However, this centralised vision of computer-mediated communications is already technically obsolete. But, without constant monitoring from above, the effectiveness of encryption and other security devices is limited. When no one is looking, media commodities will spontaneously transmute into free gifts on the Net. Only fear of punishment can force everyone inside the digital Panoptican. For the media corporations, the 'negative' form of media freedom now means state enforcement of economic censorship.
Free trade is more important than free speech.
According to the Free Software Foundation, this growing contradiction between legality and reality within the Net can only be resolved by extending the scope of the First Amendment. The 'negative' concept of media freedom must apply to private corporations as well as public institutions. Although producers should still be able to prevent their own work from being claimed by others, everyone must be allowed to copy and alter information for their own purposes. Free speech is freedom from compulsory commodification 52 . Even this proposal isn't radical enough for some Net pioneers.