The Public Domain
Chapter 8
Assumptions of IP?
• IP policy largely an economic argument
– Economic motivation
– Ability to trade rights in a market
• How accurate is this?
– Looking at the world today …
Back to the Private Commons
• Creative Commons
– Created in 2002
– Licenses that can be read by
humans and computers
– IP policy agnostic
• Supported by many parties because it does
not reduce possible rights
• A second best solution
– Best would be requiring authors to request
copyright
Assumptions and the Commons
• Quotes from Clay Shirky
– “We get our support from a community”
– “Now we can do big things for love.”
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1TZaElTAs
• At about 2 minutes
• GPL: the viral license
– Who would use such
stuff?
– Why would anyone
contribute?
Open Source Software
• Created by many, used by more
• “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”
• Viewed as valid competitor to commercial
software
– Governments
– Companies
• Richard Epstein said it would end in failure
– Equated to a worker’s commune
– What are his assumptions?
The Gift Economy?
• Is this due to love, as Shirky implied?
– Clearly people do a lot that they do not get paid for
(volunteer work, etc.)
• What about other human motivations
– Greed and love are only two of many
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Fame
Sense of community
Sense of accomplishment
Enjoyment
Why Would Businesses Get Involved?
• Competing against the defacto standard
– Second best position
• Increase network effects (e.g. where value of
technology/service increases with number of
users)
• Do not have to pay for all the effort
• Can monetize services
– Tech support
• Can reduce product costs
– Embedded systems
What Can We Learn?
• Economic rationale is not the only motivation for
authors
• Intellectual property policy needs to balance
incentives
• Power of the Long Tail
– Only a small percentage of a lot of people can do a lot
– E.g., Wikipedia
• Assume a random distribution of skills and
motivations
– Lots of things become possible
Copyright Incentives
• Incentives for creation
– Different people have different reserve costs
– Still need copyright to motivate some
• Incentives for distribution
– Initially because distribution required substantial
resources
– The Internet changes this for information
Internet Threat vs. Internet Catalyst
• Vision of Internet Threat
– Focuses on effects of copying copyrighted content
• Vision of Internet Catalyst
– Focuses on effects of connecting large population
with variety of skills and motivations
• Need policies that facilitate both
Monotonically Increasing IP Rights
• No examples of decreasing IP rights
– Although individual court decisions limit their
interpretation
• 20/20 negative vision
– Can see the danger to existing organizations and
business models
• Easy to slip into natural view of property
– Creation implies ownership
Boyle’s Rules for Creating IP Policy
• Do not equate physical and intellectual property
• Focus on both the inputs and outputs of the
creative process
• Look at the role of the public domain and the
need to provide incentives
• More rights will not produce more innovation
• Confine rights narrowly to achieve desired result
• Look at empirical evidence before and after
increasing protection
• Notice benefits and costs of new technologies
Revisiting Patents
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Vision of the invention
Conversion by an attorney
Back-and-forth with the USPTO
What (if anything) gets patented
Looking for infringement
Avoiding invalidity
Extra Credit (Replace Quiz)
• Write a 2 page (ACM conference format) paper on a
topic in the news recently that relates to the themes in
Computers & New Media discussed in this class.
• Must tie itself to what we have read (i.e. must include
references)
• Not just a summary, must discuss the topic and the
concepts from this class
• ACM templates
– http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedingstemplates
• Hardcopy (on paper!) must be turned in by 4pm on
Friday after the last day of class (May 5).
Project Schedule
• April 26
– ReadMe
– Team 16
• April 28
– MuSearch
– JABB
• May 1
– Aggie Story Tellers
– Hot Cold
– Django
• May 2
– Beer Royale
– RileyBoard
– SoundTown
PICA – Go on-line and review your
courses, your voice is heard!!!