[FM Discuss] wikimania presentation

[adam hyde]

hi,

So...i present in Wikimania on the last day with Shun-ling Chen (Harvard
Law School), Melanie Dulong de Rosnay (Institute for Information Law of
the University of Amsterdam) on open publishing and the wiki borg. 

I thought I should outline a little here what I will present. I have
been sitting on a plane for some 20 hours now, and still 15 or so to go,
so plenty of time to think...still, these thoughts are sketches and
might change before the panel...but anyways...here are some points,
please comment as much as you like (it will also help me focus the
material) ...

The presentation from me will probably be using slides...so, here in
order of how they appear on my screen now are the main points with some
underlying rationale provided in text which I will speak to on the
day...

Slide 1 
//Three Cornerstones of Publishing//
* THE Author
* THE Publisher
* Copyright

- here I want to establish that the publishing industry as we know it is
a construct, the three cornerstones of which are the above. They work in
perfect harmony with each other to form the basis of the publishing
industry business model. 

slide 2
//Three Barriers to Open Publishing//
* THE Author
* THE Publisher
* Copyright

- I want to show that the very same things that have created the
publishing industry are the very components that frustrate anything that
we might call Open Publishing. I don't want to go into much detail in
this slide, I want it to be a teaser to provoke the audience to wonder
why the same things that have created the industry also retard the
development of free culture. 

slide 3 
//Publishing now//
* author - (c) - publisher
* Output : book
* Symbiotic relationship
* Publisher bestows authority on a writer. 
* The writer confirms the status of the publisher.
* Copyright all rights reserved
* Business model established and protected by copyright
* The Book is The Authorised version

- this is just an outline to show what everyone knows already. However I
will emphasise the symbiotic nature of the Author and the Publisher so i
can highlight later that if you break one, you break the other.

slide 4 
//Pseudo free culture (cc)//
* Author – (cc) – Publisher
* Output : book
* Symbiotic relationship
* Publisher bestows authority on a writer. 
* The writer confirms the status of the publisher.
* Copyright some rights reserved
* Author has mandate to change
* Publishers are weird about (cc)
* Reuse tolerated if attributed
* Authorial Status maintained by Attribution requirements
* Forking is marginally tolerated
* Business model established but not protected by ©
* The Book is The Authorised version

- this is intended to highlight how Creative Commons (cc) (or any
copyright license used as an alternative to the default all rights
reserved) by itself does not bring free culture. For example, there are
still cultural norms that mean (cc) is used often as a pretense to free
culture. Some examples of psuedo free culture in action would be :
# the Ubuntu Handbook published under a cc license by McGraw Hill with a
'(c) - all rights reserved' notice right next to the 'CC-SA-BY' notice
# the fact that single authored works in FM do not get changed as much
as works whose genesis has been by community
# my conjecture that culture norms mean that Attribution clauses enforce
Authorial gatekeeping (ie the mandate to change a document is culturally
retarded due to Attribution requirements which are a legacy of the
publishing culture and (c))

At the end of the day, (cc) does not effect the publishing industry
model in anyway, except maybe in that publishers spend less on lawyers
fees.


slide 5 
//Life under the borg//
* borg – (cc?) – ?
* Output : bookS.
* This is free culture at work
* Borg genesis of content
* No-one to care about protecting copyright rights (** except that the
material remains free)
* Attribution is relatively meaningless
* Limited authorial gatekeeping
* Mandate to change more easily transfered
* Business model not established and not reliant on copyright
* The Book is not the Authorised version
* This is where the publishing industry stops working
* This is where information starts working

- this is meant to show that Open Publishing can only happen if the
culture of Authorship is changed (to an open collaborative model) and
this in turn immediately effects the notion of what a publisher is and
hence effects the entire publishing model. If the culture of Authorship
changes then pretty much copyright becomes meaningless too because at
its core copyright and copyright licensing prevents
collaboration/particpation

slide 6 
//What stops working?//
* Editions (incl. ISBN)
* Traditional business model
* Role of the publisher
* Authorial Status

//What starts working?//
* Versions
* Rapid development of content
* Life of a text
* Reuse (incl. Translation)
* New Business Models

- this slide has two titles to show what stops working in an Open
Publishing environment and what starts working. Essentially the business
model collapses, however the actual information itself actually starts
to work...if texts can be easily updated, recontextualised and
translated then they start having a longer relevance and broader use. It
also means texts can progress. However, it also means the cult of the
Author dissipates, as does the cult of the publisher as it is now. If
you take away the three cornerstones of the existing publishing model
then it is hard to see how it might continue to function under the same
model

slide 7 
//What is important For Open Publishing?//
* Texts genesis must be by the borg
* Biggest copyright hacks possible
* Technology to enable reuse and collaboration
* Remove the reliance on generating income from the end of the process

- I want to outline here what are the conditions for Open Publishing.
Technology itself is actually not necessary and perhaps problematic to
put here, as written works before copyright (eg manuscript culture) were
more participatory and 'open' that now. 

slide 8
//What is Copyright & Copyright Licensing In Open Publishing//
* A technological burden
* A participatory burden
* A burden for reuse
* A burden to free information flow 
* Irrelevant
** If there is to be copyright, it should be to enforce the right to
copy

- copyright is an unnecessary hinderance to open publishing

slide 9
//What is an Open Publisher?//
* A technology provider
* A repository for reusable content
* Enables collaboration
* Enables reuse
* A hub
* A facilitator
* Reseller/distributor

- this is a slight diversion to consider what a publisher might look
like in a contemporary Open Publishing environment.

slide 10
//What is the Business Model?//
* A technology provider ($)
* A repository for reusable content ($)
* Enables collaboration ($)
* Enables reuse ($)
* A hub ($)
* A facilitator ($)
* Reseller/distributor ($)
* Note : © is not required

- just to illustrate that the same functions of a 'open publisher' are
also potential revenue generators, and to note that none of these
generators require copyright. Writers also get paid here via
commissions, as they do now, and I will also state this.

...i know the notes are brief...one day i will write this up as an
essay...but if anyone can follow it and comment please do...

adam















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Adam Hyde
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