Ken has raised an important issue.
In the current issue of 'The Economist' April 14-20 there are a couple of
useful items:
Page 76 'Economic focus: rights in intellectual property'
and after page 54 'The age of the cloud' The Economist survey of software.
In particular, two ideas struck me as relevant to the issue that Ken raises.
1. The differences between tangible and intangible property
2. Open-source projects.
The Economist's treatment of these does not deviate too far from
conventional economic theory, but there are interesting signs in these
articles, as in others in recent issues of the Economist, that social and
political issues are being considered more thoughtfully.
Anyway, my point in mentioning these two ideas is that discussions about
these closely parallel some of the issues that Ken raises.
One of characteristics of tangible property is (as the Economist puts it)
that it is 'rivalrous of consumption'. For example, a sandwich can only be
eated once.
In contrast, intangible property (such as a paper on a web site) can be
consumed over and over again without loss. This is a fairly simple
distinction which doesn't capture the full sense of what is happening or
why--I suspect that the Economist's application of the term 'consumption' to
both activities is misleading--but it does help us focus on the infinite
reproducibility and accessibility at little cost of intangible property.
Open-source projects, such as the creation of Linux, are being looked at
seriously in the Economist as 'business models' for the future. It would
take too long to deal with the nature of the Linux project, suffice to say
that it is an exemplary collaborative design project.
BUT, but, but! I find myself continually torn between conflicting
imperatives when considering these ideas and how they relate to my own
design and research practice. Take our Institute's web site: we want to make
everything that we do available to the design and research community, but it
costs us time to do all the work necessary to publish papers and maintain
the site.
The 'but' arises because projects like Linux happen as a result of massive
undeclared and unacknowledged subsidies. Highly skilled people who have
accquired their training at state expense are paid a salary while they
participate in a massive collaborative project. I'm not against such a
project, far from it. I wish we could all work in this way, but we cannot
for very simple economic reasons. It is odd for the Economist's writers to
think in this way. The fact that they do gives pause for thought and hope.
But then, perhaps it's just an oversight that the bean counters in
universities will pick up on sooner or later.
David
--
Professor David Sless
Director
Communication Research Institute of Australia
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