Open Access News

As this myth has it, the internet is home to a number of peace-loving communities, who use it to work collaboratively, create amateur cultural artefacts and naively resist the nasty capitalist world outside. But pitched against them are music publishers, proprietary software companies and film distributors, living only according to the laws of the marketplace. This is idealism versus realism; gift cultures versus economics. Both sides have an interest in sustaining this myth. Open source coders, Creative Commons publishers and the Wikipedia crowd use a subtly anti-capitalist ideology to win grass-roots support and persuade individuals to work for them for free. Meanwhile, the rights-holders that sit on the other side of the argument do not mind being represented as hard-nosed businessmen, given that this tends to win them credibility with governments. They are quite happy to acknowledge the idealism of their opponents, but can simply shrug and say that economic reality is different. But does any of this stack up? First, we must look at this notion that open access projects hold the moral high ground, but lack any economic underpinnings. This is false in both respects. One may have an innate dislike of cash, but it is not entirely clear why gift economies – such as open source coding – are morally superior to their closed access, proprietary alternatives. What do these communities have to say about the digital divide? What are they doing to mobilise IT in support of elderly or disabled people? Meanwhile, it is quite obvious that open access projects are intimately linked to the marketplace; indeed they are viewed by economists as very beneficial. Open source is big business, with large numbers of companies choosing to sell services on the back of free software, instead of selling the software itself....Economists have no problem explaining such phenomena. According to economic logic, the free exchange of information is not a threat to a successful market system, but an important component of it. Only in a culture where people are able to share advice, recommendations and samples does trade ever take place at all. So what about the second half of the frontier myth? Is it not the case that content industries are the scary face of successful capitalism? Again, not really. Morally speaking, it is preposterous to stereotype intellectual property (IP) law as a means of promoting the interests of business over those of the public. There are instances where IP extends too far, and we should ask whether or not businesses have too much protection....Things vary from industry to industry, but what we should not tolerate is the idea that economic logic points invariably to stronger protection, while moral logic to weaker protection. As difficult as it may be to accept, nothing in this terrain is black and white.