[FM Discuss] wikimania presentation

Wed Aug 26 11:28:19 PDT 2009

Generally very good. I will be interested to see what it turns into.

Two comments.

You are too harsh on (cc). Most of what is licensed under (cc) has
nothing to do with book publishing. Photographs, videos, music
(including source tracks, not just final mix), scientific
data...Enabling sharing and preventing others from putting (cc)
materials under (c) is not a throwaway, but the essence of the
program, just as with GPL. (With the exception of the No Rights
Reserved CC-0 license, provided to remedy the lack of a way to put
material into the Public Domain in current law.) But perhaps you can
tell us what experience led to your disdain for (cc).

Please do not use the terms "borg" or "collective". They are
unnecessarily provocative, but more importantly, they are misleading
and confusing to the uninitiated, in this case me. I had no idea what
you meant on the first reading. In-jokes always fall flat when used
outside. The standard way to say what we are is "community".

Is there any way to help others of us get to conferences and make
presentations on FM ideas?

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 5:17 PM, adam hyde<adam at flossmanuals.net> wrote:
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Adam Hyde
> Founder FLOSS Manuals
> German mobile : + 49 15 2230 54563
> Email : adam at flossmanuals.net
> irc: irc.freenode.net #flossmanuals
>
> "Free manuals for free software"
> http://www.flossmanuals.net/about
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
> http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net
>

-- 
Silent Thunder (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) is my name
And Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination.
http://earthtreasury.org/worknet (Edward Mokurai Cherlin)