<<Bill Thompson>>




	Bill Thompson - “Is Big Business Killing the Net?” VIEW THE LIVE STREAM HERE (9th December 2002, 7-10pm) CONTRIBUTE TO THE BLOG HERE <http://bill.verity-networks.com/cybersalon/> About Bill Thompson Bill Thompson is a 'controversialist' - at least according to The Guardian - and pioneer of new media in the UK. Founder of The Guardian's New Media Lab in the mid 1990's, he ran the world's first live webcast from the ICA in 1994, created the first Website for an elected representative within the EU (Anne Campbell, 1995) and ran the first and so far only online debate for the Prime Minister's Office (Nexus, 1997). Now he writes and talks about this stuff. He writes regularly for BBCi and Internet Magazine and irregularly for The Register and The Guardian. Bill is tame geek on Go Digital on the World Service. LINKS All the gory details are on andfinally.com: Bill Thompson's home on the web <www.andfinally.com> Bill Thompson’s weekly column on BBC WebWise <www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/> ESSAYS E-mutualism? or the tragedy of the dot.commons? <www.andfinally.com/emutualism> Bill Thompson considers the development and future prospects for the Internet, and how the co-operative ethos has infused it from its inception and may, if appropriate action is taken, continue to support its future development and growth. Why Orwell Would Love the Web <www.andfinally.com/essays/orwell.html> Paraphrasing Orwell's ‘Politics and the English Language, Bill Thompson suggests that people who bother with the matter at all would admit that Web writing is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Dump the Web <www.andfinally.com/essays/dumpweb.html> The Web is dead – it just hasn’t realised it yet and, like a cartoon character running off a cliff, remains suspended in mid-air, held aloft only by the lack of understanding of its users and developers.		About The Talk “Is Big Business Killing the Net?" “The Web is dead – it just hasn’t realised it yet and, like a cartoon character running off a cliff, remains suspended in mid-air, held aloft only by the lack of understanding of its users and developers.” If we want a networked future, and we want the network to serve the interests of the whole world and not just one class or other – neither the geeks or the corporations – then we have to embrace the regulated net and abandon today’s Internet. Unless we recognise this and start thinking about how we will exert democratic control over that new network then we will, by default, leave it to the corporations. Because the new network will not be a self-organising system, it will not be some anarchist paradise or even a libertarian cyberstate. If we do not ensure that the new network is properly incorporated into existing political systems of control, so that our governments can pass laws which are effective online and we can use our strength as citizens to fight for good laws, then we will give up control to the corporations. In this talk Bill Thompson will look at some of the ways in which the future growth of the Internet can be shaped by those who think copyright means fair use not total control by the music industry, by those who think that freedom of speech matters more than transaction charges for content, and by those who think the global network can be a force for social good. He even has a good geeky plan for building the old Internet on top of the new. "You'll have to pry my private key from my cold dead hands" "Your proposal is acceptable..."