Showing posts with label innovation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label innovation. Show all posts

29 March 2017

The Copyright Industry's So-Called "Value Gap" Is Actually an Innovation Gap

The is a crucial year for the Internet in Europe, because 2017 will see key decisions made about the shape of copyright law in the EU. That matters, because copyright is in many ways the antithesis of the Net, based as it is on enforcing a monopoly on digital content, whereas the Net derives its power from sharing as widely as possible. The stronger copyright becomes, the more the Internet is constrained and thus impoverished.

There are three key areas in the proposed revision to the EU's Copyright Directive where the Internet and its users are under threat from attempts to strengthen copyright. First, there is the panorama exception, which allows people to take pictures in the street without needing to worry about whether buildings or public objects are subject to copyright. Despite this being little more than common sense – imagine having to check the legal status of everything in view before taking a photo – copyright maximalists are fighting to stop a panorama exception being added to EU law.

The second point of contention concerns the link tax, also known as the snippets or Google tax. The last of these explains the motivation: publishers want Google to pay for linking to their articles using snippets of text. Despite the obvious folly of charging for the ability to send traffic to your site, the copyright world's sense of entitlement is such that two countries have already introduced a link tax, with uniformly disastrous results.

When Spain brought in a law that required search engines to pay publishers for the use of snippets, Google decided to close down its Google News service in the country, which led to online publishers losing 10% to 15% of their traffic.

Similarly, in Germany, which also introduced a link tax, publishers ending up giving Google a free licence to their material, so great was the law's negative impact on their business when Google stopped linking to their publications.

The snippet tax is so manifestly stupid that it is unlikely to appear in the final version of the revised Copyright Directive. But the third area of concern stands a much better chance because of the clever way that the publishing world is dressing it up as being about a so-called "value gap." It's a very vague concept – see this new video that explores what it is - but it boils down to publishers being resentful because digital newcomers came up with innovative business models based around legal access to online music, and they didn't.

An interesting speech on the topic by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's CEO in 2016 laments the fact that the "value" of the global music industry has recently declined 36% over 15 years. That's not really surprising: during this period the recording industry did everything in its power to throttle or stall new ways of providing access to music on the Internet.

What the so-called "value gap" is really about here is the long-standing innovation gap among recording companies, and their refusal to adapt to a changing world. Imagine if they had embraced the P2P music sharing service Napster in 2000 instead of suing it into the ground. Imagine if they had set up sharing and streaming servers themselves a decade and a half ago; imagine how much money they would have made from subscriptions and advertising, and how much their value would have grown, not fallen.

If this evident innovation gap only harmed the copyright companies themselves, it would not be a problem, so much as just deserts. But they are now lobbying to get the laws around the world changed in important ways purely in order to prop up their old business models in an attempt to compensate for this failure to embrace the Internet. In the EU, they are using the fallacious "value gap" concept to call for mandatory upload filters for all major sharing sites – effectively large-scale surveillance and censorship.

Given that one of the most important consequences of the Copyright Directive could be the curtailing of basic human rights in the EU, it is disappointing that a seminar run by the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group in the European Parliament – supposedly made up of liberals in favour of such democratic freedoms – skews the debate so completely in favour of the copyright industry. Judging by the programme, there is not a single representative of the public speaking at the event – which is pointedly entitled "Copyright reform: Sharing of the value in the digital environment" - pretty much guaranteeing a biased and unhelpful discussion.

That failure by ALDE even to acknowledge that EU citizens have anything useful to contribute, or any right to speak here, does not bode well for the ultimate outcome of the Copyright Directive negotiations later this year. ALDE needs to start caring about and listening to the millions of citizens who voted for its MEPs. At the moment it seems to have uncritically swallowed the backward-looking copyright industry's framing of the problem as a non-existent "value gap", when the deeper problem is its continuing innovation gap. As a result, this year could see key aspects of the Internet's operation, to say nothing of privacy and freedom of speech, gravely damaged because of yet another expansion of copyright's reach and power.

25 July 2014

Bringing Transparency Back To The Patent System With 'Innovation Cartography'

As Techdirt has noted many times, the patent system is broken, and in various ways. One major problem is the way it inhibits innovation, rather than promoting it, as its supporters usually claim. Here's why: 

On Techdirt.

23 November 2013

How Network Neutrality Promotes Innovation

As I've pointed out many times in previous posts, one of the key benefits of mandating network neutrality is that it promotes innovation by creating a level playing field. Such statements are all very well, but where's the evidence? An important new study entitled "The innovation-enhancing effects of network neutrality" [.pdf], commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs from the independent SEO Economic Research unit provides perhaps the best survey and analysis of why indeed network neutrality is so beneficial:

On Open Enterprise blog.

19 September 2013

WIPO: Informal Economy Innovates In The Absence Of Intellectual Monopolies

One of the problems with the debates around copyright and patents is that they too often assume that intellectual monopolies are necessary in order to promote innovation or even basic economic activity. But that overlooks all kinds of domains where that's not true. In the field of technology, free software and the other open movements based on sharing are familiar examples of this kind of thing. Less well known so are the so-called "informal economies" found in many parts of the world. 

On Techdirt.

14 April 2013

Here's Another Inventor Who Willingly Gave Away His Greatest Idea In Order To Establish It As A Global Standard


Beyond the fact that you are using it to read these words, the Web has undeniably had a major impact on a large part of the world's population. It's certainly one of the greatest inventions of recent times, and as Techdirt has noted before, one of the reasons it has taken off in such an amazing way, and led to so many further innovations, is because Sir Tim Berners-Lee decided not to patent it.

31 March 2013

India Says: 'There Is No Direct Correlation Between IP And Innovation'

Techdirt has been pointing out for years that more patents is not the same thing as more innovation, even though many around the world would have us believe otherwise. It seems the message is finally getting through: here's a remarkable statement from India on the subject of innovation and small- and medium-sized companies, made at a TRIPS Council meeting: 

On Techdirt.

10 March 2013

Chinese Junk Patents Flood Into Australia, Allowing Chinese Companies To Strategically Block Innovation

Techdirt has been writing for a while about China's policy of providing incentives to file patents -- regardless of whether those patents have any worth. That's led to a naïve celebration of the large numbers now being granted, as if more patents corresponded to more innovation. 

On Techdirt.

29 September 2012

Why Computer Companies Should Copy The Fashion Industry

Techdirt has had many posts pointing out that the huge and vibrant fashion industry is a perfect demonstration that you don't need monopolies to succeed, and that bringing in copyright for clothes and accessories now would be positively harmful. One of the people who's been making that point for years is Kal Raustiala (co-author of this month's Techdirt book club choice, The Knockoff Economy). NPR Books has just posted a short interview with him that succinctly explains why copyright would be a disaster for the fashion industry. Here are a couple of the key points. 

On Techdirt.

29 July 2011

Why Defensive Patents are a Contradiction in Terms

I've been writing about why software patents are bad from every viewpoint for far too long, but I'm heartened by the recent upswing in interest by others, less obsessed than I am, which has resulted in a sudden flood of really intelligent reporting on the subject (this, for example).

Usually those pieces are just catching up with what has been said by many of us for a while. Occasionally, though, you come across a post that is genuinely original in its insights, and makes you exclaim: "now, why didn't I think of that?" This is just such a post:

A patent that is truly so original that somebody else wouldn’t arrive at the same solution by applying normal engineering skill is useless as a defensive patent. You can’t threaten someone with a countersuit if your idea is so brilliant that your opponents—because they didn’t think of it—haven’t incorporated it in their technology. The ideal defensive patent, by contrast, is the most obvious one you can get the U.S. Patent Office to sign off on—one that competitors are likely to unwittingly “infringe,” not realizing they’ve made themselves vulnerable to legal counterattack, because it’s simply the solution a good, smart engineer trying to solve a particular problem would naturally come up with.

Of course - it's obvious when you think about it. And it means that these so-called "defensive patents" are a contradiction in terms: if ideas are useful as a defence, they don't deserve a patent, and if they truly do deserve a patent (in theory, at least), they will be useless for defensive purpose.

What a fab insight - one that takes another huge chunk out of the arguments in favour of patents.

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20 July 2011

Myhrvold Hoist By His Own (Patented) Petard

There's a column doing the rounds at the moment that is generating some interest. It comes from the King of the Patent Trolls, Nathan Myhrvold. I urge you to read it - not so much for what he wants to point out, as for what he inadvertently reveals. Here's the key passage:

Most big tech companies inhabit winner-take-most markets, in which any company that gets out in front can develop an enormous lead. This is how Microsoft came to dominate in software, Intel Corp. in processors, Google Inc. (GOOG) in web search, Oracle Corp. in databases, Amazon.com Inc. in web retail, and so on.

As a result, the tech world has seen a series of mad scrambles by companies wanting to be king of the hill. In the late 1980s, the battle was for dominance of spreadsheet and word-processing software. In the late 1990s, it was about e- commerce on the emerging Internet. The latest whatever-it-takes struggle has been over social networks, with enough drama to script a Hollywood movie.

In each case, the recipe for success was to bring to market, at a furious pace, products that incorporate new features. Along the way, inconvenient intellectual property rights were ignored.

I think he's absolutely spot on. In the 1980s and 1990s, companies successively carved out dominant shares in emerging markets, often becoming vastly profitable in the process. And how did they do that? Well, as Myhrvold says, "the recipe for success was to bring to market, at a furious pace, products that incorporate new features." Their rise and huge success was almost entirely down to the fact that they innovated at a "furious pace", which led to market success.

They did not, that is, innovate in order to gain patents, but in order to succeed. They did not even bother taking out patents, so busy were they innovating and succeeding. Indeed, Myhrvold himself says: "Along the way, inconvenient intellectual property rights were ignored." They were ignored by everyone, and the most innovative companies thrived as a direct result, because only innovation mattered.

Fast forward to today. Now even the most innovative company has to spend millions of dollars fighting lawsuits over alleged patent infringement. Often these come from companies that don't actually innovate in any way - they just happen to own a patent that may or may not read on real products that genuine innovators have produced.

So by Myhrvold's own admission, ignoring "inconvenient intellectual property rights", companies innovated fiercely, created now market segments, and were rewarded for their innovation by market dominance and profits. Why then is he and others extolling the virtue of those same, inconvenient patent rights that did nothing for two decades?

The answer, of course, is obvious: because he and the other patent trolls (and burnt-out companies like Microsoft that are becoming a new kind of patent troll by default) have realised that it is not actual, on-the-ground, expensive innovation that counts, but the piece of paper from the USPTO assigning nominal "ownership" of that innovation.

He and his company have learned how to game the system and thus destroy the conditions that led to over two decades of uninterrupted and unprecedented innovation and wealth creation thanks to a level playing field offered by the absence of distorting intellectual monopolies - not their presence, as his column illogically tries to suggest at one point. This U-turn is doubly ironic given his unexpectedly candid opening analysis describes so well why we do not need patents at all.

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15 April 2011

Brain Institute's Clever Move

One of the more unexpected interests of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is the Allen Human Brain Atlas:

Using an innovative approach to human brain mapping, the Allen Institute is developing a one-of-a-kind resource for understanding genes at work in the human brain. Launched in May 2010, the ALLEN Human Brain Atlas is expected to provide insights that propel researchers to understand and discover new treatments for a variety of brain diseases and disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease, autism, schizophrenia and drug addiction.

To its credit, it has adopted a reasonably liberal licence:

You may use, copy, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display or create derivative works of the Materials for research or noncommercial educational purposes or for your own personal noncommercial purposes.

Interestingly, it has this rider:

Freedom to Innovate and Rights to Improvements

You may, and are encouraged to, develop new methods, applications, interfaces or other inventions or works that improve the use of, and build upon, the Materials (collectively, “Improvements”). In order to make the Materials available to you and others in the research community, however, the Allen Institute must preserve its freedom to innovate. If you develop an Improvement based on or utilizing the Materials, and you obtain any proprietary rights in or to that Improvement, you and your successors or assigns agree not to assert such proprietary rights against the Allen Institute or its successors or assigns for its or their use of any Improvement independently developed by or on behalf of the Allen Institute that might otherwise infringe such proprietary rights. Additionally, the Allen Institute retains its rights, title and interest in any Materials that are part of or are used by you to create an Improvement.

That's a clear recognition of the fact that "proprietary rights" like patents cut across the "freedom to innovate". It's a pity that the Allen Institute didn't go further, and insist that all improvements be made freely available to everyone, but it's a start.

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06 April 2011

How Gene Patents Cause Suffering

Here's a textbook case of how gene patents not only do *not* promote innovation, as is so frequently claimed, but slow it down - and will probably cause millions to suffer as a result.


An AIA lawsuit filed in February 2010 against the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine — a source of laboratory mice funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) — now threatens hundreds of government-sponsored Alzheimer's researchers with litigation.

But wait, what patent might that be?

The suit concerns an AIA patent on a human DNA sequence used in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease. The sequence encodes the 'Swedish mutation' (discovered in a Swedish family), which causes early-onset Alzheimer's. Michael Mullan, a biomedical researcher who is now head of the Roskamp Institute in Sarasota, Florida, patented the sequence in 1995, then sold it to the AIA.

So this concerns a *human* DNA sequence, found in a Swedish family. That is, it is something natural, that was discovered, not invented in any sense. And yet a patent was granted on this non-invention, and this ill-considered move is now casting a chill over an entire field of research that could potentially alleviate the suffering of millions.

Now, tell me again how gene patents promote innovation and progress...?

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04 March 2011

Putting China on the Innovation Map

Rather patronisingly, the West has tended to regard China as little better than a copy-cat in advanced technologies, not least on the Web. That's been fuelled in part by the tendency of Chinese companies to create clones of Western Net companies without even changing the design.

But there's definitely a new wave of innovation coming through, although it's hard for those who don't read Chinese to follow this. But one example that is accessible to everyone is the site O.cn.

That's because it's a mapping site - here's Beijing - and hence highly visual, but rather different to Google Maps because it uses an axonometric projection, which makes it look a little bit like SimCity. Paradoxically, this makes it easier to grasp the lay of the land. Moreover, many individual buildings are named (in Chinese, of course), provided a handy level of detail, and you can also pull out categories like food or entertainment.

All-in-all, its an impressive site, and one that really puts Western rivals in the shade. Expect to see this happening more and more.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

09 November 2010

A Patent No-brainer, Mr Willetts

There has been understandable excitement over David Cameron's announcement - out of the blue - that the UK government would be looking at copyright law:

On Open Enterprise blog.

07 June 2010

Why the iPhone Cannot Keep up with Android

Although I have never owned an iPhone, nor even desired one, I do recognise that it has redefined the world of smartphones. In that sense, it is the leader, and will always be historically important. However, as my title suggests, I don't think that's enough to keep it ahead of Android, however great you may judge the feature gap to be currently. Here's a good explanation of why that is:

Through a bevy of handset makers, Android can offer a variety of phones that will make it difficult for Apple to beat with just one hardware release a year. While it is hard to ever go wrong with an iPhone, Android offers a ton of alternative form factors, price points and carriers: Sprint (NYSE: S) has released the first 4G phone on Android; T-Mobile has a new competitive Android phone with a slide-out keyboard; the HTC Incredible sold by Verizon has been flying off store shelves; and even Google’s Nexus One still boasts some of the latest hardware. Not to mention new Android phones from Samsung and LG (SEO: 066570) coming later this summer.

The thing is, no matter how amazing any given feature of the iPhone, in any iteration, sooner or later (and probably sooner) there will be an Android smartphone that matches it. And alongisde that handset will be dozens of others offering other features that the iPhone hasn't yet implemented - and may never do.

It's an unfair race: iPhone iterations, even blessed by Steve Jobs' magic pixie dust, can only occur so fast; Android innovations, by contrast, are limited only by the number of players in the market. Want a new Android handset ever week? Easy, just wait until the ecosystem grows a little more.

And don't even get me started on the fact that the Android code is already starting to appear in totally new segments, bringing yet more innovation, yet more players....

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

16 April 2010

Darkness Visible: Making Patent Absurdity Patent

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I write a lot about software patents. The reason is simple: they represent probably the greatest single threat to free software, far beyond that of any individual company. If software patents are invoked more widely, or – even worse – unequivocally accepted in Europe, then free software will be in serious trouble (so will traditional software, but at least the companies involved will be able to pay for lawyers, unlike most free software projects.) This makes fighting software patents one of the key tasks for the free software community.

On Open Enterprise blog.

25 March 2010

Cameron as Future Avatar of Film Industry

For some months now, I've been touting "Avatar" as a good example of how the film industry should be concentrating on enhancing the experience of watching films *in the cinema* - something that no copied DVD can reproduce - thus making unauthorised copies pretty much into marketing devices that encourage people to go to the cinema for the full experience.

It seems that one person who gets this is James Cameron himself:

He said the music industry made a critical mistake by trying to stop piracy instead of innovating to give consumers new experiences that the industry could use to generate more money.

"The music industry saw it coming, they tried to stop it, and they got rolled over," he said. "Then they started suing everybody. And now it is what it is."

Instead, Cameron said he has tried to innovate to give movie goers a reason to go to theater. And in creating a rich, "reinvigorated cinema experience," Cameron said he discovered that people are willing to pay money to experience the same content in different ways. Not only are they willing to pay $10 or more to see Avatar on the big screen in 3D, but they also will pay to own the DVD and to take it with them on their phone or portable device.

"People are discriminating about the experience," he said. "They want to own it, have it on a iPhone when they want it, and they want the social experience of going to the cinema. These are really different experiences. And I think they can all co-exist in the same eco-system."

Cameron said the fact that people are still going to the theater to see Avatar now nearly four months after it was released supports his conclusion. He said he has had several discussions with the movie studio trying to figure out when to release the DVD of the movie. Typically DVD's are released after the film has left movie theaters. But he said since people are still going to see the movie in the theater, they decided to release the DVD next month with the movie still playing in some cinemas. The movie will also be available soon on iTunes.

What a perfect summary of what can be done, and what should be done. Let's hope Cameron is the future of cinema - at least in this respect.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

15 February 2010

Something Happened: Where's Microsoft?

As you may have heard, last week there was a bit of kerfuffle over Google's Buzz and its implications for privacy. And Google has responded:

On Open Enterprise blog.

04 February 2010

ACTA Goes on the Charm Offensive sans Charm

Sorry to rattle on about ACTA, but it seems there's something of a concerted campaign to "counter" all the noise we little people are making. Here's a line that might sound familiar, this time from Stanford McCoy, "Assistant United States Trade Representative for Intellectual Property and Innovation":

Intellectual property protection is critical to jobs and exports that depend on innovation and creativity. Trade in counterfeit and pirated products undermines those jobs and exports, exposes consumers to dangerous knock-offs from toothpaste to car parts, and helps fund organised crime.

Yes, the old counterfeit = "pirated" equation. And to add insult to injury:

Far from keeping them secret, governments participating in these negotiations have sought public comments, released a summary of issues under discussion, and enhanced public engagement.

Oh dear, I must have blinked and missed all that public discussion and "enhanced" public engagement....

My prediction: there's lot's more where this came from.

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26 November 2009

Who Owns Science? The Manchester Manifesto

One of my heroes, Sir John Sulston, has a piece in the Guardian today with the intriguing headline "How science is shackled by intellectual property":

The myth is that IP rights are as important as our rights in castles, cars and corn oil. IP is supposedly intended to encourage inventors and the investment needed to bring their products to the clinic and marketplace. In reality, patents often suppress invention rather than promote it: drugs are "evergreened" when patents are on the verge of running out – companies buy up the patents of potential rivals in order to prevent them being turned into products. Moreover, the prices charged, especially for pharmaceuticals, are often grossly in excess of those required to cover costs and make reasonable profits.

IP rights are beginning to permeate every area of scientific endeavour. Even in universities, science and innovation, which have already been paid for out of the public purse, are privatised and resold to the public via patents acquired by commercial interests. The drive to commercialise science has overtaken not only applied research but also "blue-skies" research, such that even the pure quest for knowledge is subverted by the need for profit.

Great stuff, but this is actually just a teaser for the launch today of something called rather grandly "The Manchester Manifesto" [.pdf], which states the problem as follows:

It is clear that the dominant existing model of innovation, while serving some necessary purposes for the current operation of innovation, also impedes achievement of core scientific goals in a number of ways. In many cases it restricts access to scientific knowledge and products, thereby limiting the public benefits of science; it can restrict the flow of information, thereby inhibiting the progress of science; and it may hinder innovation through the costly and complicated nature of the system. Limited improvements may be achieved through modification of the current IP system, but consideration of alternative models isurgently required.

Unfortunately, after asking the right questions, the answer that the manifesto comes up with is pretty thin gruel:

We call for further research towards achieving more equitable innovation and enabling greater fulfilment of the goals of science as we see them.

Further research?

Modified and alternative models of innovation have the potential to address problems inherent in the current system. An investigation and evaluation of these models is required in order to determine whether they are likely to be more successful in facilitating the goals of science and innovation identified above, and if so how they may be deployed.

Hey, let's not get too radical, eh?

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