OER Blogs

Foreworld as Foretaste

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 03:25:00 +0000

I'm am currently staggering to the end of Neal Stephenson's The Confusion, loving every minute of this impossible, wandering, hyperbolic, anachronistic, shaggy-dog story. So I was naturally delighted to see that he (along with a band of fellow creators) is not only working on yet another huge, outrageously-ambitious epic, The Mongoliad, but one that pushes story-telling in new directions by using technology:

Our story unfolds in weekly installments over the course of a year. We've planned out a true epic—the last great epic of the middle ages, in fact--and written a fine chunk of the tale, but much depends on you. We’re hoping you’ll ultimately interact with our artists and writers and share in the story’s creation.

When we can, we'll include extra tidbits of art, video, music and history. Those extras will be made available to premium subscribers, an excellent value--less than the price of a hardback book for a year's worth of story and mixed-media entertainment. We’ll soon be taking subscriptions for app delivery to some of the most popular mobile devices and are working hard to add more.

The user-editable Foreworld 'Pedia is the ultimate repository of all information about our world. Some of it coincides with the world you know. Some does not. We welcome your additions.

I was particularly heartened to find the following intelligent approach to DRM - or lack of it:

We put in a lot of effort on an ongoing basis to ensure that the best value our fans can get out of our stuff is by participating interactively with us and each other, and enjoying our interwoven content in context, in the way it was meant to be enjoyed. So, we think that if people take our content without our permission, their experience will be suboptimal, and given our modest prices, we think most people will be happy to pay us, thereby enabling this experiment to keep evolving. That said, the bits that can be copied and pasted and put into a torrent are still going to be fun, and people are going to end up redistributing those bits without our permission and against our wishes. However, we still don't use DRM.

The reasoning is absolutely spot-on:

The biggest reason is that DRM is futile, and we don't like to waste our time doing things that aren't going to be effective, and which are just going to annoy our legit supporters. Our concentration is on providing great experiences and great customer service to our customers, and we trust that those people who really appreciate what we are doing will become our customers. Because it's part of our ethos to be constantly producing and expanding and improving our work, the pirated content people may find elsewhere online will be static and out-of-date copies; we think that when people find this stuff it may give them a taste of what the full experience is like; hopefully, that taste will be enough that they'll want more, and in seeking out more, will become happy (and paying) customers of ours. We like that.

That is, piracy isn't a real problem if you *out-innovate* the pirates, making your paid-for offering better than their free one. Indeed, if you do, pirated copies become like tasters, encouraging people to upgrade and pay for the full, latest version. Similarly, by the sound of it, part of the strength of this project will be the interweaving of other elements into the text - again, something that pirates can't offer.

But I think this is slightly off the mark:

However, we don't believe that pirates are doing us any favors, and our not using DRM is not an invitation to cadge our stuff. Because of the way intellectual property law in this country (and most other jurisdictions) works, we are obligated to defend our copyrights, trademarks, and other IP--otherwise we lose them: if we find piracy we will try to stop it; if we find unauthorized use of our IP at commercial scale and/or commercial intent, we will come after it with vigor, because we have to.

That may be true for trademarks, but not, I think, for copyright: it's not something you have to "defend". Still, quibbles, aside, I'm looking forward to seeing what Stephenson and his fellow creators get up to here. I also hope that this new Foreworld proves something of a foretaste of future extended novels - not least in terms of dropping DRM.

As for reading it, well, I have the small matter of The Baroque Cycle to finish first: I may be gone some time...

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Who’s Using Mendeley in Your Institution?

Tony Hirst — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:38:22 +0000

In a couple of days, I’ll be at RepoFringe 2010, where the emphasis this year will be on ” OPEN: Open Data; Open Access; Open Learning; Open Knowledge; Open Content; etc…” I’m writing this post (a scheduled post, written over the weekend) in advance of putting my presentation together – so I’m not sure what [...]

Commercialization of IP In Canadian Universities: Barely Better Than Break Even

Michael Geist — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:54:54 +0000

Last week, Statistics Canada released its latest report on the commercialization of intellectual property in Canadian universities. Canada spends billions of public dollars on research funding each year and the government has been increasingly focused on how best to commercialize the results. While there are several possible approaches to doing this, the government and some universities have been focused on building patent and IP portfolios as part of a conventional commercialization strategy. The alternative could be an open access approach - encourage (or require) much of the intellectual property to be made broadly available under open licences so that multiple organizations could add value and find ways to commercialize. The universities might generate less income but would better justify the public investment in research by providing the engine for larger economic benefits.

Which approach is better? The full commercialization approach has been tried in the U.S. with legislation known as Bayh-Dole and studies (here and here) have found that patents to universities have increased, but the increase has been accompanied by harm to the public domain of science and relatively small gains in income.

The Canadian Science and Technology Strategy similarly places its faith in commercialization through IP portfolios and licencing, yet the Statscan data suggests that this has also been ineffective.

The latest report is based on survey data from 2008 which finds that the total IP income (primarily from licencing) at reporting Canadian universities was $53.2 million. The cost of generating this income? The reporting institutions employed 321 full-time employees in IP management for a cost of $51.1 million. In other words, after these direct costs, the total surplus for all Canadian universities was $2.1 million. The average income per university from IP was only $425,000. Patent applications and patents issued were actually down in the reporting institutions and there were less than two-dozen spin-off companies reported by the universities.

While few would suggest that there is no value in the IP commercialization strategy for universities - there is surely a role for it - the emphasis on this approach as the optimal method of benefiting from billions in public funding for research has consistently failed. Rather, an effective commercialization strategy might recognize that the commercialization is better suited outside the university with funded research the engine for new innovation that is openly available to entrepreneurs without licencing barriers. The public pays for the basic research and might ultimately enjoy far more benefits than the current break-even approach by having more open access to research results.

James Moore on the Private Copying Levy

Michael Geist — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:54:47 +0000

"As technology changes, the levy is not an effective mechanism to compensate copyright creators for possible theft of their work. For that reason, our Government has not included an expansion of the private copying regime to iPods and other devices in our recently proposed amendments to copyright. Instead, we have included strong measures to deter and prevent all forms of piracy in order that creators can be rightly compensated for their work through market mechanisms." Full letter here.

Google, Yahoo Concerned About Bill C-32's Enabler Provision

Michael Geist — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 22:54:00 +0000

The Wire Report reports (sub required) that Google and Yahoo are concerned with the "enabler" provision in Bill C-32. The provision is designed to target sites that facilitate but the search engines fear it could have unintended consequences.

Slideshare Stats – Number of Views of Your Recent Slideshows

Tony Hirst — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 05:49:55 +0000

Yesterday morning, I wanted to grab hold of a summary of the number of views my uploaded presentations on Slideshare have had, A quick scan of the Slideshare API suggests that a bit of a handshake is required, at least in generating an MD5′d hash of a key with a Unix timesatamp. I have a [...]

Next ACTA Round To Be Vice-Ministerial Level Meeting

Michael Geist — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:48:11 +0000

The Japanese media is reporting that the next round of ACTA negotations in Tokyo will be a Vice-Ministerial level meeting, providing further confirmation that countries expect to conclude the agreement at the late September meeting.

CIPPIC Says Facebook Failing Privacy Promises

Michael Geist — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:46:20 +0000

CIPPIC argues that Facebook has failed to comply with the privacy commitments it made as part of last year's settlement with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

"Legislative Guidance" on Fair Dealing: The Plan to Reverse CCH?

Michael Geist — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:08:05 +0000

My post this week on several writers groups objections to Bill C-32 has generated considerable discussion, with some taking me to task for focusing on their letter's warning of "unintended consequences,""years of costly litigation," and "serious damage to the cultural sector." Instead, they argue that I should have focused on the call for additional "legislative guidance" on the fair dealing reforms. After all, who could be against greater clarity in the law?

In the discussion that has followed, I believe that it has become increasingly clear that the "legislative guidance" is not really about the fair dealing reforms found in C-32, but rather fair dealing more generally. Unfortunately, the writers' letter only speaks of their concerns and does not provide any specific policy or legislative reform recommendations that would clarify their intentions. However, with the government having opened up the fair dealing provision, those groups may see an opportunity to reverse the Supreme Court of Canada's CCH decision that characterized fair dealing as a user right and established guidelines for its interpretation.

Why do I arrive at this conclusion?

First, there is no need for greater guidance on the meaning of "education" and, even if there was, the guidance would be unlikely to change the groups' concern with its inclusion in fair dealing. By using the word alone, the government has sent the signal that it means education in the broad sense. In fact, this is consistent with the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled in Vancouver Society of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women v, M.N.R.:

There seems no logical or principled reason why the advancement of education should not be interpreted to include more informal training initiatives, aimed at teaching necessary life skills or providing information toward a practical end, so long as these are truly geared at the training of the mind and not just the promotion of a particular point of view...there is no good reason why non-traditional activities such as workshops, seminars, self-study, and the like should not be included alongside traditional, classroom-type instruction in a modern definition of â??education."

The groups could hope that legislative guidance would limit the scope of who qualifies under "education", but given their aversion to some fair dealing uses within traditional education venues such as universities, colleges, and secondary schools, this can't be what the writers groups have in mind. Any limitations on the scope of education would surely not exclude those institutions, yet they are precisely the institutions that seem to matter the most to the writers groups. If the scope is designed to include those educational institutions, legislative guidance might mean dropping the reform altogether, but that isn't guidance - it's gutting the reform.

If legislative guidance is not about the scope of education, what is it about? I think the answer lies in an attempt to codify into law the fairness criteria established by the Canadian courts to determine whether a particular use meets the fair dealing standard. As I have repeatedly noted, the mere fact that education would be a recognized fair dealing category does not mean that all educational uses qualify as fair dealing. Rather, any use must still meet the fairness test. It is this test - which is not even part of Bill C-32 - that the writers groups likely want to target. Given recent comments about the need to pay for any commercial use, the groups likely want to rewrite the fairness test to specifically exclude any commercial use from meeting the fairness criteria. That would mean rolling back the CCH decision so that fair dealing would actually become far more restrictive in Canada than is currently the case (and much more restrictive than the U.S. fair use provision which has no limits on categories and does allow for the possibility of commercial fair use).

This strategy is actually even more dangerous than it appears at first blush. While the writers groups are focused on the new education exception in C-32, codifying the fairness criteria would apply to all fair dealing categories. This would mean restricting the use of fair dealing for research, private study, news reporting, criticism, and review (as well as parody and satire, which are also included in C-32). To take one recent example, the decision to treat song previews as consumer research for fair dealing purposes would be overturned since it involves a commercial use. I fear the call for legislative guidance is not about clarifying the meaning of "education" but rather code for overturning the CCH decision and leaving in its wake a fair dealing provision that may have additional categories, but faces far more restrictions once the fairness test is applied.

P2PU launches 3rd round of courses, with “Copyright for Educators”

Jane Park — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:07:01 +0000

The Peer 2 Peer University, more commonly known now as P2PU by a growing community of self-learners, educators, journalists, and web developers, launches its third round of courses today, opening sign-ups for “courses dealing in subject areas ranging from Collaborative Lesson Planning to Manifestations of Human Trafficking.” P2PU is simultaneously launching its School of Webcraft, [...]

Has the U.S. Caved on Secondary Liability in ACTA?

Michael Geist — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:12:18 +0000

Following the ninth round of ACTA negotiations in Lucerne, Switzerland in July, it became apparent (after the updated ACTA leaked) that the U.S. had caved on some of its demands to include DMCA-like anti-circumvention language in ACTA. The ACTA provisions still go further than the WIPO Internet treaties by mandating the inclusion of provisions to address circumvention devices, but the treaty moved much closer to the EU approach and became more consistent with the WIPO Internet treaty flexibilities. This represented a major shift for the U.S. and was clearly a loss from what it hoped to achieve within ACTA.

With the tenth round of ACTA negotiations now complete, there is no leaked document (yet), but there are rumours that the U.S. has now caved on secondary liability. If true, this would represent an even bigger setback for the U.S., which included references to a three strikes and you're out approach in the initial drafts of the Internet chapter. Secondary liability has proven consistently problematic, however, since many ACTA countries deal with the issue in different ways. The rumour now is that provision will be very general in nature, leaving considerable flexibility in implementation.

The ACTA partners committed last week to trying to wrap up the negotations when they next meet in Japan late in September. Having backtracked on many of its key Internet chapter demands, the U.S. is clearly desperate to conclude a deal. The battle over the scope of the treaty remains, however, and that issue is the one that will ultimately determine whether a final text is concluded one month from now.

Estimating the Economic Impact of Google Book Search

Michael Geist — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:08:34 +0000

A new article forthcoming in the prestigious Journal of the Copyright Society of the USA attempts to estimate the economic impact of Google Book Search on the publishing industry. The study finds no evidence of negative impact and some evidence of a positive impact.

Writers Groups Attack Fair Dealing Reform in Copyright Bill

Michael Geist — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:17:55 +0000

Several writers groups have written to Industry Minister Tony Clement and Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore to criticize elements of Bill C-32. The letter focuses on the fair dealing exception for education:

From our perspective the biggest weakness in the bill is the addition of the word â??educationâ?? to the purposes of â??fair dealingâ? without clear legislative guidance on how this amended provision of the Copyright Act will work in conjunction with other, more specific exceptions for education. We think that this new fair dealing provision will result in serious damage to the cultural sector and to Canadaâ??s embryonic knowledge economy and, together with other new exceptions, negatively affect Canadaâ??s professional writers.

The letter adds "we see that without further clarification of some provisions there will be unintended consequences and years of costly litigation."

It is important to emphasize again that this is fear mongering that is simply inaccurate.

There is no real uncertainty about how the addition of education will work in conjunction other exceptions such as research and private study. The courts have ruled that the exceptions should be interpreted broadly, so that education - like research and private study - will be broadly defined.

However, the courts have also ruled that the assessment of fair dealing is a two-part test. First, does the dealing qualify under one of the categories of the fair dealing? With the C-32 reform, the few remaining educational activities currently outside of the scope of fair dealing will almost certainly qualify as a potential fair dealings. But that alone is not enough. The second part of the test is whether the dealing itself is fair. This involves a fairness inquiry with a six part analysis identified by the courts. The reforms in C-32 do not affect this part of the test. This was recently confirmed by the Federal Court of Appeal, which, in discussing C-32, concluded that the education fair dealing reform "serves only to create additional allowable purposes; it does not affect the fairness analysis."

So there is no real uncertainty or likelihood of serious damage here. The reforms will expand the scope of fair dealing categories such that some additional educational uses will qualify for a fairness analysis. The fairness analysis does not change with this bill, however. It is always possible that there will be litigation on fair dealing - Access Copyright just won a major case on the issue - but the norms will not change with C-32 and there is no reason to believe that the bill will open fair dealing litigation floodgates (unlike the digital lock provisions, which are likely to face a constitutional challenge).

Opposition to the inclusion of education is therefore based on fears that there are currently educational uses that fall outside the current list of categories that a fairness analysis would determine are fair uses. A balanced copyright approach - not to mention the Supreme Court of Canada - dictate that these uses should not require prior permission or compensation. If the writers groups are against fairness and balance in copyright, they should say so, rather than trumpeting misleading claims about the effects of the fair dealing reforms.

Postmedia on Access Copyright Tariff Proposal

Michael Geist — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:15:13 +0000

Postmedia covers the mounting concern over the Access Copyright tariff proposal with a story on how the tariff could stifle Internet users and researchers.

Was No Copyright the Real Reason Behind Germany's Industrial Expansion?

Michael Geist — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:13:45 +0000

Many people have written to point to this interesting article in Der Spiegel, which points to a new book that concludes that German's rapid industrial expansion in the 19th century may have been due to the absence of copyright law.

OCW Consortium Webinar: Using Creative Commons for OCW

meena — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:10:19 +0000

The OCW Consortium Webinar in August is on «Using Creative Commons for Open Educational Resources». If you are interested in finding out which Creative Commons license to use for different situations, please join us on August 5 at 10 A.M. EDT. Lila Bailey, Counsel of Creative Commons will give a talk, and a Q&A session [...]

10 Excellent iPad Apps for the Lifelong Learner

Jeff Cobb — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 07:17:30 +0000

In spite of being involved with technology in one way or another for most of my working career, I’ve never been much of a gadget guy. So, I was a bit surprised when I saw the iPad and immediately felt like I had to have one. Apple excels at marketing to our irrational side (hilarious [...] Related posts:

25 Free Online Resources and Web Apps for Lifelong Learners

Software: What Exactly Can be Copyrighted?

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 05:33:00 +0000

One of the many arguments against allowing patents for software (alongside the principle argument that software is made up of algorithms, which are essentially mathematics, which is pure knowledge and hence is not patentable) is the fact that software is anyway covered by copyright law. This means that others cannot simply copy your code, just as a novelist cannot simply copy large chunks of someone else's writing. But whether copyright law prevents others from copying the underlying ideas of that code by re-implementing them independently is another matter.

On The H Open.

Welcome to the Troll Economy

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 05:30:00 +0000

It began, perhaps, with SCO's insane attempt to obtain money from IBM and others for alleged infringements of its code. It proceeded with the music recording industry's increasingly vicious but fruitless threats to ordinary users, expanding more recently into the film business. Now, the Troll Economy has now come to the world of words:

Borrowing a page from patent trolls, the CEO of fledgling Las Vegas-based Righthaven has begun buying out the copyrights to newspaper content for the sole purpose of suing blogs and websites that re-post those articles without permission.

Strangely, perhaps, I think this is a great development. As the world of music shows, once rights-holders start making unreasonable demands, the implicit compact with the public is broken, and people no longer respect a copyright system that does not even attempt to treat them fairly.

The Troll Economy will simply lead to more people rejecting intellectual monopolies altogether, sowing the seeds of its own destruction. Troll away, chaps....

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

In the spotlight: Wikipedia @ the OU Conference 2010 – day 2

Andreia Inamorato dos Santos — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 11:21:07 +0000

Live blogging, 3:30 pm Openness in Education: Talk by Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia Jimmy starts by explaining that at Wikipedia it is not necessarily the case that anyone can edit everything – there’s a specific group of contributors that edit, monitor and make the content available to the world. He also explains that there is [...]

20 Social Networks for Lifelong Learners

Jeff Cobb — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 06:01:08 +0000

[tweetmeme] This is a guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. When most people think of social networks, they think of Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, or similar sites, but there are many other types of social networks popping up on the web. Some of the fastest growing networks are designed specifically for education. These sites allow people [...] Related posts:

Open Access Publishing and Scholarly Values

Dan Cohen — Thu, 27 May 2010 21:34:15 +0000

[A contribution to the Hacking the Academy book project. Tom Scheinfeldt and I are crowdsourcing the content of that book in one week.] In my post The Social Contract of Scholarly Publishing, I noted that there is a supply side and a demand side to scholarly communication: The supply side is the creation of scholarly [...]

Crowdfunding, giornalismo, librerie online, open education

eleonora — Mon, 24 May 2010 18:54:32 +0000

Ho avuto un paio di settimane molto intense: dopo il barcamp di Genova, l’11 maggio sono stata al festival delle libertà digitali per i 5 anni di Wikimedia ho incontrato face-to-face Frieda Brioschi, organizzatrice e anima dell’evento insieme a Cristian Consonni (le loro età sommate fanno meno di 50 anni) Alberto D’Ottavi, Nicola Mattina, Livia [...]

The Singaporean Cablevision Case

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 23:23:00 +0000

Many countries around the world are wrestling with similar, evolving copyright issues in response to new digital technologies. In facing common issues, courts sometimes share insights, but when they do, it's critical that they recognize the full procedural context of a decision from another country, as well as specific substantive legal elements. A recent opinion in Singapore regarding remote storage DVRs shows this danger. Although the facts are complicated given the change in the system in question over time, at bottom the Singaporean litigation – against RecordTV – is for most purposes the same case as the remote storage DVR dispute, Cartoon Network v. Cablevision, decided by the Second Circuit, and in favor of the defendant, Cablevision.

In reading the Singaporean judgment below – a very comprehensive one by Justice Ang -- one gets to the end expecting the same result as in the Second Circuit, only to find judgment for plaintiff. Hopefully, the High Court will reverse. The disparity between the trial court’s findings of fact and its conclusions of law, as well as a misreading of Judge Walker’s opinion in Cablevision, are responsible for much of the disconnect. The principal misreading was based on the posture of Cablevision: a direct infringement suit against Cablevision, rather than as inRecordTV, a secondary liability suit. This posture was the result of the plaintiff’s fear – justifiably – that they would have lost on a secondary liability claim because of the Supreme Court’s Sony opinion: users of Remote Storage DVRs are engaging in fair use, and just like VCR manufacturers, those supplying Remote Storage DVRs are supplying a staple article of commerce that has substantial non-infringing uses. Plaintiffs claiming otherwise bear the burden of proving infringement.

Nothing in the Second Circuit’s opinion is contrary the conclusion that on the facts, a claim of contributory infringement would have failed; indeed, during oral argument it was quite clear to me the court of appeals would have held for Cablevision had the case been brought as a secondary liability case. Judge Ang thought to the contrary, and he was in this regard, I respectfully submit mistaken. He certainly was mistaken as a matter of Singaporean fair use law, given the statutory provision permitting consumers to make “a cinematographic film of [a] broadcast or cable programme for . . . private and domestic use.”

One could understand Judge Ang’s opinion if he had found that RecordTV and not consumers make the copy, but he didn’t: he agreed with the Second Circuit that users, not RecordTV make the copies. Yet, Judge Ang found RecordTV liable for “authorizing” infringements by the users. Authorizing a fair use cannot form the basis for a finding of contributory infringement since there must be a primary infringement to contribute to. Perhaps the court was influenced by the number of people who can access the service, a possibility that is heightened by its finding that RecordTV was engaging in a public performance. However, two million private performances do not make one public performance, no more than gathering together in an unoriginal way two million uncopyrighted facts results in a copyrighted compilation, as we learned from the Feist opinion. A stream that can be seen only by one viewer is a private performance, else the very distinction between public and private would be erased.

My new blog

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:34:00 +0000

I launched a new blog today, called Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars. Here's the link. The blog is based on a book I just published of the same title, available here and here.