Open for Business in Every Way

For some reason, I seem to be giving talks all over the place this month. I've already written about the one that I presented at the European Parliament at the end of May, and I'll be blogging about my presentation at the Open Knowledge Conference in Berlin this week in due course (once I've finished writing it....).

But in this blog post I want to expand on some of the ideas I explored at a meeting entitled “The Future is Free”, held in Kortrijk, Belgium, last week. The session was recorded, so there should be videos of the talks at some point: when they're available, I'll add the link.

On Open Enterprise blog.

The Failed Experiment of Software Patents

I've noted before that we are witnessing a classic patent thicket in the realm of smartphones, with everyone and his or her dog suing everyone else (and their dog.) But without doubt one of the more cynical applications of intellectual monopolies is Oracle suit against Google. This smacked entirely of the lovely Larry Ellison spotting a chance to extra some money without needing to do much other than point his legal department in the right direction.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Opening Up Design

One of the most fascinating aspects of open source is how its key ideas are being applied elsewhere. Obvious examples include open content - things like Wikipedia - open data, open access and open science, but there are also moves to apply them to more specialised business disciplines like design.

Recently, a book called “Open Design Now: Why Design Cannot Remain Exclusive” was published, which provided the first in-depth look at this world. As you might hope given its subject-matter, the essays that go to make it up are also being made available online under a Creative Commons licence - but with a twist:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Of Standards and Software Patents

Xiph.org has an interesting name and the following forthright self-description:

Xiph.Org is a collection of open source, multimedia-related projects. The most aggressive effort works to put the foundation standards of Internet audio and video into the public domain, where all Internet standards belong." ...and that last bit is where the passion comes in.

On Open Enterprise blog.

An Attack that Goes to the Heart of Free Software

The key hack that made free software possible was a legal one: using copyright to keep software free. It did that by demanding a quid pro quo: if you use software made available under the GNU GPL, modify it and distribute it, you too must make it available under the GNU GPL.

If it were possible to take software released under the GPL, modify it and release it, but without passing on the freedoms to users downstream, the entire edifice of free software would be in trouble. And that, alas, iseems to be precisely what is happening in a German court case:

On Open Enterprise blog.

British Library Encloses the Public Domain

There's considerable excitement about an announcement from the British Library and Google detailing a wonderful gift to the world:

The British Library and Google today announced a partnership to digitise 250,000 out-of-copyright books from the Library’s collections. Opening up access to one of the greatest collections of books in the world, this demonstrates the Library’s commitment, as stated in its 2020 Vision, to increase access to anyone who wants to do research.

Selected by the British Library and digitised by Google, both organisations will work in partnership over the coming years to deliver this content free through Google Books (http://books.google.co.uk) and the British Library’s website (www.bl.uk). Google will cover all digitisation costs.

Isn't that just swell? Vast quantities of fascinating books in the public domain are being made "available to all", as the press release trumpets:

This project will digitise a huge range of printed books, pamphlets and periodicals dated 1700 to 1870, the period that saw the French and Industrial Revolutions, The Battle of Trafalgar and the Crimean War, the invention of rail travel and of the telegraph, the beginning of UK income tax, and the end of slavery. It will include material in a variety of major European languages, and will focus on books that are not yet freely available in digital form online.

Freely available, too... But, er, exactly *how* freely available?

Once digitised, these unique items will be available for full text search, download and reading through Google Books, as well as being searchable through the Library’s website and stored in perpetuity within the Library’s digital archive.

Fab, and....?

Researchers, students and other users of the Library will be able to view historical items from anywhere in the world as well as copy, share and manipulate text for non-commercial purposes.

But hang on: these are materials that are in the public domain; public domain means that anyone can do anything with them - including commercial applications. So this condition of "non-commercial purposes" means one thing, and one thing only: although the texts themselves are public domain, the digitised texts are not (otherwise it would be impossible to impose the non-commercial clause).

In other words, far from helping to make knowledge freely accessible to all and sundry, the British Library is actually enclosing the knowledge commons that rightfully belongs to humankind as a whole, by claiming a new copyright term for the digitised versions. Call me ungrateful, but that's a gift I can do without.

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The Arrogance of Artists (and Publishers)

You wouldn't expect much else from a meeting organised by WIPO, but this is pretty rich even for them:

Copyright is necessary to allow authors to live from their trade and to guarantee their independence, and exceptions should be decided by authors and publishers, according to panellists on a copyright dialogue held at the World Intellectual Property Organization this week.

Amusingly, this was a "copyright dialogue": but I bet there weren't many people from the *other* side of the equation - the readers. The readers, you see, don't really count in this - "exceptions should be decided by authors and publishers" as the above insists. The fact that copyright is supposed to be a balanced quid pro quo - a time-limited monopoly in return for works entering the public domain afterwards, and that such a balanced of necessity requires both parties to agree, seems not to have entered the heads of those authors and publishers.

The very idea that "exceptions should be decided by authors and publishers" betrays the deep-seated arrogance and contempt that both of these now have for their readers. And that's all part and parcel of the publishing industry's problems: it sees readers as the enemy, something that must be fought and vanquished in order for it to be forced to buy books on the terms of authors and publishers - forced, if necessary, by ever-more Draconian laws that criminalise willy-nilly.

What is so regrettable about this depressing vision is that at the very same conference where these extraordinarily insulting comments about readers were made, another publisher revealed the wonderful truth:

For Richard Charkin, executive director of Bloomsbury Publishing, publishing is also investing in the future. Copyright is a flexible system, he said, giving an example of Bloomsbury Academic’s business model. The publishing company publishes social sciences and humanities research publications. They are available online under a Creative Commons non-commercial licence, and for sale as printed books. The publications are thus widely available, Charkin said, but surprisingly, he said that sales of books seem to be higher when they offer free downloads than if they do not.

Go that? "Surprisingly", when people can freely share books, they *buy more* - exactly as many of us have been saying for years, and in diametric opposition to the dogma of the same authors and publishers who insist that they know best, and that readers must be brought to heel like recalcitrant curs rather than treated as equals in a pleasant colloquy.

How to make money in the age of digital abundance is there for all that have eyes to see; sadly, even the most basic optical equipment seems lacking in this singularly benighted profession. Looks like they will have to learn the hard way....

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Of Open Source and Open Innovation

Last week I wrote about a talk I gave with the title “Innovation inducement prizes as a possible mechanism to unlock the benefits of open innovation models”. I explored the idea of inducement prizes then, and now I'd like to look at open innovation.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Glyn Moody: The great prize: open innovation

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US Abuses Copyright and Extradition Law: UK Acquiesces

If you want a vision of the world of global repression and bullying that copyright maximalists are striving to create, try this:

A Sheffield student is facing up to five years in jail if convicted in America for a website which provided links to movie clips.

Let's just look at the component parts of this story.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Software Patents: Do as You Would be Done By

I've written plenty about why software patents should be resisted where they don't exist, and abolished where they do. But if I wanted further ammunition for my arguments I couldn't hope for a better example of software patent madness than what is happening in the smartphone sector.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Do We Still Need the FSF, GNU and GPL?

It's easy to take things for granted – to assume that the world will always be as it is. And then sometimes you receive a mild jolt: some new information appears that makes you sit up and reconsider your preconceptions.

On The H Open.

Interoperability and Open Standards: Help Make It Happen

In a previous column, I mentioned that I was invited to talk at a meeting at the European Parliament about innovation prizes last week. That's not something that often happens, and I frequently get to hear about meetings only after the event, when it's too late, which is very frustrating. But happily here's one on the 16th June entitled “Interoperability and standards: making it happen“ that I've come across in time:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Good Apple, Bad Apple

Since Apple has replaced Microsoft as the leading patent-wielding cheerleader for closed-source computing, it will come as no surprise that I have no intention of providing a rapturous run-down of yesterday's wondrous announcements. But there is one aspect I'd like to explore, because it has interesting wider implications.

On Open Enterprise blog.

The Great Prize: Innovating Without Monopolies

Last week I was in Brussels, talking at the European Parliament - not, I hasten to add, talking to the Parliament. This was a more intimate gathering in one of the smaller (but still quite large) conference halls, discussing a rather interesting matter:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Back to Back-to-Back Bach

Here's some good news:

You can download for free the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach. They were recorded by Dr. James Kibbie (University of Michigan) on original baroque organs in Leipzig, Germany. Start with a collection of Favorite Masterworks, or get the complete works that have been divided into 13 groups for easy download.

It's certainly wonderful that everyone can now enjoy the greatest organ works ever written, but there are a couple of points worth noting here.

First, it's not clear what licence is being used for these recordings: there's no mention of Creative Commons options anywhere, so presumably they are under normal copyright, but freely released. That's not ideal, since it limits what can be done with them.

The other thing is that it's extraordinary that such a move is extraordinary. These works were written at a time when music copyright did not exist, and have in any case been in the public domain for hundreds of years. So why is it only now that people can download them in this way?

It is a mark of a civilised society that everyone has free access to its cultural treasures to study and perhaps build upon. The fact that we only have that now for one part of one composer's legacy is truly damning. The reason people don't have instant access to all music is, of course, copyright. Its deadening hand means that not only are copyright works rigorously locked down, but that performances of works in the public domain also rarely get released freely, partly because yet more copyright artefacts are created by such contemporary recreations.

This latest news about Dr Kibbie's generous move only emphasises how poor we really are when it comes to enjoying the immense riches of our culture. (Via @timbray.)

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The Real Legacy of the Hargreaves Report?

Now that the dust has settled a little on the Hargreaves report, I thought it might be worth revisiting it, but looking at it from a slightly different angle. Before, I noted its sensible thoughts on software patents; there's also much good stuff on orphan works, one of the areas crying out for a way to unlock the riches currently unavailable. But I want to step back and look at the bigger picture, and how in addition to offering their specific recommendations, Professor Hargreaves and his team have done something rather clever.

On Open Enterprise blog.

The Guardian: Yes, but of What?

I wrote last week about a curious article in the Guardian calling for “caution” on open source. And now we have another odd piece:

The sad truth is that while the UK has the creativity and technological know-how to produce the next Google, the relatively smooth road to patent protection in the US isn't mirrored here - and that's a stumbling block that will hinder the growth of the UK software developer.

But that is simply wrong. Of all the major software companies, Google has eschewed taking out software patents the most. That's because it knows that the US patent system is broken, and wants to see it reformed:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Now is the Summer of Our Discontent

Google's Summer of Code has been running for a few years now, and is an established and important fixture for the free software world:

Since its inception in 2005, the program has brought together over 4500 successful student participants and over 3000 mentors from over 100 countries worldwide, all for the love of code.

An obvious question is: where are all those participants coming from? Now we know; here are the top ten countries by student count:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Will Apple Redeem Piracy?

One of the central arguments I and others make is that piracy is actually *good* for media producers in all sorts of ways (there lots of links to examples in my submission to the Hargreaves enquiry.)

The content industry has simply refused to consider this possibility, because it would undermine all its arguments for harsher enforcement of copyright - even though it might help them to make more money (it seems that control is more important than cash...)

Against that background of pig-headed refusal to look at the objective facts, news of an imminent announcement by Apple of a cloud-based music service could be rather significant:

Apple no doubt has paid dearly for any cloud music licenses, and it's unclear how much of those costs it will eat or pass on to consumers. One possibility would be to bundle an iCloud digital locker into Apple's MobileMe online service, which currently costs $99 a year and synchronizes contacts, e-mail, Web bookmarks, and other user data across multiple devices. Users will be able to store their entire music collections in the cloud—even if they obtained some songs illegally. That would finally give the labels a way to claw out some money on pirated music.

I think this could be an important moment: it would suddenly give the recorded music industry an incentive to accept, if not actively encourage, piracy, because it would effectively be marketing for the new service (and for others that will doubtless come along based on the same idea.)

This, of course, is what some of us have been saying all along; but if it takes Apple to get this idea into the heads of the music industry, so be it. The main thing is that we need to move away from the current obsession with repressive "enforcement" measures that will cause huge collateral damage to freedom and society, as the chilling calls for a "civilised" (as in locked-down, monitored and corporatised) Net at the recent eG8 circus made only too clear.

Let's just hope that the labels don't manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on *this* one, too....

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Time for Amazon to Pay its dues to Open Source?

It's nearly summertime. How do I know? Not, of course, by looking at the iffy British weather outside, but because Google's Summer of Code is here again:

On The H Open.

Peer to Patent in the UK: Worth a Punt?

As I've written too many times, software patents make no sense for lots of reasons. Although rather more circumspect than me in its phraseology, the Hargreaves Review essentially agreed:

In this case, the Review believes the balance of evidence lies in continuing to withhold patent recognition of non-technical computer programs as part of a sustained effort to deal with the growing and dangerous problem of thickets

But there still remains a grey area where pseudo-software patents are being granted because of legalistic trickery that succeeds in dressing up software as if it were something else - notably the “computer-implemented invention” (CII):

On Open Enterprise blog.

Caution on that "Call for Caution on Open Source"

The Guardian has published a very curious piece today, entitled: “A Call for Caution on Open Source”. It concludes:

The UK coalition government should take considered note that the procurement of open source software buys neither governments nor taxpayers a cost- and indigestion-free lunch.

Leaving aside the fairly obvious fact that nobody had claimed anything of the sort, it's worth exploring some of the thinking behind this piece.

On Open Enterprise blog.

World Copyright Summit: 7 Billion Elephants

In a couple of weeks' time, the World Copyright Summit takes place in Brussels:

Creating value in the digital economy

The World Copyright Summit is a truly international and cross-industry event addressing the future of the creative community and the entertainment business in the digital economy.

All stakeholders involved in creative industries – creation, licensing, usage, collective management, legislation and dissemination of intellectual property and creative content – now have a unique forum to exchange views on the value of creative works, the future of authors’ rights, the role of creators and their collective management organisations.

It's certainly a pretty high-powered event, judging by some of the big names there. There's Francis Gurry, Director General, WIPO; Michel Barnier, European Commissioner, Internal Market and Services; Maria Martin-Prat, Head of Unit “Copyright”, Intellectual Property Directorate; and Marielle Gallo, Member of the Committee on Legal Affairs, European Parliament.

Alongside these, we have the heads of just about every industry association for writers, musicians, filmmakers etc., as well as a few big names from the creative and media worlds - people like The Reg's Andrew Orlowski and Robert Levine.

The organisers really seem to have included everyone, just as they say: "All stakeholders involved in creative industries – creation, licensing, usage, collective management, legislation and dissemination of intellectual property and creative content."

Well, everyone except one: The Public.

The public is the elephant in the room at this conference - or, rather, the seven billion elephants in the room.

Not only is the public not participating here, it is not even mentioned, as if the very word were some kind of defilement in these hallowed halls celebrating the great intellectual monopoly of copyright, and ways of extracting the maximum "value" from it.

In the extensive programme [.pdf], the nearest thing I can find to an acknowledgement that the public exists is the odd mention of "consumers" - that is, passive recipients of the content industries' largesse - like this one:

Several initiatives around the world have attempted to connect rights holders – and primarily creators – to consumers in order to promote values such as the respect of copyright. This session looks at some of those projects which are aiming to bring creators and consumers closer together.

Even here, then, the "connection" between these consumers and rights holders is "respect of copyright". It's almost as if no other connection can be imagined - the idea, say, that art loses much of its deeper meaning as a social act without an appreciative and involved audience.

Indeed, that word "respect" is hammered home again and again throughout the programme. It forms one of the three defining themes of the whole conference. But here "respect" means one thing only: respect of the public for the monopolies of the rights holders.

This huge and insulting asymmetry is perhaps the perfect symbol of all that is wrong with industries based around copyright today: they sincerely believe that the "respect" involved is all one-way - that the public has no right to respect whatsoever; that laws can - and should - be passed that take from the public and never give, just as the copyright ratchet means term is always extended, never shortened.

This conference, then, is the perfect expression of an industry talking to itself, reinforcing its own prejudices and delusions, and unwilling to accept that the world has changed utterly under the impact of digital technologies; unable even to mention the idea that it's time to engage with those seven billion people - not as consumers, but as new kinds of creators, just as worthy of "respect" as the traditional kind - and rather more numerous.

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Hargreaves Report: Patently Sensible Stuff

It's a measure of how central traditionally dry-as-dust subjects like copyright and patents have become to the modern (digital) world that the Hargreaves Report on the UK's “intellectual property framework” has been so eagerly awaited. That's partly because there is a clear sense that the current systems are dysfunctional and desperately need fixing, and that this report is an important opportunity to do something about it.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Re-using PCs: Remploy's Radical Route

One of the problems with the rapid pace of development in the world of computers is that the latter become out of date and slightly slow compared to the latest speed fiend. Moreover, the computer industry is predicated on the idea that everyone upgrades their systems every year or two, and marketing is largely geared to that end.

On Open Enterprise blog.