Copyright 2.0: Interests and Rules

source of the pic

Let us think for a moment about the set of rules which would appear to be appropriate to meet the demands of creators operating along the short route.

1. The Interests.

In the market based model it was essential for creators and even more so for businesses to control and restrict access to works, as the monopoly granted by expansive exclusive rights enabled them to charge whatever price the market would bear.
However, this would not appear to be the goal of creators currently operating along the short route. The great majority of them, be it 9 out of 10 or 95 out of 100, do not make a living out of “sales” of “copies” of their works; they earn their livelihood in another activity or business and devote a portion – often a  very large portion – of their spare time to creating, in a way which may give them a bit of extra income, professional credit and recognition which may have positive spill - over effects in their main line or just fun (or a combination of the three).
Even when the creators operating along the short route are professionally engaged in the creation of works, which is usually not the case, their business model usually is based on income flows different from the sale of copies as such. It would appear that there is a shift whereby even singers and songwriters increasingly rely on performances, tours, endorsements, merchandising and their likes rather than sales of albums and tracks.
This is the business model which the Grateful Dead pioneered, possibly taking a clue from open source software and IBM, and is currently expanding to an increasing number of business. So that the eminent economist Paul Krugmann a few years ago made the case that the demise of reliance on income based on “hard” copies was being generalized and, making his case, quipped that in the long run we will all be the Grateful Dead.
What is important for creators engaged along the short route is, it would appear, that their work can be disseminated as widely as possible, on two conditions: first, that the work is correctly attributed to them, and second, that
the creators may, if they so choose, reserve the right to prevent third parties
to make a commercial profit out of their work unless this is agreed to by the creator herself.

2. The Rules.

If this is so, then what may currently be needed is a new kind of copyright, which we may, if you wish, label Copyright 2.0. I submit that the new system would have four basic features. Old copyright, or Copyright 1.0, would still be available; but it would have to be claimed for by the creator at the onset, e.g. by inserting the old copyright notice, ©, as the US did in the past, before accessing the Berne Convention.

If no notice was given, Copyright 2.0 would apply; and this would give creators just one right, the right to attribution.
The notice could also be added after creation, but then it would only have the effect of giving exclusivity against specified non authorized uses (in particular:
subsequent commercial uses).
The Copyright 1.0 protection given by the original notice could be withdrawn, and may be it should be deemed withdrawn after a specified period of time (e.g. the 14 years of the original copyright protection), unless an extension period (of another 14 years) is specifically requested.
What is the purpose of the exercise I just sketched out? Well, I confess that, even a couple of years after airing this proposal, I am not so totally sure after all that the four features I just described are really what is appropriate for the needs of our societies and their creators.
The point I am making, however, is that thinking along these lines at least allows us to conceptualize how the different sets of rules correspond to the specific needs of the creators who create works along the long and short route. We assumed that Copyright 1.0 should survive; and we may anticipate that this is likely to be resorted to by creators (and businesses) choosing to operate along the long route. Indeed, the ultimate goal is not to displace old copyright, which seems to be alive and well in many situations, but to add to the menu a second possibility, Copyright 2.0, which should be better tailored to the characters of production and distribution of works prevailing in the current digital environment.
This line of reasoning might also help us in asking the next question. Which set of rules would then operate in each given situation? Well, in some way I already replied to this question: creators should opt-in for Copyright 1.0 at the time of the original release of their work; otherwise the new and more flexible Copyright 2.0 would operate as a default set of provisions.
This is why in the past I characterized this approach as “Lessig by default” or, in a less personalized way, “Creative Commons by default”. The idea behind the approach is that the very successful uptake of Creative Commons licenses and other copyleft licenses by creators operating along the short route shows that out there, in the digital prairies and wilderness, there is a very large number indeed of crea tors who prefer to reserve only some rights rather than all rights; and that the time has come for legal systems to recognize this fact of life by creating a regime in which downstream freedom is the rule and a system under which creators may have the option to reserve some rights or, if they like, all the old Copyright 1.0 rights, only if they wish and say so, giving appropriate notice.

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This is an excerpt of "Consume and Share: Making Copyright Fit for the Digital Agenda" by Prof. Marco Ricolfi (2011); under a CC by license.
See the entire paper (with all the footnotes and references) here.

Open source alternatives for small businesses

Is it safe to use? What alternatives do I have? Is it easy to install?
These were some of the questions asked by Amandeep, a New Delhi based owner of a small scale clothing company, when I pitched to him a few open source solutions that could make his day-to-day operations more efficient. For someone without any IT background (but a sharp business sense), these were brilliant and relevant questions. The answers to these questions won't just help Amandeep, but if shared broadly may help reduce the apprehension of a significant number of small scale business owners, especially in India. My interactions have shown that a lot of these businesses are looking to grow, enhance their productivity, and most importantly, save costs.

Approximately 7,500 miles away from Amandeep in New Delhi lives Nabeel Hussain. Nabeel, a graduate of Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre, is a new product development and digital marketing specialist actively engaged in Waterloo, one of the top entrepreneurial ecosystems in the world. As an entrepreneur, he is always faced with the challenge of managing limited resources while building traction. He has a plethora of technology solutions at his disposal, and the technical know-how to utilize these solutions. Additionally, he has a robust support system to advise and guide him to the best available solution that fits his needs. For Nabeel, open source solutions provide an inexpensive alternative for crafting early stage prototypes for his ideas and validating them with customers. From using WordPress and its library of plugins, to venturing into OpenShift Origin and Joomla, he has the knowledge to make use of top notch technology to reduce risk, manager resources, and build traction for his venture.
These two different scenarios indicate a categorical gap in the knowledge of entrepreneurs when it comes to adopting open source solutions. Although there is some geographic gap between the entrepreneurs in the developed and the developing world, as well as a gap that spawns from business exposure/experience, the problem is wider than that. There is a difference in productivity and efficiency between entrepreneurs who utilize open source solutions and those who do not. The situation becomes clear when we look at those small scale business owners who are technology pros versus those who are not.
A significant number of businesses, in India in particular and in the developing world in general, are of a mom-and-pop business nature. Based on my recent interactions with these small scale business owners, I see widespread misconceptions pertaining to open source software. The questions that Amandeep from New Delhi asked me are critical in nature. In order for small scale businesses to adopt open source solutions, it is vital to address these misconceptions.

Is open source software really safe?

The question arises from the basic process that is followed to write code using open source way. If any hacker can read your code, then why can't they use the knowledge to their personal benefit? Most of those sorts of malicious attempts fail because there are a lot of committed people looking over the source code, finding problems, and fixing them. More eyes tame bugs quickly. And security by obscurity is no security at all. What strikes me at this point of time are the words of security expert Bruce Schneier, "Public security is always more secure than proprietary security…For us, open source isn't just a business model; it's smart engineering practice."
Developing code in an open source fashion is an expression of a technique. Software, in our world, should be treated as a service which can be customized based on the specific needs of a user, rather than merely as a product.
I know a lot of people involved at different levels of open source projects. All of them are driven by their commitment to reach technical and professional excellence, and to add to the existing body of technology knowledge. The entire ecosystem of open source is built on that commitment. The Linux operating system, for example, with its proven track record of stability and security, forms the backbone of complex infrastructures and data centers world over. The same benefits that help Linux and other open source tools succeed at the enterprise level can be reaped by small businesses, too.
A couple of months back, I read Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat. An otherwise helpful and insightful book, the author seems to host a thought process that open source is contrary to the developers' right to make a profit. A lot of people who think that way do not see the forest for the trees. They see free software, they see Linux, but they miss the multi-billion dollar ecosystem that surrounds open source. Its true that Brian Behlendorf, the person who orchestrated Apache web server, did not make a dime off it, but the immense value that this server has added to the economy and the legions of small to medium size businesses that use this infrastructure is an important contribution. Free software developed by a community is not tantamount to insecurity.

Are there quality alternatives available?

Gone are the days when open source was produced only by the engineers, for the engineers. From word processing to calendar applications to servers and to setting up telephone communication networks, small businesses can benefit hugely from open source solutions. Let us take the example of word processing, an activity that almost all small businesses, irrespective of their field, carry out.
Microsoft Word is the premium software in the area but it is cluttered with features that a lot of small businesses won't ever use. The bloating of Microsoft Word has cost its simplicity. There are easy to use, simple, free, and open source word processors available out their. A few of these that I have been using (and suggesting to small businesses) as an alternative to Microsoft Word are:

1. Apache Open Office: This software primarily consists of six tools for managing office tasks, namely: Writer as a word processor, Calc as a spreadsheet tool, Impress for multimedia presentations, Draw for diagrams and 3D applications, Base as a database tool, and Math for creating mathematical equations.
2. AbiWord: Developed in 1998 with the help of gtkmm, this open source word processor includes both simple word processing features to sophisticated features like multiple views, page columns, and grammar checking.
3. LibreOffice:This is my favorite and always at the top of my recommendation list for anyone looking for a free and efficient word processing suite. Although the features are similiar to those of ApacheOpen Office, LibreOffice is better when it comes to community support.

There are dozens of other excellent alternative solutions to proprietary software and thousands of open source projects that can serve small businesses. It can sometimes be difficult to select the software which best matches specific needs, but there are plenty of people globally willing to help you make those decisions and help take small businesses down the path to an open and productive future.
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Originally posted 17 Feb 2014 by Aseem Sharma under a CC by-sa license; see source.

A law about open geodata in Italy

On August 7, 2012 Italian parliament approved a new law (legge n. 135/2012) related to the socalled "public spending review" where we can find an interesting reform about open geodata.
Here is an English translation of the first part of Article 23, Paragraph 12-quaterdecies:

To support the development of applications and services based on geospatial data and to develop the technologies of Earth, including for environmental protection, risk mitigation and scientific research, all the data and information acquired from soil, air and satellite platforms and financed by public resources must be available to all the potential users, within the limits imposed by reasons of safeguarding national security.

It is a good piece of news in the field of openness for Italy. Now we have only to hope that this new rule become effective soon in all the Italian public administrations and not just a nice principle.
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Second part of the paragraph includes some specific references to the Italian State apparatus and is hard to correctly translate in English. If you want to read also the second part of the paragraph and a few comments about it, a longer article by me is available here.

For more information about open data in Italy, see this presentation by Carlo Piana. 

Louisiana State University faculty member supports student Wikipedia editing

Ambassador Becky Carmichael trains
a student during a Wikipedia workshop

If you teach in the science department at Louisiana State University and want to incorporate a Wikipedia assignment into your classroom, Becky Carmichael is the person to meet. She began volunteering as a Wikipedia Ambassador in the Wikipedia Education Program in the United States in 2011, during her graduate studies and work as a teaching assistant for a Conservation Biology course. Since she had taught the class many times and was familiar with the content, she said it was a great way to focus on “the nuances of Wikipedia.” Then Becky became the Science Coordinator with Communication across the Curriculum, a Louisiana State University program that helps undergraduates improve their writing and technological communication skills. She already understood the basics of editing Wikipedia and how to incorporate it into a classroom assignment, and now she could reach instructors in other areas of science.
To date, Becky has helped 13 classes use Wikipedia as a teaching tool. With so much experience as a Wikipedia Ambassador, she has developed her own training routine and learned the importance of communicating these assignments’ potential impact.
“For students, I like to introduce Wikipedia with a pre-workshop homework set,” she says. “The homework is very similar to the Wikipedia Ambassador training I received in 2010, with the addition of the online “training for students” — a truly valuable resource! During the workshop, we can get into details about what Wikipedia is, the importance of sharing information, and what they will gain from the experience. I emphasize that as members of the university, we have access to a wealth of information and resources the general public may not. We can give our research and exploration of a topic purpose by sharing with others.”
When instructors work with Becky to develop Wikipedia assignments, they get advice from someone who teaches with Wikipedia herself.
“I teach an honors-level course for non-science majors, Natural Disturbances and Society,” Becky says. “This is a course I developed to examine how natural disturbances (e.g., fires, hurricanes, invasive species) influence our lives and how society can influence disturbance events. My class is currently proposing creation of articles or the significant contribution to existing pages related to the course. It’s a great class, which encourages science literacy and exploration, with interesting connections to society, which may currently not be included in some disturbance or disaster articles.”
In Becky’s experience, in the beginning of the term, “students are initially uncomfortable with contributing to Wikipedia. They think it will break and become intimidated because of the global visibility. And who wouldn’t be nervous? Their work is going to be read by potentially millions of people, not just their instructor. I tackle this by having the students provide each other feedback on drafts in their sandboxes first. It is still intimidating to let classmates review their work, but I found that the students really put forth even better initial drafts. They also help each other learn better communication skills, sharing editing tricks and grammatical advice. It’s amazing how much the quality of contributions improved. The feedback exercise was also one of the aspects students really found useful stating they appreciated learning how to clarify and strengthen their writing.”
One of the great things about partnering with a university professional is that her Wikipedia Ambassador responsibilities fit so neatly into her job description.
“My focus as the Science Coordinator is to aid undergraduates in effectively disseminating scientific information through writing, speaking, visual, and technological means. Additionally, I assist faculty in course and assignment design that improves communication and critical analysis skills. Wikipedia can be the perfect way to achieve both of these skill sets because it is a cooperative writing process based in technology,” Becky says.
Her work as a Wikipedia Ambassador advances her mission within her career, and her role at the university gives her a great opportunity to influence students. By providing “one-on-one assistance to both faculty and students learning how to edit and navigate the site,” Becky makes sure assignments will not only achieve important learning objectives but also will positively impact Wikipedia.
As Becky has become a campus expert in teaching with Wikipedia, she has welcomed the opportunity to reach course goals creatively.
“I enjoy brainstorming ways to approach an assignment, make connections to real-world applications, and methods to excite the students,” Becky says. “I am passionate about improving science literacy and can truly ‘geek out’ over science topics. I like that Wikipedia represents sharing of knowledge and the increase of literacy in many topics in a friendly environment. The community involvement can be impactful on both student learning as well as inspiration for continual discovery.”
Jami Mathewson
Program Manager, Wiki Education Foundation

• Copyright notes: "Wikipedia Education Program workshop at Louisiana State University 2" by Becky Carmichael, under CC-BY-SA 3.0, from Wikimedia Commons.

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Originally posted by Jami Mathewson on February 10, 2014; text is released under a CC by 3.0 license (see original source).

Call to all open source communities: Emphasize inclusion

As a woman in open source, I have found that the values of community, open development, and flat organizational structure appeal equally to both men and women. The ability of local organizers to freely define what type of culture they are building allows them to adapt in order to appeal to the surrounding culture, while striving to improve access. 
The gender balance in the field of design is the opposite of the FOSS community, because the majority of visual artists are female. In art, gender is discussed openly as an aspect of the theory used to explain visual communication. For example, part of the typical peer-review process is critique, the goal of which is to contextualize visual communication by discussing the culture, gender, identity, economics, and psychological factors which influenced the artwork, so the artist can understand how they personally fit into the community in which they practice. I began as an outsider to both technology and the FOSS community, so it was both interesting and frustrating to realize that much of the communication and organization of FOSS communities was framed without acknowledgement to the diversity of communication styles and the backgrounds of potential community members.
In 2011, I was accepted to the OPW to work on high contrast icon themes for the GNOME desktop. This started my deep dive into the fascinating world of Linux. Having access to an open code base, sharing my work in the open, and receiving constant feedback from the community was overwhelming at first. The learning curve was steep, but the excitement I felt about having access to open knowledge, the support of a community dedicated to sharing knowledge freely, and to pushing the boundaries of what we did kept me coming back for more even on the most frustrating days.
My OPW internship brought me into the FOSS community. It also taught me to talk freely about my experiences as a woman in the computer science field, and sometimes that means knocking on the same doors over and over until you are let in. Sometimes it means acknowledging that communication styles needs to shift in order to emphasize inclusion. Other times it means speaking up about what your community values and how to allocate resources to benefit all participants equally. OPW was the first door to open for me, and my involvement showed me that persistence, hard work, and enthusiasm can bring success no matter who you are or where you start from.
As time went on I became involved in coding for GNOME. In 2012, I started to contribute to GNOME’s Documents application, which was the first application to be developed in the new GNOME 3 style. Because the style is still in its early stages, the themes and widgets are being prototyped in the applications before they are integrated into GTK+ (the widget library) and the standard desktop themes. Last summer I wrote my own GNOME application: a sound recorder for the desktop. I started by planning my code to fulfill the requirements of a series of mockups by a community member. I went on to code the application as a Google Summer of Code (GSoC) project.
During the initial development phase I worked with Reda Lazri (the original designer), Sebastian Dröge (a GStreamer core maintainer who mentored me), Hylke Bons, and Garrett LeSage (both of whom are community members and design for GNOME). GSoC allowed me to immerse myself in GNOME’s developer community and learn about the code base from core contributors.
When a fellow GNOME contributor, Jim Campbell, suggested that we start a group to focus on GNOME and GNU/Linux, I saw it as a way to give back to my community and work to increase diversity. The FOSS community in Chicago is small, and for the first year I was the only woman who attended our events. From the beginning we emphasized that our group was open to anyone who was interested in participating by adopting a code of conduct. As time went on our community began to grow and started to be more representative of the larger community here in the city. Engaging women has happened slowly but without any special intervention on our part.
We invite members to bring their projects to hackfests and share their knowledge by giving talks. People have come to work on GTK+ bindings for the Go programming language, documentation for Gedit, the fundraising campaign for MediaGoblin, and the website for the Open Science Framework, among other things. Talks have ranged from a recent SaltStack tutorial, which our members participated in using their own four-server demo environments running on server space donated by Rackspace—to talks on Wayland, Emacs, and personal data security. All of the projects and presentations center around the use of open source technologies. Our role as organizers is to encourage participation and free exchange of ideas and resources among participants.
Being a woman in computer science is both an exciting and challenging experience. To me it means being exposed to emerging technologies, solving new and difficult problems, and working to promote Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in my local community.
I think that outreach can be successfully addressed using the same template as other questions in open source: by recognizing diversity as a key element of success, by facilitating transparency and equal access to knowledge, and by letting the community organize itself around a shared vision. Having women who are visibly engaged in and promoting involvement in the community seems to be one way to send a clear message that women can participate and succeed in FOSS.
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Originally Posted 6 Feb 2014 by Meg Ford here; license CC by-sa.