June 11, 2003

An application of the sociology of interestingness ...

In my readings on reputation I came across this paper which spread across the Blogosphere last week and apparently received a fairly good amount of discussion at the Economics of P2P Conference last week. In "Trusted Computing, Peer-To-Peer Distribution, and the Economics of Pirated Entertainment" Stuart Schecter et al, argue that Trusted Computing could be of great use to developers of P2P networks for distributing unauthorized copies. This is ironic in that Trusted Computing was designed in conjunction with the entertainment industry specifically to combat "piracy".

The paper is prototypically interesting in the sense explained by Davis in 1971 in a great paper he titled "That's Interesting" (but pretentiously sub-titled "Towards a Phenomenology of Sociology and a Sociology ofPhenomenology").

Davis examined papers and theories from Social Science and sought the reasons that some papers where considered interesting while others where not. It is well worth a read - especially if one wants to write interesting papers. The bottom line is that one must challenge a taken-for-granted assumption of the audience. There is also a great classification of types of interesting papers. I think this one is a combination of a type vi(b) interesting paper that comments on Function - "What seems to be a phenomenon that functions effectively as a means for the attainment of an end is in reality a phenomenon that functions ineffectively." and a type vii(a) "What seems to be a bad phenomenon is in reality a good phenomenon."

As a footnote - there is not a lot of economics in this paper - rather it is good political economy that takes me back to the good ol' days at University of Sydney Political Economy days ;) Trusted Computing proves to be an interesting round in the Political Economy of Digital Reproduction.

Currently listening to Subterranean Homesick Blues from the album "Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits" by Bob Dylan Posted by james at June 11, 2003 01:00 PM