IP: Ex-PBS and FCC chiefs want $18 billion new agency, WSJ says

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

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>Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 02:22:29 -0400
>To: politech@politechbot.com
>From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
>
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>
>I'm not sure why this below article is news. The Grossman-Minow duo were 
>highlighted in Gary Chapman's now-discontinued LA Times column on May 5. 
>Chapman reported the pair are eager to launch a new federal bureaucracy, a 
>"Digital Opportunity Investment Trust, a public agency modeled on the 
>National Science Foundation." It'll be paid for with $18 billion in 
>spectrum auctions -- money that could have given every American family 
>perhaps $100-$200 in tax rebates instead.
>
>Chapman laments that "new developments in online business are creating a 
>heightened sense of urgency because many Web-based companies are starting 
>to explore 'pay-per-view' or subscription-based fees to maximize the value 
>of their intellectual property."
>
>Well, yes. Advertising is in the toilet, so companies are choosing to sell 
>content as an alternative to going out of business. Salon is a perfect 
>example, and plenty of news articles have described how other 
>formerly-free services are trending toward pay services. This is not a 
>pernicious development; in fact it has advantages. On pay services, we 
>won't see as many ads.
>
>As for this new federal agency, who needs it? There already are more 
>"public spaces" on the Net than content to fill them -- I daresay Grossman 
>and Minow have never been on Usenet -- and setting up a web server with a 
>large hard drive is hardly expensive. If people really want content 
>online, the market will respond by producing it. We don't have $18 billion 
>federal book, magazine or newspaper projects, but somehow we see splendid 
>writing nonetheless.
>
>I talked about this at greater length instead of in midnight-rant form in 
>my testimony last year before the Democracy Online Project:
>http://www.politechbot.com/p-01184.html
>
>-Declan
>
>*********
>
>WHY NOT FUND ONLINE CONTENT?
>Lawrence K. Grossman, former president of PBS, and Newton Minow, former 
>FCC chief, have proposed what they call a Digital Opportunity Investment 
>Trust, which would be a federally chartered agency along the lines of the 
>National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health. The goal 
>would be public funding of online content, focusing on educational and 
>civic uses of digital technology. The money ($18 billion), which the 
>backers suggest could be taken from spectrum auction revenues, would be 
>used to help build worthwhile places to visit in cyberspace: "You could 
>have a virtual solar system, a 3D model of the human body or a recreation 
>of Mark Twain's America," says Grossman. Minow compares his Digital 
>Promise Project's approach to the 19th-century legislation that created 
>land-grant colleges. "There's an opportunity to do that again," he says. 
>(Wall Street Journal 23 Jul 2001)
>http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB995840737736919399.htm
>
>
>Democratizing Information
>Jun. 3, 2001 07:26 ET
>http://www.latimes.com/print/editorials/20010602/t000045934.html
>
>Television, more vast than ever, turns toxic Author of famed '61 quote 
>revisits the vast wasteland
>May. 10, 2001 04:46 ET
>http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20010509/3301798s.htm
>
>Paying for Net Foils 'Public Space' Idea
>May. 4, 2001 05:57 ET
>http://www.latimes.com/print/techtimes/20010503/t000037177.html
>
>
>
>
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