adversarial interoperability
*“That’s when you create a new product or service that plugs into the existing ones without the permission of the companies that make them,” writes Cory Doctorow, special advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
– Breaking Tech Open: Why Social Platforms Should Work More Like Email - The Re…
“Think of third-party printer ink, alternative app stores, or independent repair shops that use compatible parts from rival manufacturers to fix your car or your phone or your tractor.”
– Breaking Tech Open: Why Social Platforms Should Work More Like Email - The Re…
Without adversarial interoperability, users have limited agency and innovation is stifled.
– Breaking Tech Open: Why Social Platforms Should Work More Like Email - The Re…
The writer Cory Doctorow talks about “adversarial interoperability,” which describes a situation where one service communicates with another without the latter’s permission, or perhaps only with grudging permission secured through legislation.
For most of modern history, this kind of guerrilla interoperability, achieved through reverse engineering, bots, scraping and other permissionless tactics, were the norm. But a growing thicket of “IP” laws creates severe legal jeopardy for these time-honored traditions. Just one of these IP rules — the “anti-circumvention” provision in Section 1201 of 1998’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act — provides for a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine for anyone who bypasses “an effective means of access control.” And that’s for a first offense!