The scenario is always the same: a girl is raped, often in some secluded place and/or after dark; this gets media attention for one reason or another; then some politician (unsurprisingly, it’s almost always a male politician) remarks what a tragedy this is and how nobody can feel safe nowadays, but after all we already know that so she should have known better and not run after dark, or dress differently, or not run alone, etc. In short – some version of “it’s her own fault”.

And a shitstorm starts. Womens’ rights activists attack the politician (and rightfully so) on how insensitive and ill-advised such a remark is and how making it seem as if the victim is herself somehow guilty in such a scenario is simply offensive and should not be happening.

Then some “traditional-values” public person attacks the activists on how they overreact and how this was just “a simple statement of fact”, and that it is “just common sense to not run alone in the dark”, and that such an attack on the politician is uncalled for.

That’s the point at which I would love to see womens’ rights activists to retort simply: “well, the politician should have known better not to spew such bullshit; had he stayed quiet, none of this bad press would have happened; it’s his own fault”.

Full disclosure: I have finally installed some analytics on this brag.

Now, now, keep your cool! No need for those pitchforks, please put them down and read on.

• no, I am not and will never be using Google Analytics; for that matter, all content, fonts, CSS, images directly embedded in this site are and shall always be self-hosted locally – that means no Google/Yahoo/Bing/whatever Webfonts, no external JS tools, no external anything;
• no, I am not setting any cookies; I am tracking visits on the server-side, directly from this brag’s engine; I have no way of tracking returning visits and I do not intend to – day to day stats and rudimentary geo data are plenty for me;
• no, I am not using any JavaScript on this site, this site is and at least in the foreseeable future will remain JavaScript-free; you can check the code yourself.

I am using Piwik, hosted locally. Works great, it was easy to set-up, and even easier to implement on the site, and has everything I need (and then some).

Stats¶

I guess you want to hear some stats, so here they are:

• I get ~2000 visits and ~7000 pageviews daily; the wow factor is strong in this one…
• so far record number of visits and pageviews in a given day: 4412 and 14151, respectively (a day after my article has appeared on Slashdot);
• 15% of my visitors use Linux, another 34% – “other operating systems” (whatever that might be);
• Firefox is the most often used browser with 28% visitors using it; Chrome is unfortunately close second, with 25% (seriously, people, use Chromium instead);
• interestingly, I get about the same amount of visits/pageviews regardless of time of day…
• …which is probably related to the fact that I have had visitors from every continent apart from Antarctica;
• most of visitors seem to come from the United States, with France second and Poland third; surprisingly, I had ~1200 visits from mainland China, too.

By the way, if anybody is interested in translating some of the articles here to languages not featured yet, please feel free; I am very fortunate to have received Spanish translations from Carlos and Laura (thank you!), new languages are always welcome!

On with the stats, though! Now the question everybody’s been asking – the most popular bragposts!

• Of malware, hot steam, privacy, using one’s brain and paedoparanoia with 49383 pageviews;
• the Polish version of On sailor’s sensitivity, or “the starry heavens above me” with 26651 pageviews;
• Automagic re-publishing from Twitter to StatusNet with 7693 pageviews (I should probably mark that one as obsolete, after recent Twitter API changes…).

I seem to be getting about 120 hits via RSS and 170 via Atom daily. Not sure how many subscribers that boils down to, though.

What does it all mean?¶

Bear in mind these are from about a month of gathering. All this will probably change during next months.

Still, the numbers are very encouraging. 2k visits daily? 7k pageviews? Wow. I hoped for a few dozen, maybe. Happy to see my bragging is interesting for you! I’ll try to keep up the apparently decent work.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of taking part (via a radio interview) in the shortest Internet censorship debate ever.

In the morning the Minister of Justice has apparently discovered there is porn on the Internet (welcome to the Net, dear Mr Biernacki; wish you’d been here earlier) and has voiced his support for implementing the British “solution” in Poland; already in the evening PM Donald Tusk and Minister of Administration and Digitization Michał Boni categorically denied any such plans.

In the meantime the NGOs that had been involved in several Internet censorship debates in Poland during the last few years were flooded with media inquiries about the subject – and criticised both the British idea and Minister Biernacki’s statement.

Obviously subject matter arguments were used, unchanged as they are for years: censorship can’t work; it does not solve the actual proble, just hides it; is a great potential danger to free speech and privacy; and so on, and so forth. However, it was also noted that, sadly, the same cabinet (give or take a few Ministers) keeps floating this idea over and over again, and we have to get back to this debate that has been already had several times during last 4 years in Poland.

This observation is however incorrect – to great joy and surprise of the undersigned.

And yet they learn!¶

We shall not block access to legal content regardless of whether or not it appeases us aesthetically or ethically
– PM Donald Tusk, 26.07.2013

I would like to find solutions that are effective and at the same time do not cause concerns regarding surveillance of Internet users or over potential of erroneous limiting our Internet activity. (…) Filtering does not remove the content.
– Minister Michał Boni, 26.07.2013

Chapeau bas! Turns out that years of subject matter discussion, with concrete evidence and arguments, have not been wasted, at least as long as we’re talking about the PM or the Minister of Administration and Digitization. This gives hope.

Next time some Minister discovers with horror that there is pornography on the Internet and that it might have a bad influence on youth (which I can understand might actually be true), before they offer their “revolutionary” idea of censoring the Internet for everybody, maybe – just maybe! – they will simply first ask their colleagues in other departments (Ministry of Health? of Education? of Administration and Digitization?) if there were better and more sane solutions available.

Meanwhile, could the UK and other so-called democracies please do something with their politicos and their moronic ideas, so that our political class doesn’t get ideas of their own?

(and why this is not necessarily a bad thing)

UPDATE: heartfelt thanks to Carlos Solís for the Spanish translation. ¡Gracias!

Abstract¶

With each day we seem to acquire new – faster, better, more convenient – ways of sharing information; and today almost anything can be information: from software operating the fastest supercomputers, through terabyte-sized datasets craved by science, to digitised works of art. All available in byte-form, ready for copying and sharing.

This digital revolution is not compatible with business models of old, and their benefactors fight back vehemently.

Is this the best strategy? New, emerging business models that take these vast sharing opportunities into account seem to suggest otherwise.

Historical outline¶

When the Licensing of the Press Act of 1662 expired in 1695, the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers – remembered in history in short as the Stationers’ Company – found itself without the state-guaranteed monopoly on printing that fueled their flourishing during previous decades. Knowing full well that authors themselves would not be able to publish their works on their own, as that would require significant investment into printing infrastructure, Stationers’ Company invented (then quite a revolutionary) notion that is ringing in every copyright debate to this day: authors’ inherent right to their works.

This argument was so potent that it led directly to enacting in 1710 of the Statute of Anne and creation of the copyright law in form we are familiar with today.

Just as at that time, today this argument is still used as an instrument of protecting the livelihood not of the authors, but of publishers. The middlemen.

Cornerstones of Human Knowledge¶

Arguably the ability that had the biggest influence on human history is the ability to communicate. During millenia human race perfected it, with few inventions bringing real, qualitative change in its speed and accuracy. Each such invention was followed by great intellectual, cultural and social leaps – and political backlash.

Inventing speech allowed our ancestors to transfer knowledge directly, co-operate better in a group, exchange ideas – from very rudimentary at the dawn of men, to great intellectual constructs that were all but lost in time. It also sparked our ability to think in abstracto and operate with logic.

Next great leap was the invention of writing. Immensely important, it catered to the need of preserving the intellectual constructs made possible by speech. This led to the golden age of philosophy, first historical records, literature and poetry. In a way, it enabled communicating through time – great thoughts could be sent across years, decades and further, simply by conserving them in writing.

Printing press brought the written word to the masses, and in effect uprooted the social and economic structure of feudal Europe, leading finally to modern-day democracies. By lowering the costs of creating multiple copies and decimating the time needed for creation of a single copy, ideas could be spread faster and more accurately than ever before – more people could afford to have their thoughts written down and disseminated, more people could afford to own a book. Written word ceased to be the domain of the ruling elite.

Today, the Internet and digital technology lowered those costs even further, dramatically; it enabled almost cost-less transfer of information around the world and instant creation of perfect copies. What was a hard, complicated, arduous and prone to errors process just a couple of decades ago is now a click of a button away.

Disruptive technology¶

We do not know about speech, but all the remaining inventions were seen as disruptive and met with resistance at the time of introduction.

Socrates refused to write down his concepts claiming that writing is harmful to author’s memory, and to the concepts themselves. Printing press was opposed and curtailed by Church and the crowned heads, for it was seen (quite aptly, as Luther’s example shows) as a tool of great revolutionary potential.

Today, no one disputes the importance and value of those inventions, and how instrumental they were to scientific, social and economic development of humanity. Early attempts to curb their use, to exert control over whom can use them and to what ends – like the infamous Index Librorum Prohibitorum – are rightly called censorship and seen as detrimental.

Nevertheless, even with such historical lessons, we find ourselves engulfed in debates on how dangerous Internet is and about ways of curtailing it by the gatekeepers of old.

Devil in the Net¶

Arguments brought about against uncensored Internet are many and can be roughly categorized into:

• moral objections to some content (e.g. pornography; anti-religion content),
• alleged dangers to society stemming from certain kinds of content (e.g. critiques of the ruling; dissent groups; nazizm; hate-speech),
• perceived infringement upon rights of those hitherto privileged (this argument, for obvious reasons, is not usually publicly stated).

Notably, all those categories were present in the European anti-printing-press narrative centuries ago. The Index was created as a measure to enforce official moral and social norms of the times, its creation argued necessary to prevent break-up of societies exposed to “subversive” writings, while at the same time acting as a tool of continually exerting control by the Church – control that was to date exercised through a de facto monopoly on truth, impossible to maintain in the era of print.

In this paper I would like to focus on the last category of arguments against a censorship-free Internet.

Technology versus law¶

Current copyright law descends directly from the Statute of Anne; this is apparent even in its very name: it lays down the rules under which copies of works can be made and who has the right to make them. Created in times when printing was a difficult process, requiring resources and manpower, aimed (as it still is today) to protect publishers’ – and other middlemen – investment.

Publishers’, not authors’: copyright law was created only when the business of publishing emerged; before the advent of printing press and the need for printing workshops there was no need for copyright law, and thus none existed. Without any fast and exact method of copying a work of art (including a book), there was no need to protect the rights to it – books and other artforms were treated just like regular objects: sold, traded, etc., without any discussion of “authors’ rights”.

Complicated printing process also meant that it was in fact possible to efficiently exert control over printing workshops – printing presses had to be purchased, skilled personnel was needed, all this could be controlled to great extent.

Today copyright law is still being used to defend business of middlemen. However, what centuries ago was envisioned as protection of an emerging and useful industry, today is stifling innovation by needlessly defending outdated business models. This stems from a few crucial changes digital technology brought about:

• copying is nigh effortless and cost-less, requires almost no technical prowess, and produces exact, perfect copies, indistinguishable from the “original”;
• distribution across the globe, once the work is in digital form, is also almost effortless and cost-less;
• tools needed to be able to copy and distribute are in abundance and easy to use.

Copyright law is based on assumptions (copying being resource-intensive; distribution being troublesome; censorship being workable) that no longer hold. Traditional business models based on it are, thus, also outdated and ever harder to maintain. Middlemen are gradually becoming obsolete, as each and every author is able to self-publish and reach their fans directly.

However, instead of looking for new models that do work within this new technological framework, the middlemen of old – conventional print, media and entertainment companies – are pushing for ever sterner copyright, ever more enforcement.

This goes against both technology and society, already treating the culture of sharing as the norm, at the same time jeopardising emerging models of financing production of cultural works and endangering works already published.

Of “pirates” and fans¶

Please note: the term “pirate” in this particular context is an act of language abuse; downloading content from the Internet, even without copyright holders’ permission, is legal in some jurisdictions (e.g. Poland), even if publishing it might not be.

As studies around the world have shown, the greatest fans also tend to download the most content from the Internet. A correlation between rising amounts of so-called “illegal content” downloaded via new electronic distribution channels (like peer-to-peer networks) and purported dwindling profits of media companies has not been, however, proven.

On the contrary: yearly revenue reports from biggest entertainment companies seem to suggest otherwise – their revenues evidently rise along with the amount of downloaded “illegal content” worldwide.

There is even a visible correlation between the amount of downloaded illegal content of a particular artist and the artist’s revenue from sales – although it is unclear whether there is any causation present, and in which direction. This might, however, mean that peer to peer networks, besides being allegedly detrimental to sales figures, might be actually a good marketing venue.

Peer-to-Promotion¶

This is already being used as a foundation of emerging business models. Notorious torrenting website The Pirate Bay has decided to work with artists willing to take part in an experiment – and launched The Promo Bay: instead of site’s logo, visible to millions of visitors each day, a new artist and album is being promoted.

It is a new venture and it is hard to assess its long-term viability, but already many participating artists report a surge in interest – and revenue.

The “marketing through sharing” strategy is itself verified, though – the Brazilian Tecno Brega music genre strives on treating CDs recorded in local studios as advertising material, sold for symbolic price or simply given away for free. Sharing on the Internet is not being discouraged as money is being made on live sound system parties with thousands in attendance, by charging entrance fees and selling recordings of the live performance after the party.

Instead of fighting against technology and social norms, Tecno Brega industry takes advantage of technical possibilities of easy copying and distribution to sell something that cannot be readily copied: thrill of live concert, and memories from it.

Sell what cannot be copied¶

While not musically related to Tecno Brega, Polish Przystanek Woodstock festival organizers follow a similar path. This biggest in Europe open-air music and culture festival (catering to over 400 000 music fans each year) does not collect admission fees at all – however, one can buy professionally made recordings and merchendise each year.

Merchendise and concert admission fees are great examples of a business model compatible with culture of digital sharing, but there is even more to make money on than that. Turns out, fans will pay good money for the sheer thrill of knowing they helped make their favourite show or album possible.

This is the idea behind crowdfunding – asking regular people, not big media, for cash up front, so that production could commence. That’s how Pioneer One got founded. That’s where open-source social network software Diaspora got a kick-start. Fans and people that simply liked the idea gladly chipped-in a few dollars to make those – and many more – projects possible. Both were released under open licenses (Creative Commons-based, and AGPL license, respectively).

In fact, this method of receiving pay for work supports many libre/open-source software and libre culture projects. The key here is to make donations as easy, and the resulting product as useful and pleasant to experience or use, as possible – this, in fact, encourages such projects to use libre licensing terms. Terms that are entirely compatible with culture of sharing.

An interesting twist on that particular idea is the Humble Indie Bundle. Mixing the trait of easy donations and maximum freedom of use after purchase with funding drives known from political rallies, NGOs or lately Wikipedia (an interesting example by itself), and with an honourable cause, HIB operators gather independent games in a “bundle” and do a two-week funding drive.

Each client can set their own amount to pay for it, and can set how the money is shared between game developers, HIB operators and two notable NGOs. In return, each client receives games that work on all major operating systems (including the open-source Linux-based ones), not boggled-down with unweildy DRM used by big game publishers to “protect” their games from illegal sharing.

This model is already being copied, for example by Polish start-up Music Rage, doing similar promotional drives for independent music bands.

More inclusive models¶

Also worth noting, and not usually noticed by pundits, is the fact that with many of the above models (specifically: those in which the buyer/founder sets their own price/amount), artists and authors are able to receive payments from income groups that would be excluded in traditional models.

With a CD costing a fixed amount many will not decide to buy: the potential client will not receive the work, nor author the money, even if the client would, in fact, be willing to pay just a little less.

And conversely – should the client decide they would like to reward the author more than the fixed price, this too is impossible (short of buying a second album).

This is not the case with those flexible models. Because copying and distribution is pretty much cost-less, authors can let clients set their prices, and hence cater to both of the above groups.

They can, in fact, incentivise the wealthier clients to make more generous payments by additional services, like inclusion of the name in ending credits in case of a film (again, Pioneer One is an example here).

Middlemen stifle business innovation¶

Traditional middlemen – publishers, big media conglomerates, collection agencies – are trying to roll back technological progress to save old, failing and unsustainable business models, built upon assumptions that no longer hold. By doing so they are actively hurting emerging business models that are both compatible with the technology and social norms aready in place.

A century ago it was not deemed proper to enact laws that would defend horse buggy makers from competition from car makers. Technology moved forward, and so did the affected industry – it was seen as a natural process.

In this paper I hope I have demonstrated the viability of a few examples of emerging business models that take advantage of available technology. I do not believe these are the only models possible, nor that these are the best models conceivable.

I do, indeed, hold that there probably are other and better models for the future. However, unless we stop hampering and hindering technological and business progress in the name of outdated assumptions, we might never be able to find them.

This article has appeared in a peer-reviewed publication “Innovating innovation. Essays on the intersection of information science and innovation” (Warsaw 2013, ISBN:978-83-925759-8-6) edited by dr Bruno Jacobfeuerborn and published by the MOST Foundation.

Thanks to a suggestion made by Sam ‘samthetechie’ Carlisle it is now possible to download source markup of every single post on this brag: just add a .src to the post’s address (or click the nice src link under post’s title).

The markup is a subset of Trac’s WikiFormatting – I like it as it’s clean, simple and fast to edit. Yes, I do prefer it to Markdown. All versions of any given post are generated on-the-fly (and cached) from this markup.

It’s my own little contraption, if you’re interested in the technical details, please feel free to browse the repo. Files of interest here are:

• ifaceTextFilter.php,
• tfGeneralParser.php,
• tfWikiFormatting.php,
• tfWikiFormattingToText.php.

This is the text of a speech given at the 2nd FLOSS Congress in Katowice, Poland, on June 7th 2013; and on the CopyCamp conference in Warsaw, Poland on 1st of October, 2013.

Interesting times we live in, aren’t they. Times of the digital revolution that changes the way we think. A breakthrough requiring a change of approach in almost every area of human thought.

It’s hard to overestimate the importance of our ancestors starting to use tools. Today we rightly consider this a turning point in human history. Up until lately, however, all the tools we have ever used and created, extended our physical capabilities: we used them to throw farther, hit harder, cut stronger materials.

The inventions of the computer and the Internet are the first tools in the history of humankind that extend – so directly – our mental abilities! We can count faster and more precisely, have access to an insurmountable wealth of information and knowledge, and communicate with speeds that just 2 generations ago were a pure fantasy. That’s a change of an era, happening before our very eyes!

In the physical world moving is the most basic operation. When I give something to somebody, I lose it. If I want to get it back, somebody has to let go of it. In the digital world, the most basic operation is copying. Even when I “move” a file from hard-drive to a pendrive, in fact it gets copied and then deleted.

Copying something in the physical world is arduous and costly, if even possible at all. In the digital world, it’s the most basic operation one can perform. Sharing suddenly is not inextricably connected with loss. This single fact makes a world of difference.

Such ease of sharing gave us the Free Software movement, Wikipedia, and libre culture. It gave us OpenStreetMap and innumerable other wonderful projects, that at their heart have this core value: sharing. Sharing of knowledge, of data, of any results of our work.

This means, however, that old business models – built around the physical world’s difficulty of copying – start to be inoperable. Just as the business model of horse-and-buggy makers stopped being operable once cars were invented.

The tragedy of our times is that there are people who find this mundane reason enough to treat this amazing chance, this one of a kind revolution in our ability to access knowledge, culture, information… like it was a problem. It’s truly tragic that instead of looking for new business models, time and money is spent on finding technical and legislative means of introducing a rule from the physical world into the digital reality: trying to make copying hard again.

I believe that to be the wrong approach. Previous similarly important invention – writing and the printing press – are universally considered rather positive developments; the Internet and the digital revolution are as important and valuable, and crucial.

And there are business opportunities available! Instead of saving buggy manufacturers, why not ponder selling cars? Instead of creating artificial bounds for the free flow of ideas and information, why not find ways of building a new, digital economy for the new, digital era? Built on new assumptions and new rules, rather than badly emulating rules from the Old World. New economy that treats the user as a partner, not as a thief.

The Internet isn’t a problem. It’s an opportunity. Let’s seize it!

While I am not a big fan of libel lawsuits (as they are often used to stifle freedom of speech or science), this one time I am very content about them. Alek Tarkowski and Igor Ostrowski are suing Maciej Strzembosz for libel and defamation. It will probably have consequences for the whole copyright reform debate in Poland, and potentially the whole EU.

Why is that important?¶

Alek and Igor are well-known copyright reform and libre culture activists in Poland. Alek is Creative Commons Poland coordinator and an active member of any debate related to openness, especially when concerned with culture or science. Igor held the office of the under-secretary of state at the Ministry of Administration and Digitization (Polish acronym: MAC) during the anti-ACTA campaign and was instrumental in helping the anti-ACTA agenda go through; he also presided over the meeting where the plan of ACTA signing has been announced, and was as shocked and appaled about the plan as we were.

Both had also been part of the Group of Strategic Advisors to the Prime Minister before MAC came to being, and were actively advocating open data, open access, open government and open education agenda to the Prime Minister.

Their work indubitably is and was very important to bring Polish government and public debate to where we are now on these issues.

Maciej Strzembosz on the other hand is a film-maker, chair of the (MPAA-like) Polish National Chamber of Audio-Video Producers, and a long-time vocal opponent of open licensing, Creative Commons, copyright reform. This is the kind of person that calls file-sharers “thieves” and libre culture activists “Google’s pawns”.

What’s it all about?¶

Apparently, Mr Strzembosz called the wrong activists “thieves” and “Google’s pawns”. Alek and Igor are suing him for libel for his public statements containing these very epithets in relation to them.

Do you have your pop-corn ready?

’UPDATE: highlighted the harmfulness of incompatibility of “no derivatives” licenses with libre licenses (including other CC-licenses); heartfelt thanks to Carlos Solís for the Spanish translation. ¡Gracias! *

There are two basic arguments for licensing some works under a “no derivatives” license (e.g. any -ND Creative Commons license, or the GNU Verbatim Copying License):

• some authors do not wish for their works to be modified, twisted, used in ways they do not approve of;
• some works (for example, expressing somebody’s opinion) are fundamentally different from other kinds of works and should remain invariant.

I believe both are specious. And I feel “no derivatives” licenses are both ineffective and counter-productive. Here’s why.

“I don’t want my work twisted!”¶

So you’re an author and you do not wish your work to be twisted or modified to say something you didn’t want to say. There are two possibilities of such modification:

• somebody takes your work, twists it and publishes it under your name, suggesting you wrote this;
• somebody modifies your work and publishes it under their own name, as a derivative work.

The first possibility would be illegal regardless of the license! Nobody has the right to claim your authorship over something you did not create; nobody has the right to modify your work and claim it is still your work. -ND licenses are unnecessary for that purpose, it’s already in the copyright law.

As far as derivative works that build upon the original but change the meaning are concerned (without misrepresentation of authorship), I do not feel we need licensing restrictions for that. That feels too close to censorship for my liking – “thou shall not use my own words against me”; “I don’t like what you’re trying to say so I will use copyright law to stiffle your speech”.

Besides, creating parodies is fair use and no amount of “no derivatives” licensing clauses willl change that. Same goes for quotes. Your words will be used in works that say something you do not wish to say, whether you like it or not!

In that sense, “no derivatives” licenses are ineffective.

“Some works should be invariant!”¶

This argument hinges upon an assumption that some works (memoirs, documentation, opinion pieces) are fundamentally different than others and hence should be preserved as they are.

First of all, all of what I wrote above applies here. Such works cannot be “modified” anyway, “modification” is in fact creation of a derivative work, nobody can (legally) misrepresent authorship or the derived work as the original; such works, also, can be quoted and parodied, regardless of the license. “No derivatives” is ineffective.

“No derivatives” licensing stops people from doing things most of us would say are desirable. Like improving upon some work, creating better arguments or updated versions. Like translating into another language to disseminate knowledge and argumentation. These things are genuinely good, but people that would like to do them will look at the license, and will then get the message they cannot proceed…

More importantly, however, this argument assumes that there is only one context in which a given work can be used. E.g. “an essay on free software” as an article to read and get argumentation from. Or a “memoir” as a historical document describing one’s views and fortune.

Thing is, any work can be used in any context, and often is.

Think for a moment about a teacher in an IT class using an essay on free software as educational material, modifying it just a bit so that the class can better understand it or relate to it, or using it as a basis for an in-class discussion. “No derivatives” would not allow for that.

Think about how artists used different kinds of “materials” for their works of art – for example Duchamp’s “Fountain”. A “memoir” or an “opinion piece” could easily be used in an “art” context, for example as a basis of vocabulary for some free-software scripted (as in: done by scripts in interpreted programming languages) poem writing contest. An example of something similar is HaikuLeaks.

I bet we could find similar haikus in GNU documentation, FSF policy papers, Linux documentation. “No derivatives” would not allow anybody to use these in such a context – and I would say that’s a genuine loss.

And in that sense “no derivatives” licenses are counter-productive.

Muddying the waters¶

“No derivatives” licensing is also truly harmful.

They make it harder to explain what libre licensing is. Many people believe that any CC or GNU license is “free as in freedom”, while in fact CC-*-ND and GNU Verbatim licenses cannot be considered as such. This distinction is both crucial and hard to convey.

They also cause segmentation within the CC/GNU-licensed group of works: some such works (often co-existing on a single OS or in a single repository) are licensed in a way that makes them incompatible with others. Some cannot be modified or used (namely, “no derivatives”-licensed) in new works, while others can.

This muddies the waters, makes libre licensing this much harder to explain and this much harder to take advantage of.

TL;DR¶

• “No derivatives” licensing does not protect against things we want it to protect against (either because these are explicitly allowed for by the copyright law, or because the copyright law already disallows them);
• and at the same time stops people from doing things we might consider interesting or beneficial;
• while making it harder to promote libre licensing and libre-licensed works.

It’s a year today since the whole Europe joined Poland in anti-ACTA protests. Since then we had Polish PM admitting his mistake, politicians calling ACTA “passé”, some serious lobbying in the European Parliament, and finally the death of ACTA in a beautiful festival of democracy.

The debate over copyright reform is far from over and many years will still pass until it is brought up to speed with current technology and social norms, with how culture is being created, shared, remixed by thousands upon thousands for the joy of millions. The War on Fun will continue; copyright abuse will get worse before it gets better; finally, the hypocrisy of copyright maximalists will be enough to bring them down…

…But in the meantime, rejoice! A year ago the whole Europe decided to take a stand and assert our rights, our freedoms and our power to decide. And with one voice, citizens of all European states shouted: no to ACTA.

This is a tribute to them (by prof. Edward Lee).

I have already written about the black PR campaign waged by the traditional publishers’ lobby against the Polish open textbooks government programme, and I have given a talk on 29C3 on this topic. Time for a write-up of the arguments used by the lobby – and how to counter them.

As I have written before, it is crucial to understand that what the anti-OER lobby actually cannot swallow is the “open” part – the libre licenses the textbooks are supposed to be published under, as they uproot traditional publishers’ business models.

However, because openness in education is such a good idea, the lobby knows full well they cannot attack it directly. Instead, they argue against the whole programme on other grounds.

I shall present the arguments I have encountered during the last year, and ideas how to counter them.

Cost¶

The most-often used argument against the programme: creating the textbooks will cost a lot of public money, which could be arguably better spent.

The fact of the matter is, however, that traditional textbooks are not cheap at all. In Poland a set of textbooks for a single child for a given year costs around €150. Taking into account that average pay in Poland is around €1000, and net minimal wage is €280, this is not a small sum of money. The whole Polish school textbooks market is currently worth around €250mln.

What’s more, the Polish government subsidizes poorer families for them to be able to buy textbooks, to the tune of €32mln annually. The cost of the whole e-textbooks pilot programme (creation of 18 textbooks for grades 4-6 of the public schools) is to cost €11mln.

Once created, open textbooks can be reused, updated, remixed and improved by anybody. This means that the cost (from the general public’s point of view) of creating them will be to a large extent a one-time investment – which cannot be said about traditional textbooks, which are restrictively copyrighted by the publishers’.

The argument is hence moot.

Equipment¶

It is very unfortunate that the open textbooks programme in Poland is called “e-textbooks”, as that creates ambiguity as to the role electronic equipment (laptops, tablets, e-book readers) will play in it. Ambiguity that is being exploited by textbook publishers’ lobby by scaring the general public with costs of equipment purchase (supposedly covered by the parents), upkeep, and with related problems (charging, theft, malfunctions, etc).

The crux here is that the programme is not about equipment, and that equipment has a completely secondary role in it. The main reason for the programme is the openness. It’s true that electronic versions of the materials will be prepared, but all materials will have print-ready versions, and all materials will be available in open formats, precluding requiring any particular make of equipment.

Open textbooks will be available to students (and other interested parties) via the Internet, and it will be possible to print them out in schools and libraries. This also has the added benefit that students will not have to carry heavy books every day with them – an argument that might seem superficial, but is raised time and again by parents, teachers and medical practitioners.

The most absurd take on the equipment argument is that “tablets do not create a second-hand market, as traditional textbooks do”. This is something that actually was present in one of the articles by publishers’ lobby, and is wrong on both accounts. Tablets do enjoy a thriving second-hand market, while traditional textbooks in Poland – in no small part due to deliberate actions by the publishers, like bundling exercise booklets within textbooks – have a hard time in supporting it.

Quality¶

Traditional textbook publishers claim that only their expertise in textbook creation can guarantee their proper quality, and that no “crowdsourced” textbook effort can match it.

First of all, the open textbook programme in Poland is not simply crowdsourcing the creation of textbooks. The programme mandates 4 higher education institutions as subject matter partners and one highly-regarded technological institution as a technological partner. The textbooks are to be prepared by experts in their subjects in cooperation with education theorists and practitioners.

Secondly, openness of the process and the resources can only help their quality, as the more people are watching and able to engage with the process, the sooner errors get fixed. This is the model the whole free/libre/open source software community works in, and the adoption of FLOSS (especially in science and technical communities) seems to confirm its quality. This is also the model Wikipedia works in, with good results.

Finally, open educational resources projects around the world prove that the crowdsourcing model works and delivers high quality educational materials.

Had the publishers been genuinely concerned with textbook quality, they would release their textbooks under open licenses, allowing for their fast improvement by a large community. They have not, hence it is safe to assume that – unsurprisingly – quality is not their main concern.

Unfair business practices¶

Textbook publishers claim that the government programme constitutes unfair business practice, and they even sent a letter, threatening legal action against any higher education institutions that would consider taking part in the programme.

Legal analysis of said letter clearly shows that that claim is not at all supported. It is preposterous to claim that a government programme can be an act of unfair business practice; besides, the publishers were invited to partake in the programme – they declined.

Regardless, however, of government involvement in this project, if indeed offering free and open materials would constitute an unfair business practice, we would have to shut down Wikipedia and make FLOSS illegal – they, too, offer free and open materials and solutions; they, too, endanger certain business models.

Finally, the real reason for this letter was to stifle and halt the open textbooks programme – had all the higher education institutions taken it at face value and declined to take part in the programme due to fear of litigation, the programme couldn’t have continued. This was a scare tactic, and indeed treading the line of unfair business practices itself.

Market destruction¶

This programme, it is claimed, will destroy the market worth €250mln, and cause thousands of people to lose their jobs.

The fact that a given product or service puts a given business model in jeopardy is not an argument against this product or service. It is a clear sign it’s time to seek a new business model. And open textbooks allow for new business models – textbook publishers could, if they only wanted, build new business models on them. For example, they could offer high quality printing services, or adapt open textbooks to particular needs of particular profiled schools.

It is additionally claimed that the destruction of this market will harm the whole economy. This is a broken window fallacy – the fact that parents will now spend less money on school textbooks doesn’t mean that this money will not get spent at all.

IT industry will reap the profits¶

Somebody has to create the infrastructure in schools, somebody has to get equipment support contracts… j’accuse! The whole programme is just a money grab by the IT industry, say the textbook publishers.

In the light in the previous “market destruction” argument, it is odd when the lobby uses this argument. After all, had this been true, their fighting against the IT industry market would itself constitute an attempt at “market destruction”.

This argument is all the more peculiar when we remind ourselves of the fact that this programme is not about equipment, and that money goes not to IT companies, but to open textbook authors. Once we realise that not a single IT industry lobbyist was present on any of public consultation meetings regarding the programme, the argument falls squarely into the realm of absurdity.

Centralized education system¶

This argument is calculated to play on emotions of people still remembering the socialist state in Poland, by claiming that this is a way of introducing a centralised education system.

This is nothing new, however – during the last 25 years all textbooks had to be vetted by the Ministry of Education. Open textbooks can only loosen the grip of the central government on the educational resources, as anybody will now be able to build upon a vetted textbook.

Death of books (and death of culture)¶

And the final argument: children are already spending too much time in front of computer screens, and it is ever harder to get them to read a book. Making the textbooks so that they are to be read on a computer screen or electronic device will only make things worse and will spell the end of books as we know it.

Believe it or not, this was also claimed: our culture is a culture of the book, and if the books die, our whole culture will die with them.

And of course yet again we have to remind ourselves that the “electronic” part of the programme is not the relevant part, and that all materials will be available in print-ready versions.

Then again, there is a question of means and of the end. Access to information, to education, to knowledge is the end, and the paper book is just the means. Whether or not it dies is yet to be seen, but we already have many other – some arguably better – means of accessing the written word. It seems safe to assume that our culture is not threatened.