Where are the Boundaries to Open Source? 175
Andy Updegrove writes "In the last several days there have been several stories in the news that highlight the increasing tension between ownership of intellectual property rights (IPR) and the opportunities that become available when broader, free access to those rights is made available. The three articles that struck me as best proving this point were the announcement by Sun Microsystems that it had released the design for its new UltraSPARC processor under the GNU GPL, a speech by Tim Berners-Lee to an Oxford University audience in which he challenged the British government to make Ordnance Survey mapping data available at no cost for Web use, and reports that a Dutch court had upheld the validity of the Creative Commons license. Each of these stories demonstrates a breach in traditional thinking about the balance of value to an IPR owner between licensing those rights for profit, or making those same rights freely and publicly available. They also raise the question: where - if anywhere - are the natural boundaries for 'open IPR?'."
Of course... (Score:3, Insightful)
Easy (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess it depends. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
To fall back on the often misued automobile example. I can design a car and sell the plans. Or I can design it and give the plans away. Or I can give them away under a license that says you can use them, but never charge for them. In fact, I can build the damn car and try to sell it. Or build it and give it to whomever I wish.
So you might think that, in your spare time, writing software and giving it to the world is a good thing. I may, contrarily, write software and try to sell it, needing to feed the kids and pay the rent. Or you can sell yours and I can give mine away. In any case, the market will decide if our creations have value, and are worth what we ask.
Your choice. My choice.
Re:IPR isn't natural (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know if there are natural boundaries to Rap, other than the natural boundaries of human population. But lavender, on the other hand:
Wikipedia: "The lavenders Lavandula are a genus of about 25-30 species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae, native from the Mediterranean region south to tropical Africa and east to India."
"There isn't even any analogy in the animal kingdom "
Wrong. Wolves and other animals mark their territory -- yet physical property ownership is just as theoretical as IP ownership, only it has a longer history. It's the threat of retribution that keeps other wolves from trespassing.
In human history, IP protection has been the norm for millenia. Why do you think tradespeople kept their techniques secret? Why do you think guilds were formed? To suggest that IP is a modern invention is way off base. What's relatively new is the structure of law encouraging distribution of knowledge by protecting profit incentive to innovate. Whether it's a good idea or not, I'd rather not get into -- but IP is as old as human invention.
Boundaries of intellectual property (Score:1, Insightful)
Slashdot can sell its commercial copyright, or license it under terms more or less generous, but Anonymous Coward is saddled with the 'artistic copyright' until the end of his or her days. No pretending that CmdrTaco wrote it, not ever.
Now, no-one is promising that the creation will be accurate, or useful, or anything. Just 'sellable'.
All kinds of reasons for being generous; maybe someone has already paid you the 'price of freedom' of the creation; maybe you hope for contracts to write something new in the future;maybe you make your living in a completely different way.
3 out of 4 words in first sentence are bogus (Score:4, Insightful)
Ideas cannot be put in a wheelbarrow (Score:1, Insightful)
If you take my car, then I don't have it anymore.
If you take my idea, I still have it.
If you are using my car, then I can't also be using it at the same time.
If you are using my idea, I can also use it at the same time.
What you do to my car directly impacts what I can do to it, and hence directly impacts me.
What you do to an idea does not impact what I can do to it, and hence does not impact me.
The list goes on. Property laws make sence for tangible objects that cannot be simultaneously shared. These same laws do not make sense for information, which operates according to fundamentally different physical laws.
Property laws applied to information result in really weird expectations, such as I should be able to put a lot of information on your computer, and also I should be able to take control of your computer in order to ensure that you only use it in ways that I see fit...since that information is "mine."
No, the computer is "mine," and as such, I am the one who should decide what I do with it. If you don't want me using your information as I see fit, then don't make it available. If you make it available, don't be surprised when I treat it in ways that are natural to its laws of physics (that is to say, manipulate it and duplicate it freely). I know that you would LIKE control over everything, but I don't want to surrender control over myself or my computer, so you will just have to pick a more fitting business/legal model.
IP != trade secrets (Score:3, Insightful)
Intellectual Property is the antithesis of trade secrets. The whole justification of Intellectual Property is that it will replace the natural* concept of secrets. That's why all system of IP registration include the requirement (or at least originally did) of disclosure; trademarks had to be used in commerce, copyrighted materials had to be published, inventions had to be demonstrated and documented to the extent that they could be duplicated by practitioners skilled in the appropriate arts.
Trade secrets were seen as detrimental to society, and IP was invented to supplant them. Unfortunately, the cure is turning out to be worse than the disease.
--MarkusQ
P.S. As for wolves marking territory, that's physical property. And the very fact that wolves do it means that it's natural by any sane definition of natural.
* I say that secrets are natural because we do see example of them in the animal kingdom; animals will go to great lengths to prevent other animals from learning things which might give them a competitive advantage. But they do this precisely because because they instinctively recognize that information is not "property" in any meaningful sense; my having it does not prevent you from having it too, and once you have it there is very little I can do (short of all out combat to the death) to take it back. In short, none of the conservation laws we normally associate with property apply.
Why bother? (Score:3, Insightful)
Natural Rights and Idea Monopoly (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other side of the coin, the right to create and invent is a natural right [blogspot.com], and has been with us since the beginning [blogspot.com]. It is only in the past several centuries that this natural right has been eroded by idea monopolists and those who want to tie up exclusive rights to natural discoveries through physical force, in the form of patent and copyright law.
Re:Of course... (Score:4, Insightful)
Intellectual property concepts are deeply flawed, terribly inefficient and incredibly wasteful, and about as well suited to the modern world as horseshoes on my car.
Re:Of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, except that it really isn't a choice for the end-user. How long before the automobile goes the way of modern IP? Right now, if I buy a car from you I can do whatever the hell I want to it. I can take it apart to see how it works. I can build another car similar to it if I have the time and the skill. I can take the engine out of your car and put it in a different car and you can't say a word about it. I can even *GASP* remove the alternator and sell it to someone else. Or I can sell the entire car, which may be nothing like the car you designed because I modified it. I can drive it on dirt roads, I can use it to deliver pizzas. I can autocross it, or add a rollbar and better suspension for a road rally. That is my *right*. I bought the damn car, I own it, so I'm going to do with it what I please.
I realize that at some point the analogy breaks down because a car can't be put into a replicator like a DVD can. However, it seems to me that we are becoming less and less of an ownership society and more of a "borrow" society. I talked to someone the other day who works for a large firm, and they pay 160 grand a MONTH to license some software for their business. That does not include any changes they want made to the software - that costs extra.
I don't have a problem with profit. I have a problem with racketeering. I don't really know where this whole "you don't own it, you only licensed it from us and we can screw you anytime we want" started, but it is one reason why I'm such a big fan of OSS. I don't mind paying for software. But I get really pissed when I'm told I a) have to pay for it continuously and b) am not allowed to do anything with it except that which is outlined by the lawyers for giant-corp who wrote it and took my money for it. What a scam. DRM is coming to hardware near you, and it is going to compound this problem. Until now, it was _mostly_ software that kept the consumer on a leash.
How long until we have to pay a fee to (GM|Ford|etc) before our car will start every month? When will our GE fridge start requiring a dollar every time we open it? I don't like rent-an-appliance places because they're a rip off. You never get to stop paying for the item (unless you rent to own, at about 2-3x the cost you could have bought the item).
Am I paranoid chicken little here? How many of us as kids tinkered with everything in the house, but find today that if we do, we're breaking the law?
The Broken Window fallacy of economics (Score:5, Insightful)
The fallacy goes something like this: A boy breaks a shopkeeper's window. The shopkeeper must then buy a new window from the glassmaker, who then buys bread from the baker, who then buys shoes from the shoemaker, making the child seem like a boon to the economy for having broken the window.
The problem with this thinking is that the money the shopkeeper spends on the window is money he does not spend on something that he actually wants. So the boy who breaks the window isn't a boon to the economy after all.
People argue that the creation of stuff like OpenOffice deprives the fine folks working on MS Office of their jobs. What's ignored is the fact that every company who once spent $300 a pop on Office licenses can now put that money toward projects that didn't exist before, or better yet (but more unlikely) pay it to their employees. And the guys at MS Office are now free to work on something that doesn't already exist.
Money is just a placeholder. The economy is actually about value, and OpenOffice adds what was previously considered hundreds of dollars of value to the computer of everyone who downloads it - at no actual charge.
When software can be distributed to the whole world for free, it's actually better for the economy than paid software.
some examples of the boundaries (Score:3, Insightful)
Some examples of boundaries:
On the other hand, there are some cases where the boundaries are evaporating, and it's very cool. For instance, I've written some copylefted physics textbooks. At the time when I first wrote them (8 years ago), it was very hard to get photos. I ended up doing a lot of photography myself, which was fun, but there were limits on what I could do, both in terms of quantity and in terms of quality. Nowadays, if I say, "I need a photo of someone swimming as an illustration of Newton's third law," I just hop on over to Wikipedia, grab a nice photo, and drop a thank-you note to the photographer. We both get a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Re:IPR isn't natural (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Of course... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's called a lease.
Onus (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Natural Rights and Idea Monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
In contrast, the granting of patents over ideas is arbitrary. Which ideas deserve such protection? Who gets to own a particular idea? And who decides? All of these decisions must be made subjectively.
The other arbitrary attribute of patent law lies in its blatant conflict with other natural rights, namely, the right to create and invent (which is a pre-governmental right, much like the right to physical property itself). You can't institute patent/copyright without stamping on this other right.
And that's why this is relevant to the discussion. The boundaries of such idea monopoly systems are arbitrary, and not natural. Whether you want to draw a patent fence around any conceivable idea or whether you want to exclude natural facts, whether copyright should cover any expressed idea or whether it should only apply to expressions of a certain length, whether prior art matters or not, whether obviousness matters or not, whether first-to-file or first-to-invent, whether to allow the independent invention defense, whether the patent office or the courts or congress defines the extent of patentability/copyrightability -- all are arbitrary decisions, handed down by authority. None are based in natural rights. There are no natural boundaries (except to claim that none of these monopolies should be enforced by government in the first place).
Re:Of course... (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows95 is an old piece of crap. If you relabel your (legal) copy and sell it as "The New Windows2006" to some poor unsuspecting schmuck, you've committed fraud. I think this is a little closer to rolling back the odometer than maybe what I was referring to.
I also think the TiVo thing is a little bit different as well. I pay a monthly fee to TiVo for the service they provide me - primarily guide data, but also access through the TiVo to things like Live365, etc. I can stop paying the fee, and then I will have to either figure out a way to get the guide data into the TiVo myself, or schedule programs manually. I will grant that you lose some functionality - most maybe - by not paying the monthly fee. However, because I bought mine, TiVo will not come and reposses my box OR revoke my right to use it (not 100% on this one...) if I cancel my service.
TiVo actually seems to be an exception to the rule. You can upgrade your harddrive if you want. You've broken your warranty, but they aren't going to drag you into court under the DMCA for it. In theory they could, because you've just "cheated" them out of revenue by upgrading the internals instead of buying a new box.
Re:Of course... (Score:2, Insightful)
1) You can't take the engine out of the car, make a duplicate and start selling, or giving away, the duplicates.
2) You can't copy the whole car either and start selling or giving them away.
You didn't design it. You didn't do the research and development, yet you feel that the $20,000 dollar you plot down on a car gives you the right to make as many copies as you like to sell or give away?
Yes, you can do anything you want to the car; the manufacture didn't limit that. If they did, then it would be illegal to modify it (you will void the warranty in many cases however).
How do you think the car industry's "usage" agreement would look if you if you could simply take their car over to a copying machine and run off 100,000 copies in an hour; even for your "personal use"? I tend to think that your usage agreement for the car would be a bit different.
You do understand that the car didn't cost $20,000 to build. The materials were a couple thousand but the R&D is sometimes in the Billions of dollars of which they need to sell millions of cars to recoup.
Same with software. The owner who creates it owns it. If you don't like the license agreement, don't pay any money for it. Go somewhere else.
This is pretty much what open source is about so go use that or create your own or *gasp* do without.
applicable in lots of realms (Score:2, Insightful)
Here is an example: things like open source are often considered limited to software, but why? Here in Ecuador, people are worried about the patenting of plant genes that could be used for medicines. Why not just make a "copyleft" so that any medicine produced with genetic code needs to have its code shared? That would make it easier for better medicines to be produced, would make the distribution better because poor people will be able to afford them, and will make it easier for other people to further the work and learn about how to design medicines, thus as a whole health in the world would be improved.
What's the big negative? Profits would go way down for a very small number of people who usually hold patents. HOWEVER, profits would go up somewhat for a whole lot of people, people who could become involved in the production of medicines and in medicinal research who are prohibited from that now. So, overall wealth would be increased, even as a few people would lose out...equality would prevail.
The big negative always mentioned is that the profit motive would be lost, but as already pointed out, it would actually be benefitted for a lot of people. Furthermore, profit is not the only motive for people to work (note how many people participate enormous amounts in Slashdot conversations sharing knowledge and bad humour at no cost).
I think that we could find this sort of analysis in case after case. Certainly there is an argument for artists -- whose artistic vision is often based on the product being a unique idea from a single creator (or a group for that matter), but it seems to me that creative commons at least has some interesting proposals in that regard to allow that vision while at the same time letting other people build on it (after all, what artist has never been influenced by another).
Peace
Ideas (Score:3, Insightful)
Precisely. That's why authors and publishers and producers will give you a strained smile and attempt to slide away when you run up to them announcing your latest idea for a book or movie. They know that ideas are plentiful, worth a dime a dozen, and that they're probably overpriced even then.
Hey! I have an idea. Let's create the world's best web browser. Cool. And now where are we? Well... no where. Now, let's talk about people who did just that, and the dozens upon dozens of man-years it took to write FireFox and get it to the point where it is now.
Hey! I have an idea. Let's write a book about wizards and elves and hobbits. And now that we're done with the idea, why don't we talk about JRRT, who spent the better part of his life actually creating that story and that world and those characters.
Hey! I have an idea. Let's make it into a movie! But how many people had that idea, and did nothing about it? Now let's talk about Peter Jackson, and the, what... nine years it took to actually make that film trilogy.
The fact is that IP law is NOT and never has been about protecting ideas. It is, however, about protecting a specific implementation of those ideas, and about protecting the people who did so. It's about protecting and encouraging that time and effort and skill and talent and investment.
In the case of the FireFox team, they knew that their investment in time and effort was being made in a product that was going to be given away to the world, and they made that choice. New Line made the investment in PJ and LOTR in the hope that people would like the film, and that they had the potential to be rewarded if that were the case.
They also knew it was a possibility that the public could hate it, and that they could lose their shirts. They rolled the dice. And won. But would New Line have invested in a relatively unknown director and production knowing there was no way whatsoever they would get that investment back? Would you?
You talk about value increasing upon propagation, but would the world have been richer or poorer without that film at all?
That's why all this talk about "ideas" is nothing more than a straw man, and little more than an attempt to trivialize the situation. Actually write that book or software, or produce that movie, do the work to implement some idea, and then--and only then--will we have something to talk about.
Yes, ideas are plentiful. But the skill and talent and time and resources needed to successfully implement them... are not. And that, if it has value to you, is what you're really paying for...
Re:Reverse the Question (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not true. At one time only royalty could use a certain technology called "royal purple". And arcane webs of legal restrictionss (guild laws) on technical trades have been the norm for the past millenium. The famed reinheitsgebot, which governed German brewing and taverning for the past five hundred years, is a prime example. It said who could make beer, how to make beer, and how to sell beer. Until very recently for example, it was illegal to use artificial carbonation in German beer. Also, ship pilots zealously guarded their maps and logs, and were among the earliest supporters of IP laws.
Any time technology has threatened someone's livelihood it has been restricted, closed and encumbered. It is only in our modern era that technological progress has become a goal. And even today most people still don't like it.