#Editor of Chroniques de Cybérie, a weekly report of Internet news
Chroniques de Cybérie was launched in November 1994 as a weekly newsletter sent
by email. Since April 1995, it has been available on the Web. Both versions are
currently available: the e-mail version (5,000 subscribers) and the Web version.
In The New York Times, Bruno Giussani wrote: "Jean-Pierre Cloutier (...) is one
of the leading figures of the French-speaking Internet community. Cloutier
writes one of the most intelligent, passionate and insightful electronic
newsletters available on the Internet (...) an original mix of relevant Internet
news, clear political analysis and no-nonsense personal opinions, (...) a
publication that gave readers the feeling that they were living 'week after week
in the intimacy of a planetary revolution'."
*Interview of June 8, 1998 (original interview in French)
= Could you tell us about your professional work?
There are two different things. First I was a translator (after working in
communications). I got connected to the Internet at the request of my small
translation company's customers because it made it easier to receive the work to
translate and then send the result back to them. Quite quickly, I began to get a
broader range of customers, including some in the US.
Then I made a switch. I stopped translating and became a columnist. At first I
was doing it part-time, but it soon became my main activity. For me it was a
return to journalism, but in a very different way. In the beginning, Chroniques
de Cybérie dealt mainly with news (new sites and new software). But gradually I
tackled more fundamental aspects of the Internet, and then branched out into
current national and international social, political and economic events.
With basic issues, it's fairly simple because all these resources (official
documents, news stories, commentary and analysis) are online. You can delve into
them, quote them, broaden the analysis and go on with the research. For current
events, the choice of subject depends on available resources, and resources are
not always easy to find. So you're in the same situation as radio or TV, that if
there aren't any audio clips or pictures, even a major event becomes less
interesting on the Internet.
= How do you see the future?
For Chroniques de Cybérie, we could introduce and maintain a formula because
entry costs are quite low in this medium. However, everything will depend on the
extent of what's called media "convergence" and on whether production costs rise
if we need to offer audio and video material to stay in the game. If that
happens, we'll have to rethink our strategic partnerships, such as the one
linking us to the Ringier group which enabled us to relaunch Chroniques after
six months of silence. But however much "convergence" there is, I think there'll
always be room for written work and for in-depth analysis of the main questions.
*Interview of August 6, 1999 (original interview in French)
= What has happened since our first interview? Any new projects, new ideas...?
No real new projects. New ideas, yes, but I'm still working on them.
= What do you think of the debate about copyright on the Web? What practical
suggestions do you have?
That's a very big subject.
First there are the copyright and reproduction rights of big companies. These
are relatively well supported legally, either through internal legal means or by
hiring specialized companies.
There's no doubt the "dematerialization" of information, brought about by the
Internet and digitization, makes it easier to undermine intellectual property in
various ways.
The danger is real for small producers/distributors of "original" content, who
don't have the means to monitor the theft of their products, or to take legal
action to ensure their rights are respected.
But all this is the "official" part -- cases of plagiarism that can be found in
"rematerialized" works. There is perhaps a more insidious form of plagiarism,
which is the theft of ideas, concepts, formulas, etc., with no mention of their
origin. It's hard to "prove" such plagiarism because it is not just a matter of
"copy and paste". But it's another aspect of the issue which is often obscured
in the debate.
What's the solution? We need a system where you can register free of charge an
article, book or piece of music with an international organization that can take
legal action against plagiarism. This wouldn't solve all the problems, but would
at least establish a basic structure and, who knows, might deter the thieves.
= How do you see the growth of a multilingual Web? What practical suggestions do
you have?
We passed the milestone this summer. Now more than half the users of the
Internet live outside the United States. Next year more than half of all users
will be non English-speaking, compared with only 5% five years ago. Isn't that
great?
At the same time, the Internet has became multi-faceted and now requires more
and more efficient tools because of the "enrichment" of content (or rather of
what contains it, because as far as the real content is concerned, there's no
enrichment, except of the firms that sell it). The Internet needs strong
systems, with good memory and powerful microprocessors. Development of the non
English-speaking Web will be mainly aimed at people who have no way of getting
powerful systems or the latest software and operating systems, or of upgrading
or renewing it all every year. Also, communication infrastructure is sorely
lacking in many places outside Europe and the United States. So there is a
problem of bandwidth.
I've been noticing this phenomenon since the very beginning of Chroniques. Some
readers (in Africa, Asia, Caribbean, South America and the Pacific) tell me they
like being able to suscribe to an e-mail version. They can get Chroniques as a
single message, read it off-line and choose the sites they want to consult
later. Often they have to plan their time online carefully because of poor
communication links.
The Web is going to grow in these non English-speaking regions. So we've got to
take into account the technical aspects of the medium if we want to reach these
"new" users.
I think it's a pity there are so few translations of important documents and
essays published on the Web -- from English into other languages and vice-versa.
Let me explain. Jon Katz published on the Web an analysis of the "Goth" culture
which the perpetrators of the Littleton slaughter were into, and of the term
"Goth". The French-speaking press quoted one or two sentences of his analysis,
lifted a few of his ideas, made an article out of it and that's all. But it
wasn't enough to allow one to understand Katz and his analysis of this youth
culture.
In the same way, the recent introduction of the Internet in regions where it is
spreading raises questions which would be good to read about. When will
Spanish-speaking communications theorists and those speaking other languages be
translated?
= What is your best experience with the Internet?
It's not a very cheerful one and has nothing to do with the significant
influence Chroniques de Cybérie has gained over the years.
At the beginning of 1996, I got a message which roughly said: "My son, in his
early twenties, has been very ill for months. Every week, he looked forward very
much to getting your newsletter in his electronic mailbox. As he could no longer
leave the house, the newsletter allowed him to 'travel', to open his mind and
think about something else other than his pain. He died this morning. I just
wanted to thank you because you lightened his last months with us."
When you get a message like this, you don't care about speaking to thousands of
people, you don't care about lots of statistics, you tell yourself you're
talking to one person at a time.
= And your worst experience?
I haven't really had a "big bad" experience. Lots of small and irritating ones,
though. The system is fragile, content takes second place, the human resources
aren't talked about much and lots of new software is inundating us. But we can
live with it all quite easily.