Beyond Property Rights: Thinking About Moral Definitions of Openness | TechPresident

Use the link to access the infographic described in the blog post excerpted as follows: "While sharing and copying technologies are disrupting some of the ways we understanding “content,” when you visit a non-Western country like India, the spectrum of choices become broader. There is less timidity wrestling with questions like: should poor farmers pay inflated prices for patented genetically-engineered seeds? How long should patents be given for life-saving medicines that cost more than many make in a year? Should Indian universities spend millions on academic journals and articles? In the United States or other rich countries we may weigh both sides of these questions--the rights of the owner vs. the moral rights of the user--but there’s no question people elsewhere, such as in India, weigh them different given the questions of life and death or of poverty and development. Consequently, conversations about open knowledge outside the supposedly settled lands of the 'rich' often stretch beyond permission-based 'fair use' and 'creative commons' approaches. There is a desire to explore potential moral rights to use 'content' in addition to just property rights that may be granted under statutes. A couple of months ago I sat down in Bangalore with Sunil Abraham, the founder and executive director of the Center for Internet & Society (CIS) there, to talk about the center, and his views on the role of technology and openness in politics and society. One part of our conversation led to this WeGov column on 'I Paid a Bribe' and the challenge of fighting corruption in India using technology. Here I want to reflect further on how Sunil and his counterparts may be radically challenging how we should think about open information more generally. As we talked, Sunil outlined how people and organizations were using 'open' methodologies to advance social movements or create counter power. To explain his view he sketched out the following 'map' of IP rights and freedoms to show people use and view the different “permissions” (some legal, some illegal). [Click to enlarge.] ... As a high-level overview this map offers a general list of the tools at the disposal of citizens interested in playing with intellectual property, particularly as they pursue social justice issues.  At the top of the chart are the various forms of 'permissions' that a property owner may (or may not) grant you. Thus at the far left sits the most restrictive IP regime and, as you move right, the user gets more and more freedoms (or, if you take the perspective of property owners, property loses more and more of its formal legal protections and a different notion, of 'moral rights,' arises).  The second row divides the permissions and the actors along what Sunil believes is one of the most important permissions - the requirement to attribute (or the freedom not to).  Finally, at the bottom, I’ve placed various actors along the spectrum to both show where they might be positioned in the access debate and/or how they use these tools to advance their aims. Thus someone like Lawrence Lessig, the intellectual father of Creative Commons, might support many uses of information as long as the owner gives permission; whereas groups like the Pirate Party or the Yes Men edge further out into uses that may not appear legitimate to a property owner ... To Sunil, the big dividing line is less about legal vs. illegal but around this issue of attribution. 'This is the most exciting area because this (the non-attribution area) is where you escape surveillance,' he declares.  'All the modern day regulation over IP is trying to pin an individual against their actions and then trying to attach responsibility so as to prosecute them,' Sunil says. 'All that is circumvented when you play with the attribution layer.'  This matters a great deal for individuals and organizations trying to create counter power – particularly against the state or large corporate interests. In this regard Sunil is actually linking the tools (or permissions) along the open spectrum to civil disobedience. Of course, such 'permissions' are also used by states all the time, such as pretending that a covert action was the responsibility of someone else, or simply denying responsibility for some action.  This, in turn, has some interesting implications.  The first is, that it allows Sunil to weave together a number of groups that might not normally be seen as connected because he can map their strategies or tools against a common axis. Thus Lawrence Lessig, the Yes Man, companies and journalists can all be organized based on what 'permissions' they believe are legitimate ... This is not to say that Sunil doesn’t believe in the effectiveness of legal approaches. For him this map represents a more complete range of choices an activist can choose from as they try to develop their strategy ..."