IP Protection vs. Open Sourcing
In terms of social impact, the decision to protect or share has to be based on what conditions will help your idea to flourish the most. From what I understand from my technologist friends, open-sourcing effectively has always relied on strategic release of code, with a timing, form, and community that allows others to make use of the code in a way that benefits them and you. Releasing information as open-source - thereby commoditizing it - can be a good supporting strategy to ensure that new innovations become feasible, which can helpfully complement, mainstream, or indeed challenge your innovation. I have no doubt that each of us, and the world, can benefit from sharing knowledge. But sharing effectively requires a proper analysis of the value each insight brings to your product or service - and this needs to inform which insights are open-sourced and which are made proprietary at any one time. It would basically depend on what you believe will support your innovation to grow most. I’ve recently learnt that there is in fact a term for the kind of environment in which ideas are flowing into and out of organisations depending on where they can be most efficiently handled at each stage of their development - ‘open innovation‘.
Certainly it doesn’t seem to make sense to keep inventions entirely locked up in sheds. I believe creating a large commons of open source, and inviting innovators to use and build upon this commons, catalyses the creation of unique products or services. Talking with John Craig of Innovation Exchange earlier, he recommends: “Don’t give away your idea, but don’t keep it to yourself.”. What do you think?
Nice one Menka - the whole abundance mentality, share it don’t hoard it, thing.
I’m keen to learn more about commoditizing information - do you have any practical examples from the world in which you’re working in?
Much warmth,
Sol
Hi Menka,
I have the feeling that there are two different discussions at the same time: ‘open’ vs. ‘closed’, and ‘free’ vs. ‘owned’.
open vs. closed is about the shed.
free vs. owned is about intellectual property rights.
You propose open and owned (open innovation), but your main argument for that is that you don’t like closed in the long term.
While I agree on the long term, I come to a different conclusion - either have it closed (and free or owned does not matter anymore), or you open it, but then it should be free. Whats the point of telling people: lets do it that way, and later you come and collect your royalties?
When giving a gift it should be without conditions. Open and owned is like bringing the cake to the party but not having eaten it.
(And that leaves aside that I think that IP on social ideas, business methods and such is a really bad idea).
m2c,
jhb
Are we talking about, copyrighting or patenting here? IP is a general term and I can’t comment on it broadly. There are big differences in the two debates. In the copyright case we are talking about your right for others not to copy *your* work. In patents we are talking about the right for you to control an idea and its use.
In the case of a patent, if I as an individual inventor come up with an idea and you as another independent inventor come up with the same idea or one sufficiently similar, I can’t use it. In essence I *owned your thought before you thought it*. This seems to me to be contradictory to “freedom of thought” and freedom in general.
In the case of copyright, almost no-one doubts your right to not have other’s copy your work but like Joerg, I am not sure that its okay to publish it and add this requirement. One has to remember one thing which very fundamental to psychology
and humanity. Every act is a copy. We don’t create or innovate in a void, we use our experiences, what we have heard and what we have read.
“…it is also about giving inventors a grace period to incubate their innovation in-house and to test and learn from the market while protected from the harsh brutality of direct competition.”
This argument is so often used by IBM, Microsoft, Cisco etc. to justify their control of thousands of inventors ideas that this statement is almost laughable. First, there is no grace period because “copyright is forever”. Second, inventors are free thinking types, not bureaucrats. Unfortunately, if you want to invent anything legal in the modern world you have to be a bureaucrat. If I am a DJ and want to remix a tune, I must first contact the musician, second the label, third… If I am a coder and I want to write some code (in the US) I must check, if any of the ideas I used were copyrighted. Of course this argument has been put to the test in Europe in the software field. In 2005 major software companies lobbied the EU into ratifying the legality of software patents…because it was in the interest of the inventor and small companies. They lost the vote in the European Parliament by a massive majority, due to heavy counter lobbying by the small software companies, who recognised that this is one law that could destroy there business as inventors. Small inventors do NOT benefit from copyright, let this one rest its an old argument and one thats consistently put forward by big monopolistic companies.
re: sol’s comment above - he is looking to find out more about how to join the rising ruling class. First it was land owners (agrarian), then it was capital owners (capitalist), and now its vectorialism (controlling the vectors along which ideas flow). Modern business is rarely capitalist, but often vectorialist. The problem the vectorialists have, is that they have to hire people coming up with the ideas (inventors) who are starting to realise that when they move to the next job, they aren’t allowed to use their own ideas. Hence the rise of Open Source, amongst other things, its actually a way for inventors to protect their ideas from their unethical employers.
Tom,
I agree with you, but would like to clarify one point - Menkas article is very much about ideas, not products of ideas, e.g the idea behind a picture (organisation, business), and not the picture itself. So this is very much about patents, and not about copyright. Sorry for not having used the specific point.
My argument (open and owned) is not really working for copyright - or you could say its just the state of affairs - you can see and hear it, but you can’t share. If you can share (properly), its free.
My objection to copyright is much less then to the ones on patents, and I very much agree to your point of vectorialism.
Just a thought, have you checked the copyright status of the image at the top of this post? Or any of the other images or videos on this blog. Legally you can’t republish them or use them in any way without first getting explicit permission from the rights holders, unless the works in question are creative commons licensed or something similar - even then you might have obligations for attribution etc. Does this help innovation or hinder it?