, ridiculous alienation of customers, defecting artists) are now beginning to hit them in their stock prices.

Credit trackers finally taking the right steps

A while ago I posted my general thoughts on why the "identity theft issue" is not one that consumers can or should be expected to solve. In a nutshell, the narrow point in the process is the credit tracking industry, since there are 3 companies in the US, 2 in Canada that control all access to consumer credit by managing "credit histories". If these companies stop allowing just about anyone to "authorize" a credit enquiry (and, consequently, perhaps get credit in someone else's name and therefore cause a lender to begin adding false records to the victim's history) then the whole identity theft scam falls apart. If knowing my name, address and SIN is not enough to convince the credit bureau that you're me, you can't steal my identity (at least in the manner typically used to falsely obtain credit in my name).

Finally, all three credit bureaus in the US are offering "credit freeze" plans, where a consumer can put a freeze on his or her credit history so no lender can receive a report. To successfully apply for credit the consumer will likely need to allow his or her credit history to be sent to the potential lender so there is a process for a temporary "thaw". A brief search didn't show any similar program in Canada yet, unfortunately.

This is a good first start but there a few disturbing things about this news. First, it turns out that 39 states already had laws requiring credit tracking agencies to offer credit freeze options. However, only now is this service being offered to consumers in the 11 states negligent enough not to enact such legislation. Worse, Equifax (at least) is charging an exorbitant amount of $10 per freeze/thaw. Why is this exorbitant? Because this process should be so trivially inexpensive for them to manage (after initial setup) that $10 per transaction is essentially $10 pure profit on every transaction. If it's not, it's only because Equifax has not implemented its system efficiently.

So we are moving toward a system where consumers can control access to their credit histories, which is good, but control over their private information is coming at a ridiculously high price, which is very bad. The credit reporting agencies have made a healthy profit for a long time off consumers' credit histories. They do not need to make further profit off our ability to permit or deny access to our own information.

Canadian Law School Rankings

This just in from the "it had to happen sooner or later" department: as reported at the "Law Eh?" blog, Maclean's Magazine has created a ranking of Canadian law schools. This might seem silly to you since there are only 16 Common Law law schools in the country (plus another 5 Civil Law law schools) but I guess you gotta rank something.

Now I can proudly tell all my US friends that I go to a "top 10" law school. We might as well rename ourselves YaleVic.

A waste of time

Something I've observed over the past year is that the "typical" class in law school is a waste of time for me. This isn't just an indictment of law school because I could make the same claim about most undergraduate courses I've seen.

The problem is that I don't learn well using the method of "teaching" employed in law school. This method typically involves a professor simply standing in front of a class and lecturing. Students are expected to understand the lecture and integrate it into their overall knowledge in real time or, at least, to furiously take notes and later read through them and do the integration/understanding. Often, if I have done the readings in advance, the lecture is repetitious and too tediously slow to stay focused on. If I have not done the readings, the lecture is often too rapid or complex to follow.

One strategy many students use to deal with this problem is to use "outlines"—class notes transcribed by past students—which they update or modify as they like. This removes the need to write everything down in real time as someone else has already done the grunt work.

This is only a coping mechanism for dealing with a flawed system though. The simple reality is that I do not learn well using this method. Sometimes I barely learn at all this way. I learn best by digesting smaller concepts and then applying them to practical examples. Ideally, I work best if I also get sufficient feedback at the practical application stage. This is why computer science was so relatively easy for me: the classes were not taught any better but I could ignore them because the textbooks in that field are well laid out and the subject matter lends itself to practical assignments. Best yet, when a student works through a computer science assignment, there is immediate, near constant feedback about the correctness of the work. Computer programs often work well or fail spectacularly.

I believe that a legal education might better be acquired the same way. I claim that students don't rail against 100% finals (common in law school courses) just because they hate being tested; I claim they also recognize that such methodology is not helpful to them. It is intuitively plain that having little to no feedback on your ability to apply knowledge and skills until the very last minute, when it is too late to correct, is a horribly ineffective way to learn. I would prefer many smaller assignments with some mechanism for plenty of feedback throughout the year. This, of course, means a lot more work for professors both in preparation and marking. Also, professors generally are not actually teachers and have very little education about education. And even professional teachers often have little or no education about "homework" construction.

This does not mean that no students like the current, common methodology in law courses. I realize that there are numerous different types of learning styles. Some people surely learn best from exactly the methods law school are using right now. In fact, the reason that many university courses are taught this way may be that many people who excel at learning from this method end up getting PhDs and becoming professors and repeating the cycle. But I'm not one of them.

I'm not saying there is no benefit to attending class, of course. Being physically present often lessens panic at the idea of missing something; even if the whole material is not absorbed easily often a vague understanding can be gleaned through class attendance; and there are many administrative details that can be gathered in class (exam dates and content, class cancellations, and so on). Still, after nearly a year and a half, I can safely say that the classroom is not where I'm acquiring any significant proportion of my education. :-(

The best decade EVER

Today is the 10th anniversary of the birth of the best thing in this world... Happy birthday, Brokeback Varley!

Vancouver here I come!

I suppose I should update this record with the news that I will be working at Alexander Holburn Beaudin & Lang LLP for the summer of 2008, where I will diligently not burn the place down!

The end is coming

The writing has been on the wall, the floor, the ceiling and all over the Internet for a long time now regarding "traditional" music companies. The simple reality is that, historically, music distributors have provided services that were extremely valuable to artists. Distribution, obviously, is the big service that was far beyond the abilities of most artists, even if they actually wanted to handle it themselves. Promotion, if it cost large amounts of money, might also have been too much for most artists to handle themselves, at least in the early stages of their careers.

Fast forward to today. The Internet is not just a good way to distribute music, it is rapidly becoming the only way. Faced with the option to dragging our lazy butts down to the local Future Shop to purchase a CD or to just fire up iTunes or a software sharing application and getting it now (and possibly illegally), the choice seems obvious. Add to this, music companies' historic power over the entire sales process—a power that often enticed them to force consumers to buy what they didn't want (entire albums) instead of just what they were after (thank you iTunes!)—and consumers have two more reasons to buy (or steal) online: getting exactly what they want and sticking it to the companies that have (in their minds) abused them for so long.

So, as anyone with eyes and an interest has observed, record companies are taking a kicking financially. They also seem to be in panic mode with law suits against "pirates" and gouging artists on electronic sales royalties. These ill-fated tactics are just making their previous customers angrier.

And it's not amusing the artists either; now the real catastrophe has started: big name acts are starting to walk away from the traditional system.

The simple reality is that today's artists need very little help from anyone to get their music to fans. Building awareness is also much easier than ever before. Even the process of producing music in the first place has become much cheaper and nearly anyone with a few grand and some talent can probably create a fairly saleable product. There is just less and less need for the big record companies and this—quite understandably—scares them.

So what is the "solution" for the heavily invested middle men in this shakeout? Music companies need to reinvent and reinvest quickly if they want to save any of their equity. Short of moving their investment into other markets, music companies need to recognize that the salad days of total control are gone and start listening to what artists need and consumers want. There is clearly still opportunity to make money in the music industry: iTunes and Live Nation are showing that. But business as usual or law suits against music consumers is a sure recipe for bankruptcy.

Music piracy probably is quite illegal but when a huge proportion of society is doing it almost daily, it is nearsightedness bordering on delusion to think that the law is going to save you.

Lawyer nomads?

I just came across a site run by and for people who do the ultimate telecommute, selling all their possessions and heading out on long-term travel, all while working. I'm quite intrigued. Years ago I knew someone who spent short stints working as a professional in various US cities. There was demand in her profession for short-term contracts and her skills were 100% transferrable (she is an occupational therapist) so she went to a head-hunter who found jobs for her all over America. Nice.

The wandering professionals described in the site above take this a bit further, taking their show on the road for years at a time and practising their crafts via laptop and Internet. With that flexibility one can head virtually anywhere and survive on much less money.

Hmm... How can I wrangle such a lifestyle while involved in the legal field? I have 2 years to figure it out.

Love, Lawyers and Wisdom from the Internet

I was just looking up a quote at the IMDB and once again remarked on the wonder that is humanity. It works like this: Humans have dominated this planet (in some ways) because of their big brains. First an individual might be smarter than a predator or prey and be able to evade or capture said predator or prey. That's evolutionarily useful but won't turn one into a planetary emperor too quickly. But then comes language and suddenly all the knowledge that an individual accumulates can be passed on to his or her tribe mates. Now that tribe has a ton more knowledge and is really good at capturing and evading. Next comes writing and now humans are able to acquire knowledge from people they never meet or even from dead people. That's a good trick! The printing press takes this a bit further by mass producing writing and making it more likely that any given human can get access to information discovered by others.

But physical distribution of writing has obvious limitations, so we invented the Internet. Now we are taking information from people all over the world, concentrating it in organized, discrete repositories, and giving instant access to it everywhere the Internet reaches (which becomes further daily). Soon there will be few places on the planet where all information is not available 24/7. When that happens, watch out predators! We'll know where your blind spots are and how to survive your most deadly poisonous attacks.

So far people don't seem to be using this new reality to solve their legal problems themselves too much (thankfully for me!) but surely it's just a matter of time. Movements like the Plain English Campaign are necessary first, so the average Jane can wade through legal information and then we will need good, lay-person primers on various subjects. But these things are coming already. I guess I had better get fat off the corporate teat quickly before lawyers' salaries start nose-diving as society reassesses our remuneration. :-/

Oh, the quote I was looking for, by the way, was from St. Elmo's Fire: "Love, love, you know what love is? Love is an illusion created by lawyer types like yourself to perpetuate another illusion called marriage to create the reality of divorce and then the illusionary need for divorce lawyers."

ID theft in post privacy society

Recent generations' adoption of the Internet as a social tool has sharply reduced the amount of privacy they have. To people who remember "the way it used to be" this seems like an obvious problem. To them, privacy = good, publicizing personal information = bad. Identity theft, many people believe, is only one easily identifiable problem with decreased privacy. The solution many (most?) people offer is to use "best practices" and not reveal anything online. Shred your documents! Don't post your phone number! Etc.

However, this is a mistake. Identity theft is not possible just because personal information is available online; it is possible because historically that information was so expensive to get that society and industry allowed a ludicrously insecure identity management infrastructure to come into existence. We now suffer under that same stupid system even though the world has changed drastically regarding availability of personal information.

First, let's not be naive: personal privacy has not been eroded just because technology has run amok and modern Internet users have no idea how to protect themselves. Personal privacy has been eroded because modern Internet users don't care as much about it as past generations might have. Today I saw a photo on Facebook of two fellow law students, both females, necking on a dance floor. This is common enough that they probably don't care. Other law students—people who have good reason to worry about future reputations—routinely post or have posted more embarrassing photos or profanities or whatever. It is becoming accepted that indiscretions become public-ish these days and people seem to care less about them. Presumably these personal tidbits are becoming less dangerous as a result. (i.e. It's hard to fire someone because she was photographed kissing another woman when 37% of your female staff has been photographed similarly.)

Now, given that personal privacy is just less important to modern Internet users and is likely to become less so still, why is the "solution" to ID theft to "lock up your valuables"? This ignores the other half of the problem: ID theft is possible because we care less about privacy and because credit reporting agencies, lenders and other institutions that wield power over us are willing to accept ridiculously flimsy "evidence" as "proof" of identity. If we as a society want to worry less about privacy, it is time for us to demand that the ways we manage our identities improve. The solution to identity theft is not to tell modern Internet users to stop behaving the way they want to. It is to tell industry and government to smarten up and implement the obvious and relatively simple policies needed to prevent it.

For example, in Canada credit reporting agencies are required by law to provide consumers with "free" access to their credit report once per calendar year. The quotes are around "free" because credit reporting agencies follow this law to the letter—providing one free report by Canada Post, after submission of a written application form with photocopies of 2 pieces of ID. Please allow 5 to 10 business days. Or, if you want it right now, just enter your information and credit card number, pay $15 and get it right away. Yes, both credit reporting agencies in Canada have already set up the technology to instantly provide credit reports to consumers but will only do so if you pay. If you just demand your legal right to a free copy (once per year), they will force you to go through the hassle of photocopying, using Canada Post and waiting 5 to 10 days. It would actually be cheaper for them (from a straight cost perspective) to just use their existing fee-based system to send you your one free report per year. But if they inconvenience you by making you go through Canada Post, they obviously assume you will break down and just pay the $15.

Imagine a different system, where credit reporting agencies were required by law to give consumers their own credit reports for free whenever they asked. Better yet, imagine if they implemented systems where consumers had to authorize each request for a credit report. How then would anyone apply for a credit card in my name? It's a simple solution that should completely negate the "danger" of Internet phishers discovering my SIN or address. But to imagine such a system is to imagine a lost source of revenue for Equifax and Trans-Union so don't expect it any time soon—unless you're willing to wake up and demand it.

Safari 3 Hijinks

I finally decided to revive this blog because I have a new project that might add something useful to the general chatter on the 'net and I've discovered that Safari beta 3.02 doesn't want to allow me to enter any text in Blogger's "Title" field. Very irritating. In general I'm quite happy that Apple released the Safari 3 beta because I was getting tired of lagging so far behind Firefox. Hopefully this is a bug they'll work out soon.

Update: I discovered that the "Title" field just isn't clickable — I was able to select it by using the tab key to shift focus until I got there. Irritating!