from openness to abundance
glyn moody
openness is winning
against what?against being closed
against refusal to share digital artefacts
against artifical scarcity of information
the history of scarcity
once upon a time, ideas and known facts were scarce...
...because humans were scarce2,000 years ago 200 million
1,000 years ago 400 million
700 years ago 450 million
600 years ago 350 million
...because humans were busytrying to survive
mercantilist mindset
scarcity meant people viewed the economic system as a zero-sum
game, in which any gain by one party required a loss by
anotherinvasions
monopolies key policy instrument
informational scarcitypirating ideas/skills by enticing foreign
master craftsmen that knew them with national monopolies
letters patent
issued by English monarch to grant monopoly for particular
industrycalled patent because not sealed early open source law
first English patent granted a 20-year monopoly to Flemish
stained- glassmaker (1449)
afterwards, knowledge released
formalised in the Statute of Monopolies (1624)
17th-century invention
very few inventors
very few inventions
trade secrets easy to keep (trade guilds)
in an age of inventive scarcity, patent monopolies made sense as
a mercantilist incentiveto encourage new inventions
to get them revealed for wider use, rather than hoarded
21st-century invention
today, we have an abundance of inventors and invention, as the
creaking patent system showsin 2009, 482,871 patent applications
filed with USPTO; 135,000 in Europe
abundant monopolies impede progress, rather than promoting
itindependent invention problem
patent thickets
software patent problems
most litigated causing much of the backlog of cases in US3% in
1984, 26% in 2002
total US profit annually was $100 million for 1996-1999
the total cost of litigating in US was $3.9 billion per year
software patents = overall net loss of $3.8 billion per year
gene patent problems
4,000 of 24,000 human genes have been patented in US (2004)
3,000,000 genome-related patents filed
patent-stacking allows single DNA sequence to be patented in
several ways
whole-genome scan: impossible with the huge number of gene
patents
copy right
key invention: movable type (1457)
in 16th and 17th century England, the Stationers' Company had
exclusive and perpetual state monopoly over producing printed
copies of every registered book (their copy right)
aim was to *control* what was printed by establishing
responsibility - instrument of censorship
Statute of Anne (1710)
An Act for the Encouragement of Learning
gave limited monopoly (14 years + 14 year extension)
text became freely available after that period created modern
public domain
strongly influenced US copyright law
18th-century publishing
hardwriters were scarce
typesetting slow
printing presses were expensive
binding was slow
distribution slow
sales limited
major investment of time, energy money
18th-century book piracy
*also* hardsomebody to typeset the text
somebody to print the sheets
somebody to bind the book
somebody to distribute the book
somebody to sell the book
main saving was not paying author
in an age of scarcity, copyright made infringement even more
risky
21st-century e-publishing
trivially easycreate it
upload it
sell it globally
21st-century e-piracy
also trivially easyobtain digital content (DRM-free)
upload it
people download it globally
e-piracy is powered by Moore's Lawtoday: 1 Terabyte hard disc
50
tomorrow: 1 Exabyte hard disc 50
implicit *abundance*: 150,000 MP3 files today, 150,000,000,000
MP3 tomorrow
towards abundance
10 million articles on Wikipedia
13 million tracks on Spotify
100 million blogs
hundreds of millions videos on YouTube
5 billion pictures on Flickr
one trillion URLs (2008)
but...this is only a part of today's abundance
dark abundance
the online materials that may be infringing on copyright, and as
such form unofficial abundance
by definition, dark abundance negates the scarcity that lies at
the heart of copyright
challenges 18th-century business models built on scarcity
like dark matter, dark abundance has visible consequences
war on abundance
HADOPI; Digital Economy Act; Ley Sinde
ACTA; TPPA
PROTECT IP Act; voluntary Website blocking
places protection of intellectual monopolies and their
scarcities above protection of human rights
rather break the Internet than allow it to be used for
sharing
war on developing world
4 billion have no access to the Internet
thanks to intellectual monopolies they have double obstacle to
overcome to improve their lot:they must get connected
they must then pay for access to most of the world's knowledge,
often at near-Western rates even though the marginal cost is
practically zero
fair abundance
means giving 24x7 access to all today's knowledge, to anyone
with a digital access device mobile, computer, TV
means access for all humanity not just the developed world, or
the richer classes elsewhere
sounds socialist or worse: actually conservative
back to basics
copyright not about preserving the West's grip on knowledge
copyright not about protecting old business models
copyright not about enshrining authors' or publishers'
rights
copyright is about the Encouragement of Learningexplicit in
Statute of Anne, US copyright acts
the virtuous circle
today, the optimum way of encouraging learning is to free it up
for the billions who currently have little access to it
educating them through access to knowledge will generate even
more creativity in the system
self-fuelling, positive feedback
but
nobody has the right to diminish my copyright in this way
however, society *does* have that right - just as it had the
right to strengthen copyright, repeatedly, by extending its range
and its term, diminishing public domain
not necessarily one-way
society decides which direction and the quid pro quo
the precedent (1)
for those who deny that it is impossible to do this, there is a
historical precedent: the first-sale doctrine
rights to control the change of ownership of a particular copy
end once that copy is sold
society decided this was a fair limitation on copyright
the precedent (2)
those who talk of IP compare copyright infringement with
trespass
in 20th century, law on trespass radically limited by taking
away airspace rights"every transcontinental flight would subject
the operator to countless trespass suits"
digital airspace
we need to allow copies to pass freely through the abundant
digital space that surrounds analogue objects, just as
planes/satellites can pass freely through infinite airspace above
private property
if not, the war on digital sharing becomes a war on the ability
of the mind to take flight through knowledge
coming to terms
copyright was originally 14 years + 14 years; the copyright
ratchet has been moving it up to 70 years + life
the ratchet went the wrong way should have decreased the term of
copyright as more creators arrived, less incentive needed
for analogue content, could bring it back to 14 years + 14 years
with renewal
Internet time
what about digital content?
famously, one calendar year is seven Internet years
digital content lives on Internet time, so for that, should
measure copyright on Internet time
14 Internet years = 2 calendar years
patently obvious?
what about patents?
as for copyright, there are two kinds of patents: analogue and
digital
analogue patents operate on calendar time, so could leave the
current term (typically 20 years)
digital patents software patents, gene patents just don't scale,
so abolish them
it won't work
there will inevitably be infringing content online
copyright industries will cling to scarcity by waging war on
sharing
if analogue patents still exist, clever lawyers will employ the
computer-implemented invention/purified gene trick, yoking digital
and analogue together
abundance and freedom
to stop the war on sharing, to allow all humanity to build on
all knowledge, need to abolish both copyright and patents, for all
domains
there is only one non-arbitrary term for an intellectual
monopoly: zero years
beyond mercantilism
copyright and patents were rational and necessary incentives for
an age of analogue scarcity
in an age of digital abundance, no longer rational or
necessary
should no longer put up with the high price that intellectual
monopolies exact - hindering progress, holding back billions of
lives and the loss of fundamental freedoms
against intellectual monopoly
323-page book by Michelle Boldrin and David Levine, free
download
We show through theory and example that intellectual monopoly is
not necessary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging
to growth, prosperity and liberty.
from openness to abundance
getting from here to there is non-trivial task
how would open projects function without copyright?
what would the key issues be in a world without intellectual
monopolies?
what new roles might open projects play in such a world of
abundance?
Abundant Knowledge Conference
[email protected]
@glynmoody on identi.ca/Twitter
opendotdotdot.blogspot.com
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