JB

This week’s I Ching question comes from Joyce Park, who writes with pride “Having been born in the only country with I Ching symbols on the flag, I’m game!” (That’s South Korea, for those of you who were wondering.)

Her question is:

“Will the media companies seek a further extension of copyright law by 2019?”

Generally speaking one shouldn’t ask the I Ching questions that one already knows the answers to ;-). But what the heck, perhaps the Book of Changes has some additional wisdom to share with us.

I consulted the Book of Changes, and I received hexagram 13 (Fellowship with People), line 3 moving.

Here is the text:

Nine in the third place:

Hiding armed troops in the thicket,
He climbs the high hill.
Yet for three years he does not rise up.

The commentaries on the line read:

In the third line, the group’s unity has been compromised by mistrust. The participants have developed divergent interests and goals. Cooperation has given way to competition. Each person has his own secret ambitions and seeks to dominate the others. Hence the text says, “[h]iding armed troops in the thicket.” Moreover, knowing his or her own mental reservations, each person suspects the others of having similar designs, for when people are no longer trustworthy, they no longer trust anyone else. Each person begins to spy on the others, hoping to catch them in their duplicity. And all of the remarks and actions of others, however innocent, can be interpreted as signs of impending betrayal or ambush. Cycles of mutual distrust and alienation grow. As a result, the group can make no progress.

You must break the cycle of mistrust before it becomes too pronounced. Reexamine your goals and your hopes for the group. Secrecy must give way to open discussion. A new agreement on the goals and aims of the fellowship must be forged in light of changed circumstances so that trust can be reestablished and bonds of loyalty renewed. If the participants can recognize that they are indeed working on a joint enterprise, they will be able to live with disagreements about how to proceed.

The theme of this line is the mistrust generated when people try to grab everything for themselves. Then they spread distrust and antagonism in society, and destroy the common bonds that make successful cooperation possible. For someone like me, who thinks that our culture is a common product that we all share in and benefit from, the message is quite clear. Media companies are in the business of maximizing profits, so they will probably try to grab as much as they can, but this is not necessarily a good thing. Rather, we have to come to a new bargain about culture in the digital age that will allow media stakeholders to make a living but will also benefit society as a whole. The current path we are traveling– which simply encourages companies to push for greater and greater control over media products with less and less concern about the public domain-- does not accomplish this.

At the same time, people who want freer access to media products (and I count myself in this group) must behave responsibly and give media companies reasons to trust that they will not be taken unfair advantage of. They should work toward positive legal and technical solutions that help establish and enforce a new social bargain about culture. It's important to understand that the current policies of media companies seeking expansive intellectual property protections and control over consumers are not simply motivated by the desire to make money; they are also motivated by the fear and uncertainty produced by the disruptive effects of new digital technologies. Only a new bargain that respects the interests of all will prove stable and produce beneficial cooperation in the long run.

If you have a question you would like posed to the I Ching, please send it along by e-mail. I’ll pick a question every week or so and publish the results online. Please don’t ask questions you wouldn’t want generally discussed in public. And please don’t ask about stock tips; the Oracle has been warned more than once about the rules against insider trading.