Bill of Media-Consumer Rights

The texts on this page are drafts and ideas, so please comment if you have thoughts, ideas or suggestions. I think any project like the one suggested here would have to be a sort of grass-roots movement.

I started to write this page after feeling that there's something wrong about logging on to a social network like facebook or myspace and having to become a captive audience for advertising. Unlike with television, users of the social web can't just turn off this advertising machine; once we develop a network of friends and our own page, we've invested in the system, so it's hard not to keep our accounts active.

Do we need to be making money for companies that are just providing us with space on their networks? Mark Zuckerberg, head of Facebook, was recently telling advertisers that the old advertising paradigm isn't enough any longer, and that now the place to advertise is "in the conversations." Do we need his fingers in our conversations? Our friendships?

On this page are some thoughts about how the situation might be changed, and thoughts about distribution and payment systems for digital media in general. They are not polished ideas, but maybe they will contribute to the ongoing discussion about the future of the social web or, in the best case, help motivate someone to start a project like the one suggested.

A friend already pointed out the Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web (http://opensocialweb.org/2007/09/05/bill-of-rights/). The texts on this page were drafted without knowledge of the texts on that page, just seven weeks later, so there seems to be a timeliness to the projects the pages advocate.

I agree with the Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web, but I think it may be possible to go further, depending on how peer-to-peer media exchange is structured in the future, so that corporate power plays a much smaller role controlling digital media in general. Also, it should be possible to make advertising play a smaller part in shaping our everyday reality.

With respect to our current daily exposure to the influence of corporations, I think it can be said that 'unjust powers are never seen as such until alternatives are recognized'.

Thanks for reading,

Charles L.

Media-Consumer Rights:

Since distribution of material in the digital media costs little and media are instantly customizable, every user of the internet has the right to:

1. Freedom of choice with respect to viewing advertising. Since being exposed to advertisements is a method of payment, users should be able to choose whether to view advertising or, as an alternative, to directly pay the small sums otherwise generated by it. The locus of decision-making with regard to linking media products with advertising has been in the hands of media companies until now due to the practical constraints on traditional media. However, the proper location of the decision to view advertising is with the consumer. Software shall be developed to allow users to decide in real time whether to view advertising.

I bracket these two because they're not so strictly rights, but rather 'should-bes':

(2. Something like: Freedom of expression in the public digital space of social networks. Since social networking sites have become as ubiquitous and as personal as everyday conversations on the street, social networking should be free of corporate control. Social networks are like the sidewalk; they should neither be profited from nor controlled except as appropriate through the legal system.)

(3. Something like: Freedom of expression with regard to professional work. Constraints on traditional media, including the internet software of today, have forced professional authors and artists to submit to artificial hierarchies of control through media companies and editorial boards in order to get sufficient remuneration to pursue media-related professions. Through innovations in software, an 'open media network' can and should allow for professional expression to be remunerated and consumed in more direct correlation to market demands (for example, through enabling instant and automatic one-cent-purchasing of articles/songs from non-corporate web pages; pay-as-you-consume content), as opposed to being based to a significant degree on the decisions of a few individuals who have the power to publish, distribute and advertise.)