[cc-community] Orlowski vs. liblicense

Giorgos Cheliotis giorgos at smu.edu.sg
Wed Aug 22 07:38:58 EDT 2007


Thanks Nick, 
 
that is a very good comment about the actual value of the work and whether the fear of foregoing potential future revenues by using a more liberal license is exaggerated. I believe that more often than not it is, but I hope to get some data which will clearly show this. If anyone has any ideas on how to go about this, do let us know.
 
Giorgos
 
________________________________

From: cc-community-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org on behalf of Nick Sincaglia
Sent: Tue 8/21/2007 10:05 PM
To: cc-community at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [cc-community] Orlowski vs. liblicense


I have been thinking about this article a lot in the past day because it is a familiar argument I hear it a lot. If you strip away all the anger, name calling and accusatory language, you are left with a perspective or opinion that differs from this community. I am not sure if there is really much that can be done to address the difference in opinion because neither side of the argument can really know the value of a piece on intellectual property a priori. Let me explain what I mean. 

There are many people in the established creative industries who on a daily basis work with creative people to maximize the commercial potential of their creative output. On a daily basis these people see the potential value that is created and sustained over time from a single work or collection of works. These people also see the abuses that occur in the business. Don't make the mistake in thinking that all organizations within the established creative industries work happily together. There are strong adversarial relationships that span many decades and a large amount of distrust between organizations. 

I will use the music publishing business as an example. The music publishers represent the song writers, not the recording artists. They have seen abuses of the people they represent by the record labels. They get particularly upset when they hear about song writers who sell the rights to their compositions to record labels for a lucrative recording contract. Particularly early in the song writer's career. They feel it is part of their job to help protect the song writer from under valuing their assets. They feel like it their job to educate and try and prevent the song writer from making decisions they may regret later on when they better understand the way the business works and where long term value is created. 

Now comes along the Creative Commons. The argument expressed in the Orlowski article comes from the same protective perspective. Except this time, instead of a lucrative recording contract, the benefits are even less tangible and more speculative. 

So the difference between the Orlowski view point and that of the commonist comes down to "What is the potential value of the creative work". From Orlowski's perspective, the value has high potential value in the future. He is concerned that the creator may make a decision that has lasting consequences to that value and he would like to protect the creator from giving up that value without some tangible benefits in doing so. 

The commonist perspective is very different. The commonist understands that the value of the network is based on the number of people in that network. The value that this creator can get from this network is significantly greater than the what they put into it. 

I think it all boils down to one thing. What is the future value of a creative work and to whom? I don't know how to answer this question to satisfy either side. I think both sides are going to have to agree to disagree. The only thing I think that can done to counter Orlowski's argument is to stress the benefits of a commons and provide the statistics on the likelihood that the creative work will be commercially successful. 

tbd


On 8/21/07, Rob Myers <rob at robmyers.org> wrote: 

	Kevin Driscoll wrote:
	> On 8/20/07, jonathon <jonathon.blake at gmail.com> wrote:
	>> Including a document that is a crash course in IP rights would be a
	>> useful addition to that tool. (There are a number of fairly good essays 
	>> that have CC-BY-SA licences that could be included as part of the
	>> documentation for that tool.)
	>
	> One must be very careful in creating a "crash course in IP" on the
	> OLPC.  Could it not form a dangerous trojan horse to cultures with 
	> different understandings of property?
	
	The book "Code" edited by Ghosh contains some very good essays about how
	TRIPS-style intellectual property interacts with tribal or traditional
	knowledge and culture. 
	
	http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=10459&ttype=2
	
	The commons-law mailing list sometimes covers this kind of issue as well. 
	
	http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
	
	Once kids start using OLPC they are dealing with intellectual property
	whether they like it or not so I do believe that they will need some 
	education about it. I agree about the dangers of creating an IP
	maximalist trojan horse. It's important not to just do WIPO's work for
	them. So any crash course should be a *critical* crash course,
	presenting the issues and allowing people to take a critical stance to 
	IP if they wish.
	
	But then the Orlowskis of this world will complain about CC propaganda. ;-)
	
	- Rob.
	_______________________________________________
	cc-community mailing list
	cc-community at lists.ibiblio.org
	http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-community
	


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 7539 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-community/attachments/20070822/de17935e/attachment-0001.bin 


More information about the cc-community mailing list