Not long ago, a friend wrote me to ask who I'd like to hear opine on the future of scientific inquiry. Without hesitating, I said Lawrence Lessig. Lessig is the author of the book Free Culture and the chair of Creative Commons (CC) (which just ended a wildly successful fundraising drive, exceeding its donation goal by 20%). One project that will continue happily under the CC umbrella is Science Commons, which aims to curb threats to scientific progress from intellectual property law. By that CC folk don't just mean patent wars over AIDS drugs in developing nations (though that's certainly something they care about), but problems that crop up here in the U.S., too.
To understand the philosophy behind Creative Commons, you have to go back in time a bit. When the country was founded—and before that, in British law—copyright and patents were seen as tools for balancing two conflicting aims. On the one hand, it was thought that no one would write or invent if he or she couldn't make a profit from doing so. Thus, copyrights and patents give innovators the right to control and distribute their inventions exclusively. On the other hand, copyright and patent law make these innovations expensive to purchase by the very society that's intended to benefit from them—nothing is freely distributed when everything is for-sale-by-owner.
In fact, the term "intellectual property," as it's commonly used, is a relatively recent one. Originally, books and inventions weren't the "property" of their authors. The authors could exclusively distribute them for a number of years and make a healthy profit, but after a very short time (14 years), things became part of the "public domain," so everyone could cheaply benefit from new inventions and important observations.
But nowadays, when pharmaceutical giants and record companies are some of the main lobbyists behind patent and copyright law, we have a different system altogether. Books, films—and yes, scientific information—are now considered "intellectual property," to be owned and rented much like real property. Restrictions on how information can be shared and distributed are not only longer—for example, this blog post may not enter the public domain until 2178—but they're now built into the very information itself. An iTunes song won't let itself be copied more than five times. I can download a copy of "Letter from Birmingham Jail" online, but I can't print it out thanks to the "digital rights management" restrictions added by the distributors using Adobe Acrobat. These are trivial examples of a much larger phenomenon that critics say is turning into big problem for democracy and innovation. Think of it this way, say scholars like Yochai Benkler...
Any time you write an article or a book, you first have to buy other people's intellectual property. When you do background research, you basically pay a tax in the form of the journal subscriptions, book purchases, etc. This tax is outweighed by the revenue you're promised when you eventually write your own book or article and sell it to others. But now look at Wikipedia and open source software—goods that are provided to society for free by tinkerers and lay authors in their spare time. These people are, in many ways, the face of the new information economy. Not only do they provide huge resources in their own right, they also set the tone for big companies like Google, who provide customers with lots of information—on Google Earth, for instance—for free.
But Wikipedians and open-source software developers aren't counting on a profit. They're innovating and giving away everything for free—but they're still paying the tax I discuss above. As the digital age progresses and more of our information is produced in this manner, strong intellectual property rights may become an increasing hindrance to innovation. And intellectual property restrictions are getting stronger. New Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies (akin to those that lock down your iTunes songs and "Letter From Birmingham Jail") are coming out to restrict the sharing of information—not just sharing that infringes copyright, but types of copying and distribution that have traditionally been protected by law. Windows Vista has received a lukewarm reception, in part because it contains extraordinary DRM restrictions, none of which have "any benefits at all for the end-user," and many of which cripple the performance of the computers on which they run.
Meanwhile, copyright law is getting stronger and longer. Every time the rights to commercially important songs and films have approached the year they should enter the public domain, industry lobbyists have managed to get Congress to extend the copyright term. According to American University law professor Peter Jaszi, "A cynical observer might be forgiven the suspicion that it represents a down payment on perpetual copyright on the installment plan."
While the most talked-about scandals in our intellectual property system may involve "piracy" of music, movies, and other forms of entertainment, the really insidious threats of the current IP regime may be to science and innovation. Researchers who can't get ahold of information they need, or who can't research certain genes for fear of patent violation, are becoming more common, say the researchers and Nobel laureates behind Science Commons. Lessig has helped to erect this and other Creative Commons projects as pieces in a parallel copyright system that's increasingly used by artists, authors, and researchers. It encourages people to share information, rather than to lock it down.
Not long ago, there was big news when the Public Library of Science journals began using the Creative Commons "copyleft" licensing system. And soon, for what it's worth, Wikipedia may follow suit (though the "GNU" license it uses is another effective way of loosening up copyright restrictions). Lessig's not the only one talking about this stuff, either. Copyright reform is now one of the hottest topics in academia, and people like Lessig, Yochai Benkler, David Weinberger, and others who look at this area are increasingly treated like stars. It's a pretty phenomenal shift that's happening right now and it's worth taking a look at the ground floor of it. It's also time to start asking some tough questions about what all this means for scientific innovation.
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