Showing posts with label intellectual commons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intellectual commons. Show all posts

01 May 2009

Why Pig Flu is Better than Bird Flu: Open Data

As I wrote two years ago, one of the most worrying aspects of bird flu (remember that?) was that virus sequences were not being shared well, which meant that it was hard for experts to track its development and come up with a vaccine. Well, in one respect, swine flu seems to be an improvement over the avian variety:

In contrast to H5N1 bird flu, all the genetic sequences of this H1N1 are being posted on bulletin boards like GISAID, where scientists can access them and compare preliminary analyses.

The GISAID system was set up in 2006 by scientists who protested that H5N1 sequences were not being made freely available.

Here's what the GISAID site says:

This platform is designed and maintained by scientists for scientists from various disciplines e.g. veterinary and human virology, bioinformatics, epidemiology, immunology and clinical analysis etc. From here on, you will find a series of services, including the EpiFlu Database (developed by the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics in conjunction with other partners of this initiative) providing secure storage and the analysis of genetic, epidemiological and clinical data.

Researchers like you have come together to empower this publicly accessible platform, free-of-charge to all researchers in the world who agree to the same terms, to foster a better understanding of the influenza virus. Following the correspondence letter in Nature, we have all pledged to share the data, to analyze the findings jointly, and to publish the results collaboratively, on the basis of open sharing of data respecting the rights and interests of all involved parties.

One fascinating aspect of this is that to view the data you must agree to the data-sharing that lies at the heart of the site:

Before you can enter, you are required to register and agree to the Terms of Use of our platform, as GISAID implements a particular data-sharing concept that has facilitated the flow of influenza sequence data to the public.

This creates an information commons, just as free software does.

Maybe there's hope for us yet.

01 December 2008

Saving the Intellectual Commons with Open Source

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am not a fan of the term “intellectual property”, and that I prefer the more technically correct term “intellectual monopolies”. Despite that, I strongly recommend a new book from someone who not only approves of the term “intellectual property”, but of its fundamental ideas. I do so, however, because this avowed fan also has serious reservations....

On Open Enterprise blog.

12 July 2007

A Theory of Optimal Copyright

There have been plenty of arguments over copyright and what an appropriate term for it should be, but, to my knowledge, precious few mathematical theories, especially those that take into account the impact of digital technologies.

Enter Rufus Pollock, with his splendid paper Forever Minus a Day: Some Theory and Empirics of Optimal Copyright. And if you get the feeling from the title that this may not be exactly beach literature, you are probably right:

Take any exogenous variable X which affects the welfare function (whether directly and/or via its effect on production N). Assuming that the initial optimal level of protection is finite, if d2W/dXdS is positive then an increase (decrease) in the variable X implies an increase (decrease) in the optimal level of protection.

Go that? Well, get this, at least:

Using a simple model we characterise optimal term as a function of a few key parameters. We estimate this function using a combination of new and existing data on recordings and books and find an optimal term of around fourteen years. This is substantially shorter than any current copyright term and implies that existing copyright terms are non-optimal.

Non-optimal: there you have it in a nutshell. (Via Boing Boing.)

18 June 2007

Wiping the WIPO Slate Clean

As I've noted before, if WIPO is to avoiding turning into a huge ball on chain on the international community, it needs to change; specifically, it needs to rethink its attitude to intellectual monopolies, and embrace the larger idea of the intellectual commons.

Amazingly, there are some small signs that this is beginning to happen:

Members of a World Intellectual Property Organization committee addressing proposals for a WIPO Development Agenda last week potentially rewrote the UN body’s mandate, pending approval.

Negotiators concluded a weeklong meeting with agreements on a wide range of proposals for new development-related activities - some hard to imagine for WIPO two years ago - and a recommendation to set up a new committee to implement the proposals.

“This is a major achievement,” said a participating official. “It’s a complete overhaul of the WIPO concept, broadening it to reflect society’s growing concern with ownership of technologies and knowledge, and its effects for the future, both in developed and developing countries.”

However, there is a rearguard action being fought against this by - guess who? - yup, the US:

The United States, meanwhile, moved quickly to emphasise the inclusion of IP protection and that the recommendations are within the existing WIPO mandate. It also sought to tie the outcome to its hope for a renewed effort at harmonising national patent laws.

Fortunately, developing countries and emerging powers like Brazil are becoming sufficiently strong and self-confident to fight this kind of recidivism.

25 March 2007

India's Intellectual Commons

Here's an interesting perspective from India on intellectual monopolies:

The term "intellectual property" reduces knowledge into a tangible product. In international trade negotiations, when India negotiates on the basis of the term "intellectual property," we implicitly accept that intellect can be reduced to property and all that remains is to dot the i's and cross the t's. We buy into the rhetoric that without the "propertization" of knowledge, there will be no innovation. And in doing so, we ignore our own history where astonishing innovations flourished over thousands of years. In accepting the term "intellectual property," we implicitly accept a playing field that is dominated by the commercial traditions of the West, rather than the spiritual traditions of the East.

09 July 2006

A Defence of the Intellectual Commons

Use rights over cultural and scientific information are of fundamental political importance to citizens everywhere. These rights will be deeply affected by the kinds of intellectual property rights we allow to develop. This article argues for positive intellectual commons as a means of increasing freedom and diversity in information societies. Selforganized, positive intellectual commons will become more prevalent as citizens conclude that governments, will not deliver the institutions of knowledge that citizens want.

Which is of course what I have been saying for a while in this blog. But this paper by Peter Drahos puts it rather well; moreover, his background makes him rather better-qualified than I am to give some serious academic justifications for the ideas we share. Do read it. (Via Open Access News.)

21 December 2005

The IP Penny Begins to Drop

The news that 12 US universities have adopted a series of guiding principles to facilitate collaborative research on open source software really shouldn't be news. The principles simply state that to accerate work in this area, intellectual property (IP) created by such collaborations should be made freely available for use in open source projects. Pretty obvious really: no free sharing, no free software.

But what is interesting about this (aside from the fact that it even needing stating) is the way that it throws up the stark opposition between IP and open source: they simply do not mix. As a consequence, the continuing (and ineluctable) rise of free software means that IP will be increasingly under attack, and shown for what it really is: a greedy attempt to enclose the intellectual commons.