Adam Thierer's Blog, page 78

Geoff Manne on copyright

In last week’s episode of Surprisingly Free, Tom Bell introduced his chapter in Copyright Unbalanced, a new book on the conservative and libertarian case for copyright reform, edited by Jerry Brito. This week, Geoff Manne, lecturer in law at Lewis & Clark Law School and Executive Director of the International Center for Law & Economics, explains how, while also working from libertarian principles, he arrived at a very different view of copyright than either Brito or Bell.

Taking an economic approach to property rights, Manne argues that there is a necessary tradeoff between incentive to create and widespread access. While Manne does recognize the value of widespread use, he says that its benefits must be weighed against the potential breakdown in specialization of labor and the value added by commercialization.

According to Manne, just because someone has exclusive rights to something, doesn’t mean that it won’t be optimally distributed, and, in fact, the highest value ownership right tends to transfer from the creator to the users over time.

Manne concludes that if the government can have any important role, it’s the creation and enforcement of property rights, including copyright, and that that may necessitate new copyright laws.

Download

Related Links


Copyright Unbalanced: From Incentive to Excess, by Brito, et al
Intellectual Privilege: A Libertarian View of Copyright, by Bell
On Copyright, Conservatives and Libertarians Should Focus on What Unites Us, Tech Liberation Front

Top 5 Net Policy Issues of 2012

Earlier today on Twitter, I listed what I thought were the Top 5 “Biggest Internet Policy Issues of 2012.” In case you don’t follow me on Twitter — and shame on you if you don’t! — here were my choices:

Copyright wars reinvigorated post-SOPA; tide starting to turn in favor of copyright reform. [TLF posts on copyright.]
Privacy still red-hot w ECPA reform, online advertising regs & kids’ privacy issues all pending. [TLF posts on privacy.]
WCIT makes Internet governance / NetFreedom a major issue worldwide. [TLF posts on Net governance.]
Antitrust threat looms larger w pending Google case + Apple books investigation. [TLF posts on antitrust.]
Cybersecurity regulatory push continues in both legislative (CISPA) & executive branch. [TLF posts on cybersecurity.]

Lists like these are entirely subjective, of course, but I am basing my list on the general amount of chatter I tended to see and hear about each topic over the course of the year.

What do you think the top tech policy issues of the year were?

Don’t Let the Doublespeak Fool You: When CLECs Say “Packet Mode,” They Mean “Regulate the Internet”

When CLECs say “packet mode,” don’t let the doublespeak fool you. They are asking for heavy-handed economic regulation of the Internet itself, just like many countries at the ITU.

Last week, I wrote about the failure of the CLECs to provide consumers with the additional choices in communications services Congress had envisioned in 1996. I noted that, now that the antiquated telephone network is about to sunset, CLECs must bear responsibility for their own decisions to forgo investment in their own infrastructure and rely on lines leased with temporary government subsidies. The desperation of CLECs to avoid this reality is apparent in their use of doublespeak to conceal their true intent: convincing the FCC to regulate the Internet like plain old telephone service.

CLECs apparently realize they are on a collision course with U.S. policy and advocacy abroad. The official position of the United States on this very issue is: don’t regulate the Internet like plain old telephone service. The U.S. is vigorously arguing that position right now at the World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012 (WCIT-12) in Dubai, where the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is considering amending the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs). These regulations govern the terms of international interconnection of plain old telephone networks (i.e., “telecommunications” networks), including payment terms.

In its August 2012 proposal for WCIT-12, the U.S. stated that “the Internet has evolved to operate in a separate and distinct environment” that is “beyond the scope” of regulations governing plain old telephone service. The U.S. also “believes that the existing multi-stakeholder institutions, incorporating industry and civil society, have functioned effectively and will continue to ensure the continued vibrancy of the Internet and its positive impact on individuals and society.” Based on these views, the U.S. stated that it “will not support proposals that would increase the exercise of control over Internet governance or content.” Last Wednesday the House of Representatives emphasized the point, passing unanimously (397-0) a resolution expressing the sense of Congress that it is “the consistent and unequivocal policy of the United States to promote a global Internet free from government control and preserve the successful multistakeholder model that governs the Internet today.”

The Administration, Congress, industry, and public interest groups all recognize that “bringing interconnection between ISPs under the same regulatory regime as interconnection between phone networks would cause enormous harm.” Yet, that is exactly what CLECs are asking the FCC to do using the rhetoric of “packet mode” technologies. As I detailed last week, current law gives CLECs the right to lease antiquated POTS networks at government subsidized, below market rates, which the CLECS use to “cherry pick” highly profitable business customers. CLECs want this same right to apply to Internet infrastructure built with new investment in a competitive communications marketplace.

CLECs know that this type of heavy-handed price regulation of the Internet flies in the face of consensus U.S. policy and rational economic theory. So they’ve stopped referring to the Internet as the Internet and turned to the doublespeak of jargon. In CLEC jargon, the Internet is “a kind of packet mode technology.” Their illogical syllogism goes like this:

The Internet is a packet mode network.
Some packet mode networks do not use Internet Protocol.
Regulating packet mode networks is not regulating the Internet.

They apparently believe that using the jargon of “packet mode” networks will be sufficient to fool the FCC into thinking that the Internet hasn’t changed the economics or structure of the communications marketplace.

CLECs would like the FCC to forget its contrary conclusion in the National Broadband Plan that the “high-speed Internet is transforming the landscape of America more rapidly and more pervasively than earlier infrastructure networks.” It is the transformational nature of the Internet and its decentralized, multi-stakeholder governance model that make it unique. Burdening the decentralized Internet with legacy economic regulations designed for monopoly telephone networks would destroy the very foundations of the Internet’s success. CLEC doublespeak can’t change that fact, and it won’t fool the FCC.

When CLECs say “packet mode,” don’t let the doublespeak fool you. They are asking for heavy-handed economic regulation of the Internet itself, just like many countries at the ITU. Policymakers in the U.S. clearly oppose economic regulation of the Internet internationally, and to have any hope of winning on that issue, U.S. policymakers can’t impose economic regulations on the Internet domestically. CLECs would be better served if they abandoned the doublespeak and started doubling down on their own investments in the all-IP infrastructure of the future. The doublespeak is just a distraction.

FCC Risks Getting Sidetracked on Spectrum Auctions

On Wednesday, the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology will conduct an oversight hearing of the implementation of spectrum auctions by the Federal Communications Commission.

The subcommittee members ought to consider the fact that although the mobile wireless industry faces an acute shortage of spectrum (“broadband spectrum deficit is likely to approach 300 MHz by 2014”), the FCC risks getting distracted and mired in a pointless effort to leverage its spectrum auctioning authority to manipulate the structure of the mobile wireless industry.

In mid-2011, former Commissioner Michael J. Copps warned of “darkening clouds over the state of mobile competition … we find ongoing trends of industry consolidation.”  As Copps saw it, increasing concentration will lead to higher prices for consumers.  His solution was for the market to have more competitors that look and perform like AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

Since Congress failed to prevent the FCC from engaging in what the late Alfred Kahn once called “oxymoronic efforts to promote competition by regulation” when it adopted the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation (JOBS) Act in February, the path was clear for the FCC to act on Mr. Copps’ pessimism.  The commission issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in late September for establishing caps on mobile spectrum holdings.  The NPRM is designed to eliminate AT&T’s and Verizon Wireless’ access to additional spectrum they need in the short-term to meet growing demand for mobile broadband services.There is a serious possibility of unintended consequences, since no one at the FCC appears to realize that establishing spectrum caps – even if only applied to a subset of mobile wireless providers – would create artificial scarcity that would tend to raise (not lower) overall consumer prices for these services, and/or promote more network “management” that would curtail (not expand) consumer choice.  For example, when government imposes discriminatory regulatory obligations that force some firms but not others to raise prices, it creates a protective pricing “umbrella” that allows those firms’ competitors to successfully compete by offering a lower price even though that may be higher than the lowest price the competitors are capable of charging.  The competitors get to pocket the difference and consumers are left holding the bag.

The justification for a rulemaking is based on an outdated analysis of market conditions, and this too seems to have escaped the FCC’s notice.  As has so often been the case in the history of telecommunications, the best efforts of FCC planners have been completely overtaken by events, and competition has expanded not as a result of the FCC’s planning and policies, but in spite of them.

By mid-October, before the ink could dry on the NPRM, the mobile wireless industry was undergoing another transformation.  T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS announced plans to merge, Softbank announced that it is acquiring 70 percent of Sprint (and providing $8 billion in capital for Sprint to invest) and Sprint reacquired a controlling share in Clearwire.  “We went from what was becoming a duopoly to a market with potentially four strong, well capitalized competitors with differentiated value propositions,” according to analyst Mark Lowenstein.  Sprint CEO Dan Hesse, notes the same report, claims that the Softbank deal “creates a stronger No. 3 … it competes with the duopoly of AT&T and Verizon.”

The FCC is always looking for ways to expand it’s jurisdiction, and arguably this is no exception.  The NPRM (paragraph 21) claims that “band-specific spectrum limits generally applicable to all licensees would be consistent with Section 6404 of the Spectrum Act,” although surely the commission realizes that that provision did not create new jurisdiction nor even encourage the agency to do anything.  Sec. 6404 of what is more commonly known as the JOBS Act was merely for the purpose of preventing the commission from evading the Administrative Procedure Act and targeting individual firms for discriminatory treatment.  If clarification is needed, Wednesday’s hearing would be a good opportunity.

Otherwise, the commission is on track to justify micromanaging the mobile wireless market in the future based on variations in the propagation characteristics of various frequency bands – not the sort of subject that Congress is calculated to want to study in great detail for the purpose of fulfilling its oversight responsibilities.

Understanding the Basics of Spectrum Propagation Characteristics

The commission points out (paragraph 35) that, as a general matter, lower frequency spectrum “allows for better coverage across larger geographic areas and inside buildings,” and it has noted elsewhere (paragraph 296) that “higher-frequency spectrum may be just as effective, or more effective, for providing significant capacity, or increasing capacity, within smaller geographic areas,” such as high-traffic urban areas.  “Because the properties of lower and higher frequency spectrum are complementary,” observes the FCC (NPRM, paragraph 35), “both types of spectrum may be helpful for the development of an effective nationwide competitor that can address both coverage and capacity needs.”

Generally, bidders have offered to pay less for higher-frequency spectrum, because it required more investment in facilities.   Since fewer towers were necessary to provide coverage in the lower bands, they tended to be more valuable.  As firms struggle to meet growing demand for mobile broadband services, however, these assumptions are being tested.

Sprint-Clearwire, for example, conserved cash at the auction block by acquiring extensive high-frequency holdings.  The current regulatory fest arises from the fact that Sprint-Clearwire now wants more low frequency spectrum, but does not want to want to pay a fair market price for it (another explanation is that it wants to foreclose its rivals from acquiring the only spectrum resources that are likely to be available in the “short” term).  Excluding AT&T and Verizon Wireless from the auction would accomplish all of these goals.  And apparently the FCC is willing to carry Sprint-Clearwire’s water.  Otherwise, the solution would be to encourage firms to buy and sell spectrum from each other on a secondary market to round out their holdings.

Sprint-Clearwire’s combined spectrum holdings are almost twice as big as AT&T’s, Verizon Wireless’ or T-Mobile USA-MetroPCS’s.  Sprint-Clearwire can “maintain it’s unlimited, lower-cost data offering several years longer than any other competitor in the market” without buying new spectrum, according to analyst Roger Entner.  “While all the other carriers are feeling the sprectrum crunch to a varying degree, the New Sprint sits pretty.”

Hoping to not trigger the FCC’s attribution rules, Sprint-Clearwire is trying to downplay the significance of its massive spectrum inventory (“While we have a majority stake, we do not have control of [Clearwire] …” according to a spokesperson for Sprint) .  Sprint gave up direct control of Clearwire’s board of directors – mainly in an attempt to escape potential liability for Clearwire’s debts – but retains de facto control of company.  Now the company needs to convince the FCC to draft the final rules with it’s complicated relationship in mind.  Were Sprint to have “control” of Clearwire, it could potentially be disqualified from bidding for more spectrum in some cases.  Ironically, Congress might be doing Sprint-Clearwire a favor by shutting down this rulemaking proceeding.

Congress ought to help the FCC see that it’s current course is problematic on multiple levels.  First, it will distract the FCC from its primary objective (supplying more spectrum to the market to facilitate abundant mobile broadband services).  Second, it could have unintended consequences, i.e., it could harm consumers.  Third, the market can no longer be described as a “duopoly” in need of government intervention (arguably it never was).  Fourth, with the relentless evolution of technology, the significance of variations in spectrum propagation characteristics is likely to be difficult to predict.  It all adds up to a counterproductive waste of the FCC’s limited resources.

Don’t Let CLECs Throw Consumers Under the Internet Bus

Rather than invest and deploy new networks offering millions of consumers with additional choices for high speed Internet access, CLECs are investing in the regulatory process in hopes the FCC will save them from the inconvenience and expense of transitioning to all-IP infrastructure. The FCC should not allow the self-interest of CLECs to stand in the way of the IP-transition or the delivery of high speed Internet services to millions of residential consumers who demand more choice.

Shortly after AT&T announced “Project Velocity IP,” its plan to invest an additional $14 billion to provide high-speed Internet access to 99 percent of customer locations in its wireline service area, I blogged about the broad consensus among policymakers, pundits, and industry players in support of the announcement. But, “you can never please all of the people all of the time.” Now that the initial buzz around the announcement has abated, the inevitably unpleased few have gone on the offensive.

The few who cannot be pleased by Internet transformation are “competitive local exchange carriers,” also known as “CLECs.” These companies were created in the mid-1990s to provide both residential and business consumers with an additional choice for telephone service, but after the dot-com bubble burst, CLECs chose to limit their offerings to more lucrative business customers in downtown metro areas. They typically do not offer service to residential consumers or businesses that demand additional options in more suburban and rural areas.

While companies that serve all types of American consumers are investing in the transformation of their outdated telephone systems into the all-Internet protocol (IP) infrastructure of the 21st Century to deliver high-speed Internet services to residential consumers, CLECs claim the IP-transition is a “waste of resources” and a “distraction.” Rather than invest and deploy new networks offering millions of consumers with additional choices for high speed Internet access, CLECs are investing in the regulatory process in hopes the FCC will save them from the inconvenience and expense of transitioning to all-IP infrastructure. The FCC should not allow the self-interest of CLECs to stand in the way of the IP-transition or the delivery of high-speed Internet services to millions of residential consumers who demand more choice.

CLECs continue to enjoy a government-created business model established by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The 1996 law gave CLECs the right to lease legacy telephone lines from companies like AT&T at government-mandated, below-market rates. This seemed reasonable when the law was enacted because local telephone service in residential areas was still largely a monopoly. In 1996, mobile phones were still too expensive for many consumer households and cable companies hadn’t begun offering voice services. Congress hoped the law would serve consumers – both business and residential –by giving them a choice of local telephone providers while competition in the communications market was developing.

Unfortunately, CLECs have failed to offer consumers additional choices as Congress had hoped. Rather than compete with telephone companies, cable operators, mobile providers, wireless Internet service providers and others in the residential market for consumer communications services, CLECs primarily lease lines in densely populated areas to serve business customers in office buildings. While telephone companies, cable operators, mobile providers, wireless Internet service providers and others were investing in their own network facilities to support all-IP services, CLECs took advantage of the benefits of government largess by using legacy telephone networks to “cherry pick” profitable business customers at the expense of consumers, who ultimately pay the bill for maintaining and operating this antiquated infrastructure.

CLECs oppose the IP-transition because they do not have a right to lease all-IP network infrastructure at below market rates under the existing rules. Congress did not intend that CLECs rely on government-backed lease rates forever. The ability to use the networks of other providers was a temporary mechanism designed to let CLECs enter the market while they invested in their own network facilities to serve consumers in the long-term. The temporary taking of telephone infrastructure owned by other providers was justified by the fact that the legacy infrastructure CLECs were authorized to lease was built during a monopoly era when the profits of telephone companies were still guaranteed by government. The government hasn’t guaranteed regional telephone companies a monopoly rate of return for over 20 years.

CLECs have no better claim to the new, all-IP infrastructure built by telephone companies since the market was opened to competition than they do to similar infrastructure built by cable operators, mobile providers, wireless Internet service providers and others that have invested billions in new networks over the last two decades. CLECs must bear responsibility for their own decisions to forgo investment in their own networks and rely on lines leased with a temporary government subsidy to serve the business market. As fiber replaces copper and antiquated telephone network facilities are retired, CLECs will have to invest in their own IP-based infrastructure to interconnect with IP-based networks just like the myriad other companies who have done it already. That is how competition works in America.

The time for leasing 1960s telephone technologies is about to sunset. CLECs have had the same opportunity to invest in the all-IP networks necessary to meet consumer demand in the 21st Century as other providers have had over the last 16 years, but chose to reap a windfall in government rents instead. “All things come to an end.” The end of the antiquated telephone network also means the end of government-backed profits for CLECs, who will have to rely on their own investments in 21st Century infrastructure to serve their business customers. If not, infrastructure investment in our economy will falter and millions of residential consumers will end up paying the price with fewer choices, higher monthly bills, and lost jobs.

State Film Industry Incentives: A Growing Cronyism Fiasco

Someone should consider making a movie about wasteful state-based film industy subsidies. It has become quite a cronyist fiasco in a very short period of time.

Some background: State and local tax incentives for movie production have expanded rapidly over the past decade. These inducements include tax credits, sales tax exemptions, cash rebates, direct grants, and tax or fee reductions for lodging or locational shooting. In 2002, only five states offered such inducements for movie production. By the end of 2009, forty-five states had some sort of incentives in place to lure film producers.

In 2010, the film industry received an estimated $1.5 billion in financial commitments from these programs. Unsurprisingly, these incentives have proven very popular with movie studios. Of the nine motion pictures that were nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 2012, five had received taxpayer-funded rebates, tax credits, and subsidies by state governments. “The Help” received a Mississippi spending rebate of $3,547,780 and “The Tree of Life” received $434,253 from Texas. In February 2012, Best Picture-nominee “Moneyball” received as much as $5.8 million from the state of California. It had grossed over $75 million at the box office. More recently, the biopic “Lincoln” received roughly $3.5 million in tax incentives from the Virginia Film Office.

Many state and local governments offer these inducements in the hope of attracting new jobs and investment; other simply seek to bill themselves as “the new Hollywood.” As William Luther of the Tax Foundation notes, “From politicians’ point of view, bringing Hollywood to town is the best of all possible photo opportunities—not just a ribbon-cutting to announce new job creation but a ribbon-cutting with a movie or TV star.” But it seems as if the glamor and prestige associated with films and celebrities have trumped sound economics since there is no evidence these tax incentives help state or local economies.

“Based on fanciful estimates of economic activity and tax revenue, states are investing in movie production projects with small returns and taking unnecessary risks with taxpayer dollars,” noted a 2010 Tax Foundation study. “In return, they attract mostly temporary jobs that are often transplanted from other states.” Studies of specific state incentive programs confirm this finding, almost universally finding miniscule revenue gains for every dollar of film subsidies offered. The adjoining table, derived from a meta-survey of film incentives studies by the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, illustrates how much revenue was lost per net job created by film tax credits as well as how little revenue each program generated for every dollar of state revenues awarded.

 State
Net Revenue Foregone per Net Job Created by Film Tax Credit
Revenue Gained from Feedback Effects per  Dollar of Film Subsidy Claimed($)


Massachusetts
$88,000
$0.16


Connecticut
$33,400
$0.07


Louisiana
$16,100
$0.13


Louisiana
$14,100
$0.18


Michigan
$44,561
$0.11


New Mexico
$13,400
$0.14


New Mexico
($400)
$1.50


Pennsylvania
$13,000
$0.24


New York
($2,000)
$1.90


Arizona
$23,676
$0.28

The only two studies that have revealed positive results for such film incentive programs were both conducted by Ernst and Young on behalf of the New York and New Mexico film offices. All others have shown consistent negative returns. (If you exclude those two Ernst and Young studies that were done for the film offices, the average revenue gained across those other programs is just 16 cents for every dollar of subsidy granted to the film industry. Stated differently, that’s an 84% net loss for these programs. Truly astonishing numbers.)

Recently, some states have begun abandoning or limiting film incentive programs or at least taking a hard look at their effectiveness. Iowa, for example, suspended its film program in 2009 after an investigation revealed a scandal involving much waste and abuse. Ten criminal cases were brought and seven people were eventually convicted. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has also started reining in its film program as evidence has mounted that it has failed to create local jobs and has cost the state a great deal of tax revenue. Check out yesterday’s excellent New York Times article by Louise Story for all the gory details.

In sum, film tax credit cronyism puts taxpayers at risk without any corresponding benefits to them or the state.  Glamor-seeking and state pride seem to be the primary motivational factors driving state legislators to engage in such economically illogical behavior. It’s like “smokestack-chasing” for the Information Age, except in this case you don’t even have a factory left in town after your economic development efforts go bust. This cronyist activity benefits no one other than film studios. States should end their film incentive programs immediately.

Additional Reading:

William Luther, Movie Production Incentives: Blockbuster Support for Lackluster Policy, Tax Foundation, Special Report, no. 173 (January 2010), at 7, http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/sr173.pdf
Robert Tannenwald, State Film Subsidies: Not Much Bang For Too Many Bucks,  Center on Budget & Policy Priorities (Dec. 9, 2010), http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3326
Joseph Henchman, More States Abandon Film Tax Incentives as Programs’ Ineffectiveness Becomes More Apparent, Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact, no. 272 (June 2, 2011), http://taxfoundation.org/article/more-states-abandon-film-tax-incentives-programs-ineffectiveness-becomes-more-apparent.
Louise Story, Michigan Town Woos Hollywood, but Ends Up With a Bit Part, New York Times (December 4, 2012), http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/us/when-hollywood-comes-to-town.html?_r=0.
Will Wilson, Oscar Night Secret: Tax Breaks for Films Go Undisclosed in Many States, Stateline, Feb. 22, 2012,  http://www.pewstates.org/projects/stateline/headlines/oscar-night-secret-tax-breaks-for-films-go-undisclosed-in-many-states-85899375403
Carten Cordell & Kathryn Watson, How Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln Benefited from Crony Capitalism, Reason, Nov. 15, 2012, http://reason.com/archives/2012/11/15/how-steven-spielbergs-lincoln-benefited.

Tom Bell on copyright reform

Tom W. Bell, professor of law at Chapman University and author of the concluding essay in Copyright Unbalanced, a new book edited by Surprisingly Free’s own Jerry Brito, discusses the ways in which copyright has evolved over time and why reform is vital.

Bell differentiates copyright from other types of property, arguing that conflating the two terms causes great confusion amongst laypeople and, over time, corrodes the value placed in tangible property rights. According to Bell, copyright is a privilege created by statute that doesn’t exist in a state of nature and is not recognized by common law.

As a special type of economic good, copyright must be treated differently than tangible property rights, according to Bell, who outlines five proposals for copyright reform.

While Bell is not opposed to copyright, he argues that copyright enforcement has gone too far, and lawmakers should structure policies to lead us towards a world in which we conceivably do without it.

Download

Related Links


Copyright Unbalanced: From Incentive to Excess, by Brito, et al
Intellectual Privilege: A Libertarian View of Copyright, Bell
Copyright Duration and the Mickey Mouse Curve, Tech Liberation Front

So You Want to Be an Internet Policy Analyst?

Each year I am contacted by dozens of people who are looking to break into the field of information technology policy as a think tank analyst, a research fellow at an academic institution, or even as an activist. Some of the people who contact me I already know; most of them I don’t. Some are free-marketeers, but a surprising number of them are independent analysts or even activist-minded Lefties. Some of them are students; others are current professionals looking to change fields (usually because they are stuck in boring job that doesn’t let them channel their intellectual energies in a positive way). Some are lawyers; others are economists, and a growing number are computer science or engineering grads. In sum, it’s a crazy assortment of inquiries I get from people, unified only by their shared desire to move into this exciting field of public policy.

I always do my best to answer their emails, calls, and requests for meetings. Unfortunately, there’s only so much time in the day and I am sometimes not able to get back to all of them. I always feel bad about that, so, this essay is an effort to gather my thoughts and advice and put it all one place so that I will at least have something to send these folks. Perhaps I’ll try to update it over time.

#1) Understand that Specialization Matters

I don’t want to bury the lede here, so let me start with the most important piece of advice I share with everyone who contacts me: specialization matters. When I got started in the sleepy field of information technology policy back in 1991, it was possible to be a jack-of-all-trades. There were only a few issues that really mattered, and most of them were tied up with traditional communications and media policy. If you knew a little something about telephony, universal service subsidies, spectrum policy, and broadcast regulation, then you could be an analyst in this field. There were only a handful of people in the think tank world back then who even cared about such issues.

But then came the Internet. It really did change everything, including this field of policy study. In the old days, people in this field were called telecom policy analysts or media policy analysts. We had titles like “Director of Telecommunications Studies” or “Fellow in Media Studies.” But when the Net came along, it almost instantly made such titles seem archaic. Today, this field is more appropriately labelled “information technology policy studies.” That term incorporates those old telecom and media policy issues, but it includes much more now.

That’s why specialization matters more than ever. In essence, over the past 15 years, the information technology policy world underwent a metamorphosis similar to the one that occurred in the field of environmental policy a decade or two before. In the early days of environmental policy, it was enough to say you were interested in environmental policy at all. That could probably win you a job (or at least an activist role) somewhere in that field. By the mid-1980s, however, the field of environmental policy had become remarkably specialized. Academic programs and public policy jobs started developing around very targeted issues: water, air, waste management, nuclear issues, endangered species, farming / sustainable development, climate change, etc, etc. Today, therefore, if you are looking for a career in the environmental policy arena, you are generally expected to first develop a more finely-honed specialization in one of its many sub-issue areas.

This is exactly what has been happening in the field of information technology policy since the mid-1990s. If you want a career in the field of information technology policy studies today, you need to be thinking about a very specific area of expertise. Do you already have that expertise? Great, then skip to step #5 below. If not, read on.

#2) The Major Areas of Specialization in the Modern Information Technology Policy Arena

OK, so you understand that specialization matters. What specific topic / field should you choose as your particular area of focus? Well, that’s up to you and your particular interests. Here’s the good news: There are more options than ever.

It’s useful to divide the information technology policy world into 3 big buckets (Note: This is a taxonomy that Jerry Brito, Eli Dourado, and I use to think about our priorities of the Mercatus Center’s Technology Policy Program each year):

Conduit / Infrastructure
Content / Speech
Other

Let’s break down each one of these to reveal just how specialized this field has become:

(A) Conduit: Generally refers to anything involving the physical infrastructure side of information technology policy, including:

Broadband policy (including traditional communications / common carrier regs)
Spectrum / Wireless
Universal service (and other tech subsidies)
Media marketplace regs (broadcasting, cable)
Antitrust & mergers

(B) Content: Generally refers to any (mostly intangible) information control or speech control issue

Public Morals / Free Speech (porn, gambling, spam, cyberbullying, political speech, etc)
Privacy (including reputation & defamation concerns)
Cybersecurity (online security, national security concerns, state secrets, encryption controls)
IP (copyright & patents)


(C) Other: The hodge-podge of issues that don’t quite fit into the other two buckets



Internet Governance (ICANN, domain names, international affairs & treaties)
Taxation of online goods or services
Trade policy involving tech

Here’s the key takeaway from this taxonomy: You can develop a specialized career around countless information policy issues today.  Do you want to be a privacy guru? Great, there are countless policy opportunities in that area alone. Do you love freedom of speech? Excellent, you can find plenty of cool gigs there, too. Cybersecurity strike your fancy? No problem. That field is growing like wildfire. And there are entire academic programs and activist institutions that long ago developed around digital copyright.

If you prefer to stick with the “conduit” bucket, have no fear, there exists many opportunities in those sub-areas. I know many professionals who describe themselves as a “cable lawyer” or a “media economist” or an “antitrust consultant.” Those fields are heavily saturated today, however, especially because they tended to pay quite well in the past. That could change as the “content” issues become more visible and important in coming years. Privacy policy is probably the biggest growth market in this regard. Huge opportunities await you there if you are so inclined.

I could go on, but you get the idea: You need to think about specialization because just randomly contacting someone and telling them you want to be an Internet policy analyst today is not enough. You need to be able to tell them, “I am interested in information technology policy and I possess a particular interest/expertise in X.” What “X” is is up to you, but you better have something to fill in that blank.

#3) What Specific Academic Experience Will Help?

Many people who contact me about how to advance their careers in the information technology policy arena are already far along in advanced degree programs or even finished those degrees long ago. But, for what it’s worth, here’s some general advice about which degrees will help you out the most in this arena. They are listed in order of importance:

Law: A law degree from a program with a specialized cyberlaw program will probably help you out most in this arena. It will open more doors for you than the other degrees mentioned below. I suppose that is true for most public policy fields and jobs, of course. Legal experience is also easier to “re-purpose” than other degrees; it offers excellent training for many different professions. The downside: The field of information technology policy is increasingly being flooded with lawyers. While a law degree still offers important advantages over other degrees, that may change if the legal market grows over-saturated. The way to counter that, of course, is to hyper-specialize! Start thinking about how to develop a very targeted legal expertise in privacy law, free speech policy, copyright law, cybersecurity, media/spectrum policy, antitrust law, etc.
Economics: An economics degree offers you the opportunity to analyze public policy using a very different toolbox than the lawyer will use. Economists are in increasing demand in the field of information technology policy because (a) there are just too many damn lawyers in the field already and (b) economists can actually offer some hard data to support their claims or make their case. PhD economists with a focused expertise in a particular tech area can also command a very impressive premium for their skills. (Note: MBAs are less in demand than economists and are generally a rare bird in the information technology policy arena. I am one of them, and I regret to say that it really hasn’t done much to help my career.)
Computer Science / Engineering: Increasingly, employers in this arena are interested in finding skilled CS grads and engineering experts (ex: spectrum engineers) who can tackle special jobs and projects. If you have such expertise, you will be able to cover certain technical policy issues in a far more authoritative fashion. That’s increasingly valuable to institutions as they look to broaden their stable of talent. For example, many policy institutions and even government agencies now hire a “Chief Technologist” to offer the rest of the staff their specialized advice on highly technical matters. In the future, I expect policy institutions will employ several technologists to fit the specialized needs they have.
Poly Sci / Public Policy / History: Degrees in political science, public policy, and even history probably won’t help you out as much as degrees from one of the three previous areas, but it depends on what you are looking to do. Again, the information technology policy arena is specialized enough today that certain jobs will require this skill set. For example, I have personally done a lot of work on cronyism and regulatory capture in this arena and my undergrad degree in poly sci has actually come in quite handy as I try to explain the political economy of high-tech rent-seeking. Similarly, many advanced degrees in public policy today offer very specialized areas of focus that could help. For example, the School of Public Policy here at George Mason University offers a couple of excellent M.A. and PhD. programs related to information technology policy. I’ve found many other Public Policy M.A. and PhD. programs that offer similar degree opportunities.

Needless to say, if you can combine two of these degrees, you’ll be golden. I’m finding a lot more analysts in this field have economics undergrad degrees and then a law degree to boot. Even better, however, would be combining a technical degree in CS or engineering with one of these other degrees. Then you are talking about truly valuable academic experience. And it had damn well better be valuable because you are going to be dead broke after you get done with all that education!

One other point: I don’t want to suggest that you can’t break into the info-tech policy world with other degrees under your belt. There’s a growing group of philosophers and sociologists, for example, who are doing important Internet policy work. Likewise, there have always been major media studies and journalism programs that offered a path toward being a tech policy wonk. (My other undergrad degree was in journalism). For now, however, that policy work is being doing almost exclusively within universities. If you are looking to come to Washington (or a state or international capital) and do public policy work, you would probably be better served having one of the degrees listed above.

#4) What Other Experience Will Help?

Regardless of what academic degree you are pursing or already possess, additional “real-world” experience will help you advance you career in the the information technology policy arena, much like every other policy field. Here’s what I think will be most useful to you:

Hill / govt work: If you can stomach spending a semester or even an entire year working on Capitol Hill or in a regulatory agency, it will do wonders to advance your career in the information technology policy world. It’s not just about the experience you gain from working inside the system; people care about the connections you make, too. When you work for the right sort of Hill office or committee (like Energy & Commerce), or for the right sort of agency (FCC, FTC, NTIA), you gain important connections in those institutions that can benefit you (or your future employer) for many years to come.
Legal associate / clerkship: For you lawyers out there, experience in a firm, or clerking for a judge, puts a big star on any resume and is increasingly important in this field. Again, if you can land a gig in the right firm or with the right judge (one that has a very specialized expertise), that’s even better.
Corporate internship / fellowship: Working for a major corporation or trade association offers very specialized experience that can help advance your career, but it comes with one potential downside: It could label you as being too close to that interest. For example, tech firms like Google and Microsoft offer some wonderful internships and research fellowships, but once you accept such positions it could be held against you by others who, for whatever reason, might have issues with those firms.
University programs/ projects: If you are still at university finishing up a higher degree, are their programs internally that can help advance your career in the information technology policy field? There are obvious things like serving on the law review, but how about more specialized programs that might allow you to work with other tech policy scholars on special reports and projects? Can you help a scholar in that program with research for a big paper? Can you help them build a website to highlight an important new project? Can you join together with other students in your program to develop new sites or tools that highlight a particular public policy issue that you care deeply about?  Stuff like this can help boost your visibility in an increasingly crowded field.
Think tank internship / fellowship: There are a lot of great opportunities available to you in the think tank world, so long as you don’t mind slave wages! Think tanks of all stripes offer aspiring tech policy analysts a wonderful opportunity to get their feet wet and experience the tech policy world first-hand.  Some think tanks will even let interns or junior analysts write for their blogs or at least work on major projects as a research assistant. Again, the pay absolutely blows and you will struggle to make ends meet, but the experience will be quite valuable. If you are already older and looking to shift from you current dead-end profession into the world of Internet policy, think tanks can offer you an excellent platform — perhaps the very best platform of all. Again, the downside is the pay. You won’t be able to command a premium for your talent in the think tank world. They just don’t have the budget to pay you handsomely and there will probably also be plenty of other competition for your position. But you’ll have the opportunity to write and speak and preach like no other job can provide.

Again, if you can combine a few of these things, it’ll be a hell of a resume-builder.

#5) Write (and then write some more!)

Whether you are a student looking to break into this field or an established professional looking to shift job, there is one piece of advice I have for all of you: If you really want to get involved in the information technology policy world, you need to start writing about the information technology policy world.

I suppose this general word of advice could apply to all public policy fields and professions, but the reason it is particularly important in this field is because, quite obviously, we are in the information business! We are using the same technologies we are writing about. And people in our arena generally use these technologies far more aggressively than people in other professions. So, it is generally expected that you should be using them, too.

There are two specific reasons why writing is vitally important. First, it shows others you have a deep interest (and potential expertise) in information technology policy. Second, it serves as a writing sample when others want to gauge your capabilities and grasp of the issues.

Here are a few ways you can start writing more and building your brand:

Start a blog or start blogging with others: If you’re already doing so, that’s great. But kick it up a notch. Just find anything that interests you — an academic paper, a news report, another blog post — and write about it. Even if you just summarize that other piece and add a line or two of commentary, that’s something. It’ll help get your name out there and help you develop your own brand. Better yet, when you write about others and their work or advocacy, they see it. Most academics and policy wonks have a big enough ego that they probably have a Google Alert set up for their own name. I certainly do because I want to know what others are saying about me and my work. So, if I see you writing about me, I’m going to be far more likely to add your blog to my RSS feed or even follow you on Twitter.
Try to publish something “professionally”: If you can, find a way to get some of your work published in a academic journal, a professional publication, or a leading media outlet in the field. I realize that this isn’t easy. Sometimes it will be impossible, especially at a young age when you are first breaking into the field. But the good news is that there are more outlets than ever and, if you work hard enough, you’ll eventually find one of them that will republish your work. Having a few independent publications under your belt and on your resume can really help jumpstart your career in the policy world. It goes without saying that getting published matters even more if you’re hoping to secure a position with a university-based research center. If your work is more academic in character, get is on SSRN immediately.
Use Twitter and other social media services (but be careful): Twitter can do wonders to help you build a following in the information technology policy arena by (1) letting you share your insights about tech policy with the world and, more importantly, (2) getting you connected with well-established figures in the field. Not every tech guru will follow you back once you start following them, but many will. And, with enough work (and a little brown-nosing), you will eventually get on their radar screen. For example, if you enjoy papers and essays by a particular cyberlaw guru or digital policy economist, retweet their work and add a thoughtful comment. Keep doing that for them and others. And do the same for journalists who post interesting tech policy stories. Put all these people on a curated Twitter list of your own and label it something flattering like “Tech Policy Gurus” or “Best Net Policy Wonks.” I can say from personal experience that when I find myself on such lists, I am more likely to follow the people who created them. One word of caution about Twitter and social media, however: Being provocative can get you noticed, but it can also piss people off and cost you followers / respect. Worse yet, it could come back to haunt you when you pursue future job opportunities. If you are at the stage in your career where you are fairly well-established and don’t necessary care as much about what the rest of the world thinks about you (hey, that’s me!), then it’s easier to get away with being provocative and even a bit snarky online. But when you are young and just getting started, be careful not to burn bridges before you’ve even built any. Be friendly, at least at first. There will be plenty of time in the future for you to tell me that you think I am full of sh*t!

#6) Network

Sure, you can get plenty of networking done using online tools and strategies, some of which I discussed above. But meeting people in person still matters. A little face time and a few handshakes can open up opportunities that you would otherwise not even known existed. Toward that end, if you are near a major university center or city that hosts occasional tech policy events, get to them. Or, if you can, plan occasional visits to major university events or other tech policy galas. When you visit these places, see if you can schedule a few minutes of private face time with leading analysts that you respect. Tell them how much you value their time but ask for just a few minutes with them to get some advice on how to be the next great tech policy analyst, just like them! (Again, flattery gets you everywhere in this world).

Finally, if you are lucky enough to live near Washington, DC, then you’ll have no problem finding an endless array of technology policy events to attend on a near-daily basis.  Get to as many as you can and introduce yourself to as many people as possible. Tell them all you are interested in pursuing a career in the information technology field and stress the particular area of policy that most interests you. I have probably found more jobs for people during cocktail hours than anything else. One person will come up to me and explain their interests and background and then I will point them to the 2 or 3 other people in the room who can help them advance their particular career objective.

#7) Read

Geez… do I really need to say this? Well, I do only because I wanted to offer a list of a few things I read regularly to keep my finger on the pulse of the info-tech policy world. Perhaps the easiest way to do so is to just list some of what’s in my daily RSS and/or Twitter feed. Here’s a sample:

Tech News: Ars Technica, National Journal’s Tech Daily Dose, The Hill’s Hillicon Valley, WSJ tech reporters and “Digits” blog, NYT’s technology feed, GigaOm, CNet tech policy
Tech Policy Blogs: The Technology Liberation Front (of course!), EFF Deeplinks, TechDirt, Freedom to Tinker, Digitopoly, Public Knowledge blog, CDT blog, Monday Note, Rough Type, Regulation 2.0, various Forbes contributors
Cyberlaw centers: Berkman at Harvard, CIS at Stanford, CLIP at Fordham, CLI at Maine, Yale ISP, HTLI at Santa Clara, Boalt Center at Berkeley, IEP at George Mason (here’s the list of them all that I follow on Twitter)
Corporate / Law Firm Blogs: Google, Verizon, AT&T, and many other companies and trade associations have blogs worth following. Also, law firms are finally starting to open to door a bit to blogging, although they are still hyper-cautious about it. I follow a couple of law firm blogs that have top privacy and antitrust attorneys blogging for them. I can’t even begin to name them all here.

This just scratches the surface.  Again, the more specialized your focus, the more likely it is you’ll follow very targeted blogs and media outlets. For example, there are dozens of targeted blogs on copyright and privacy policy. I follow many of them casually on Twitter but don’t keep them in my daily RSS feed.

More generally, you should be keeping up with major Internet policy books so that you are conversant in intellectual circles about the hottest publications du jour. That can be challenging — both because reading books takes time and the field is increasingly crowded with new titles. At the end of each year, I try to put together a list of important info-tech policy books. (Here are the lists for 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011). You should try to be familiar with some of the big titles on those lists. Also, here’s my compendium of all the major titles from the 2000s and here’s the running list of all my tech policy book reviews.

Conclusion

Well, that’s all I got for ya. I promise to try to offer my thoughts to you in person or via email if you call or write, but please understand that I’m just sometimes too busy to respond to everyone at length. But I hope what I’ve written here helps some of you out in your effort to break into the tech policy world.  Best of luck, and if you make it big, buy me a beer someday!

What I’m Telling Thursday’s Panelists

This morning, I’m gearing up for Thursday’s noon-time Cato book forum on the Mercatus/Jerry Brito book, Copyright Unbalanced: From Incentive to Excess.

With the recent release and withdrawal of a Republican Study Committee memo on copyright policy, there is even greater tension around the issues than usual. So here’s a line from the planning email I sent to panelists Jerry Brito, Tom W. Bell, and Mitch Glazier.

Given how hot the issues we’ll discuss tend to be, I’ll emphasize that we’re all friends through the transitive property of friendship. I’ll be policing against ad hominem and stuff like that coming from any side. In other words, don’t bother saying or implying why a co-panelist thinks what he does because you don’t know, and because I’ll make fun of you for it.

It might be worth coming just to see how well I do with my moderation duties. Whatever the case, I think our panelists will provide a vibrant discussion on the question of where libertarians and conservatives should be on copyright. Register here now.

New book makes free-market case for copyright reform

After almost a year in the making, I’m happy to announce today that the new book I’ve edited, Copyright Unbalanced: From Incentive to Excess is now available. The book is not a moral case for or against copyright; it is a pragmatic look at the excesses of the present copyright regime from a free-market, limited government perspective.

Given the recent debate sparked by the retracted RSC copyright memo, it’s important that we make the case that respect for property rights, including intellectual property, is not incompatible with criticism of the sometimes cronyist copyright system that we have today. Conservatives and libertarians, who are naturally suspicious of big government, should be skeptical of our ever-expanding copyright system. They should also be skeptical of the recent trend toward criminal prosecution of even minor copyright infringements, of the growing use of civil asset forfeiture in copyright enforcement, and of attempts to regulate the Internet and electronics in the name of piracy eradication. These are the issues Copyright Unbalanced addresses.

Contributors include yours truly, Reihan Salam, Patrick Ruffini, David G. Post, Tim Lee, Christina Mulligan, Eli Dourado and Tom W. Bell. It’s an amazing line-up of thoughtful essays. The book is available at Amazon.com, although the Kindle ebook version will be out in a couple of days. There is also a book website where you can learn more about the book and read the first chapter, “Why Conservatives and Libertarians Should Be Skeptical of Congress’s Copyright Regime.” And here is a wonderful write-up of our book for Bloomberg by Virginia Postrel.

Also, I will be speaking at several copyright events in the next two weeks. These are all open to the public and I hope you will be able to attend.

The State of Copyright Law and Where to Start to Fix It , hosted by Public Knowledge, Tuesday, December 4, 2012, 2:00 PM – Rayburn House Office Building
Book Forum for Copyright Unbalanced , hosted by the Cato Institute, Thursday, December 6, 2012, 12:00 PM
CopyRIGHT: Can Free Marketeers Agree On Copyright Reform? , hosted by TechFreedom, Dec. 13, 2012, 3:00 PM, U.S. Capitol

A special thanks goes out to the contributors, who made the book possible, and to the staff of the Mercatus Center who made it a reality. The moment is ripe for copyright reform and for conservatives and libertarians to take leadership on the issue. I hope we can make a constructive contribution to that effort.