The following contains excerpts from the book, The Laws of Disruption (Larry Downes).
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we believe that music is more than sound, it is relationships. And the subject of Leadership plays a key role in understanding how relationships work. The following information can be applied to business as well as music and the arts, as it deals with an understanding of the dynamics of leadership, and therefore relationships.
In this book, business strategist Larry Downes, explains in detail why digital technologies will advance even more and have greater impact on society, examining the root of the changes which will ultimately bring about a shifting future.
The author states that when a new technology is introduced, society must adapt. To understand how a major technological change creates far-reaching ripples, consider the effect of replacing metal stirrups with “flexible leather” stirrups in Europe during Charlemagne’s reign. This simple innovation provided medieval knights with more balance, efficacy and deadly success. Essentially, the leather stirrup “saved Europe.” But, rather than pay their knights directly, kings gave them land and the right to collect rent. This led to a structured feudal society that outlasted by 1,000 years the initial need to pay victorious mounted knights.
Consider the effect of another disruptive technology, the railroad, which changed shipping in 19th century America. The courts had no “clear precedent to determine ‘fair’ rates” for rail shipping. Attempts to adapt old laws proved useless.
Now, digital technologies are the disruptive innovation creating a sweeping revolution. In this case, as in many of the others, “technology changes exponentially but social, economic and legal systems change incrementally.” Thus, the “analog world” is reaching a point where it can no longer keep up with “digital life,” forcing a paradigm shift in which existing systems fall and replacement systems come about to make better sense of new changes. Older laws become useless because they are based on assumptions that no longer apply.
In our music school in Odessa, Texas we understand the importance of keeping up with technological advancement in music and the arts, which is why we are pioneering new uses of technology in the use of avant-garde tuning systems and Integrated Frequency.
The following three laws explain the changes digital technology is creating:
1. “Moore’s Law” – In 1965, Intel’s founder, Gordon Moore, predicted that computer chip “processing power” would double every 12-18 months without a rise in users’ costs. This has held true since. Software has “zero marginal cost,” unlike the carrying costs of older consumer goods.
2. “Metcalfe’s Law” – “Networking pioneer” Robert Metcalfe said that networks become more valuable the more people use them.
3. “The Law of Disruption” – The dissemination of change is “uneven.” Various elements of society struggle to keep up with rapid technological change.
The digital and material economies function differently. Most material products are “rivalrous goods.” If one person uses them, another cannot. Two people can’t build a house on the same site. Digital goods are largely “nonrivalrous.” In other words, several people can use them at the same time. Copying a song doesn’t use it up, destroy it or keep anyone else from using it. This information-based digital economy follows five general principles:
1. “Renewability” – You can renew data, but not exhaust it.
2. “Universality” – Everyone can access the same data simultaneously.
3. “Magnetism” – Information grows in value as more people absorb it, which in turn creates a network effect, drawing more people who want to learn.
4. “Lack of friction” – The more smoothly information flows, the more valuable it is.
5. “Vulnerability” – Criminals can harm or misuse information. They can destroy it, ruin it or steal it (identity theft). In this one sense, data is like physical goods.
The author shows 9 different laws which are all contributing factors to the ‘Law of Disruption’.
“Law One: Convergence – When Worlds Collide”
When the physical world and the digital world clash, society has to negotiate the chaos. Consider the repeated court battles between the Beatles’ Apple Corporation and Apple Computers. First, they fought
over the name. The courts resolved that by dividing up business arenas: the Beatles could use the name to sell music, while Apple Computers could use it for computers and related technologies. The convergence problem emerged with the development of the digital transfer of music and then of iTunes. Changing technology led Apple Computers into a new area where earlier delineations between operating areas no longer applied. Today, you can download Beatles songs from Apple Computers. Such changes, though they take time to unfold, are happening across society.
Emergent networks let tech users communicate and collaborate, so they easily can organize against obsolete structures. They seek a legal system that finds justice by creating new approaches, not adapting old ones.
Collaboration in music and the arts is one of the areas we encourage at our music school in Odessa, Texas. With the advent of online possibilities, collaboration is becoming increasingly easier remotely between artists, allowing the possibility of online tutoring and even simultaneous remote musical ensemble participation.
“Law Two: Personal Information – From Privacy to Propriety”
Personal information issues are shifting from matters of privacy to issues of propriety. People think that “they have a right to privacy,” but they don’t agree on its extent or origins. In fact, no universally accepted right to privacy exists. On the Web, personal information is currency, so protect yourself. Offer your data pragmatically to meet your own purposes. If your firm collects personal data, safeguard it.
“Law Three: Human Rights – Social Contracts in Digital Life”
Technological disruption has radically changed human rights. Some of this shift is due to external factors, such as the U.S. government’s increased monitoring due to its “war on terror.” Other changes result from the clash of the physical and digital realms in human rights. Just as no universal right to privacy exists, no universally recognized human rights exist either. Specific governments grant their citizens some rights, but which national rules apply in the borderless digital realm? Ultimately, governmental attempts to protect civil rights in the digital world will fail. The best alternative is a set of “social contracts” like Facebook has established. Companies set a precedent by asking people to accept their codes in order to gain admission to their online communities.
Even though these subjects are still in flux and debate, the main premise of human interaction and consent should remain at the fore, which is why we encourage participation and collaboration at our music school in Odessa, Texas, where each individual is respected and encouraged to participate in ensembles and interactive creativity.
“Law Four: Infrastructure – Rules of the Road on the Information Highway”
In 1974, the U.S. Justice Department sued monopolistic AT&T “under federal antitrust laws.” After lengthy proceedings, the government split AT&T into seven regional companies. This required complex implementation and monitoring until the 1996 Communications Act passed. This law set out to deregulate telecommunications, but the Law of Disruption arrived first. While the U.S. government tried to decide what to do with telecommunications and how to do it, the Web exploded into existence, generating new physical infrastructures, such as fiber-optic cables, and new uses for old technologies, such as using voice lines to transmit data. This demonstrates disruption’s fourth law: The digital world will change the existing infrastructure and its use.
“Law Five: Business – All Regulation Is Local”
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) played a major role at a time when technology firms held local monopolies over essential telephone communication and had to be compelled to serve not-at-all profitable rural areas as well as profitable cities. The need for such regulations, and even for distinguishing between phones and other communication technologies, no longer exists. In general, governments are good at “establishing the basic protocols” of an infrastructure and at helping to distribute “sparse resources.” Governments should fund research and provide safety nets, but should not apply outdated, moralistic or, in the modern marketplace, regional laws to the digital world, which has bypassed most such regulations. Many laws make online interactions harder without benefiting anyone. Instead, the public needs a “single uniform law of digital commerce”.
“Law Six: Crime – Public Wrongs, Private Remedies”
In the digital world, “crime is just another kind of information use.” Like most laws, policing agencies generally are bound by geography, which limits their effectiveness against digital crooks. Too often, officers don’t know the digital world. Data-gathering firms can self-regulate to some extent and can use the “Code of Practice for Information Security Management” to reduce the likelihood of identity theft. The free market could offer insurance against identity theft. Criminals also attack the digital realm with spam and viruses- often, the perpetrators operate under free-speech laws. Using technological solutions and taking advantage of “the Internet’s decentralized design,” fortunately makes it somewhat resistant to disruption.
“Law Seven: Copyright – Reset the Balance”
Existing copyright law is partly “archaic” and partly useless in a digital world, where copying files is so easy. Recent actions by U.S. lawmakers, such as lengthening the term of copyrights, including retroactive extensions, make the situation worse. Additional steps taken by large corporations, such as instituting piracy-prevention mechanisms, also have a negative impact. These actions generate lawsuits, impede creativity and fail to block piracy or account for the digital world’s speed of change. Three actions would help:
1. Reduce the length of copyrights, making them more “realistic” and releasing works to the public domain sooner.
2. Restore laws on “fair use” to keep companies from duplicating and selling content that belongs to other parties. This will reduce lawsuits.
3. Reverse the “Digital Millennium Copyright Act,” which stifles free speech and disrupts the balance “between information producers and users.”
“Law Eight: Patent – Virtual Machines Need Virtual Lubricants”
Current law tries to treat software like a patented product. This doesn’t work because of the speed with which software is developed and becomes obsolete, the nature of software development, and the way software reuses “prior art,” in that new programs are built on their earlier versions. The U.S. must change its patent laws to adjust for this.
“Law Nine: Software – Open Always Wins…Eventually”
Software, digital life’s raw material, enables computers to function. Copyright and patent laws now protect software, but the way these laws are drafted fundamentally misunderstands the nature of software and the digital economy. Rather than selling it, creators should give software away or sell it by subscription. In the end, open always wins. Adapting systems for greater openness fosters additional innovation.
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we understand that inspiration often comes from outside sources to our own lives. We are inspired by someone else’s creativity and then we use that creativity and either immolate it, or re-purpose the gist of the idea. This is common in the arts. However, we also believe that respect should be extended to the artist who steps out and creates in bold new ways, even if the core ideas have existed in some other form prior to this creativity.
The world we currently live in is obviously changing rapidly. The ideologies espoused by this book’s author, and many others who agree with similar views, are only showing where we are today and will be in the very near future. I think what they are missing, however, is that:
- There cannot be continued openness and fairness in the digital world, due to the ‘human condition’ which is bent towards greed and selfishness.
- Those who are ultimately wronged by people’s misuse of digital technologies will cry out for justice.
- To answer the cry for ‘justice’ people will have to ultimately elect a ruling authority (whether it be a Macro-Internet structure like Google, Comcast, etc. or some kind of cross-national policing)
- Once this happens, the ‘freedoms’ of the Internet will cease to exist, being subjected to whoever rules it.
- Enjoy it while it lasts.
In my opinion, the notion that everything should become ‘open-source’ sounds a little too much like Communism for my liking. The failure of Communism was not that ‘everyone would be equal’ but rather that someone had to make sure that ‘everyone would be equal’. The failure to take into account the human condition always has dire consequences.
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we endeavor to instill into our student’s approach to music and the arts, as well as their development as productive members of our society, that respect for others is still important, regardless of how far-reaching technological possibilities extend our artistic and human reach.