The document discusses the transition from a historical context of knowledge scarcity and intellectual monopolies, such as patents and copyrights, to a modern era characterized by information abundance and creativity. It argues that existing intellectual property laws are outdated and detrimental to progress in a digital age, advocating for their abolition to facilitate access to knowledge and innovation for all. By emphasizing a need for fair abundance, the text calls for a reevaluation of how society manages intellectual property rights to enhance learning and creativity without restrictions.

1. from openness to abundance glyn moody

2. openness is winning against what? against being closed

3. against refusal to share digital artefacts

4. against artifical scarcity of information

5. the history of scarcity once upon a time, ideas and known facts were scarce...

6. ...because humans were scarce 2,000 years ago – 200 million

7. 1,000 years ago – 400 million

8. 700 years ago – 450 million

9. 600 years ago – 350 million ...because humans were busy trying to survive

10. mercantilist mindset scarcity meant people viewed the economic system as a zero-sum game, in which any gain by one party required a loss by another invasions

11. monopolies key policy instrument informational scarcity pirating ideas/skills by enticing foreign master craftsmen that knew them with national monopolies

12. letters patent issued by English monarch to grant monopoly for particular industry called ”patent” because not sealed – early ”open source” law first English patent granted a 20-year monopoly to Flemish stained- glassmaker (1449)

13. afterwards, knowledge released

14. formalised in the Statute of Monopolies (1624)

15. 17 th -century invention very few inventors

16. very few inventions

17. trade secrets easy to keep (trade guilds)

18. in an age of inventive scarcity, patent monopolies made sense as a mercantilist incentive to encourage new inventions

19. to get them revealed for wider use, rather than hoarded

20. 21 st -century invention today, we have an abundance of inventors and invention, as the creaking patent system shows in 2009, 482,871 patent applications filed with USPTO; 135,000 in Europe abundant monopolies impede progress, rather than promoting it independent invention problem

21. patent thickets

22. software patent problems most litigated – causing much of the backlog of cases in US 3% in 1984, 26% in 2002 total US profit annually was $100 million for 1996-1999

23. the total cost of litigating in US was $3.9 billion per year

24. software patents = overall net loss of $3.8 billion per year

25. gene patent problems 4,000 of 24,000 human genes have been patented in US (2004)

26. 3,000,000 genome-related patents filed

27. ”patent-stacking” allows single DNA sequence to be patented in several ways

28. whole-genome scan: impossible with the huge number of gene patents

29. ”copy right” key invention: movable type (1457)

30. in 16 th and 17 th century England, the Stationers' Company had exclusive and perpetual state monopoly over producing printed copies of every registered book (their ”copy right”)

31. aim was to *control* what was printed by establishing responsibility - instrument of censorship

32. Statute of Anne (1710) ” An Act for the Encouragement of Learning”

33. gave limited monopoly (14 years + 14 year extension)

34. text became freely available after that period – created modern public domain

35. strongly influenced US copyright law

36. 18 th -century publishing hard writers were scarce

37. typesetting slow

38. printing presses were expensive

39. binding was slow

40. distribution slow

41. sales limited major investment of time, energy money

42. 18 th -century book piracy *also* hard somebody to typeset the text

43. somebody to print the sheets

44. somebody to bind the book

45. somebody to distribute the book

46. somebody to sell the book main saving was not paying author

47. in an age of scarcity, copyright made infringement even more risky

48. 21 st -century e-publishing trivially easy create it

49. upload it

50. sell it globally

51. 21 st -century e-piracy also trivially easy obtain digital content (DRM-free)

52. upload it

53. people download it globally e-piracy is powered by Moore's Law today: 1 Terabyte hard disc 50 €

54. tomorrow: 1 Exabyte hard disc 50 €

55. implicit *abundance*: 150,000 MP3 files today, 150,000,000,000 MP3 tomorrow

56. towards abundance 10 million articles on Wikipedia

57. 13 million tracks on Spotify

58. 100 million blogs

59. ” hundreds of millions” videos on YouTube

60. 5 billion pictures on Flickr

61. one trillion URLs (2008)

62. but...this is only a part of today's abundance

63. dark abundance the online materials that may be infringing on copyright, and as such form ”unofficial” abundance

64. by definition, dark abundance negates the scarcity that lies at the heart of copyright

65. challenges 18 th -century business models built on scarcity

66. like dark matter, dark abundance has visible consequences

67. war on abundance HADOPI; Digital Economy Act; Ley Sinde

68. ACTA; TPPA

69. ”PROTECT IP” Act; ”voluntary” Website blocking

70. places protection of intellectual monopolies and their scarcities above protection of human rights

71. rather break the Internet than allow it to be used for sharing

72. war on developing world 4 billion have no access to the Internet

73. thanks to intellectual monopolies they have double obstacle to overcome to improve their lot: they must get connected

74. they must then pay for access to most of the world's knowledge, often at near-Western rates – even though the marginal cost is practically zero

75. fair abundance means giving 24x7 access to all today's knowledge, to anyone with a digital access device – mobile, computer, TV

76. means access for all humanity – not just the developed world, or the richer classes elsewhere

77. sounds socialist or worse: actually conservative

78. back to basics copyright not about preserving the West's grip on knowledge

79. copyright not about protecting old business models

80. copyright not about enshrining authors' or publishers' ”rights”

81. copyright is about ”the Encouragement of Learning” explicit in Statute of Anne, US copyright acts

82. the virtuous circle today, the optimum way of ”encouraging learning” is to free it up for the billions who currently have little access to it

83. educating them through access to knowledge will generate even more creativity in the system

84. self-fuelling, positive feedback

85. but ” nobody has the right to diminish my copyright in this way”

86. however, society *does* have that right - just as it had the right to strengthen copyright, repeatedly, by extending its range and its term, diminishing public domain

87. not necessarily one-way

88. society decides which direction and the quid pro quo

89. the precedent (1) for those who deny that it is impossible to do this, there is a historical precedent: the first-sale doctrine

90. rights to control the change of ownership of a particular copy end once that copy is sold

91. society decided this was a fair limitation on copyright

92. the precedent (2) those who talk of ”IP” compare copyright infringement with trespass

93. in 20 th century, law on trespass radically limited by taking away airspace rights "every transcontinental flight would subject the operator to countless trespass suits"

94. digital airspace we need to allow copies to pass freely through the abundant digital space that surrounds analogue objects, just as planes/satellites can pass freely through infinite airspace above private property

95. if not, the war on digital sharing becomes a war on the ability of the mind to take flight through knowledge

96. coming to terms copyright was originally 14 years + 14 years; the copyright ”ratchet” has been moving it up to 70 years + life

97. the ratchet went the wrong way – should have decreased the term of copyright as more creators arrived, less incentive needed

98. for analogue content, could bring it back to 14 years + 14 years with renewal

99. Internet time what about digital content?

100. famously, one calendar year is seven Internet years

101. digital content lives on Internet time, so for that, should measure copyright on Internet time

102. 14 Internet years = 2 calendar years

103. patently obvious? what about patents?

104. as for copyright, there are two kinds of patents: analogue and digital

105. analogue patents operate on calendar time, so could leave the current term (typically 20 years)

106. digital patents – software patents, gene patents – just don't scale, so abolish them

107. it won't work there will inevitably be infringing content online

108. copyright industries will cling to scarcity by waging war on sharing

109. if analogue patents still exist, clever lawyers will employ the ”computer-implemented invention”/”purified gene” trick, yoking digital and analogue together

110. abundance and freedom to stop the war on sharing, to allow all humanity to build on all knowledge, need to abolish both copyright and patents, for all domains

111. there is only one non-arbitrary term for an intellectual monopoly: zero years

112. beyond mercantilism copyright and patents were rational and necessary incentives for an age of analogue scarcity

113. in an age of digital abundance, no longer rational or necessary

114. should no longer put up with the high price that intellectual monopolies exact - hindering progress, holding back billions of lives and the loss of fundamental freedoms

115. ”against intellectual monopoly” 323-page book by Michelle Boldrin and David Levine, free download

116. ”We show through theory and example that intellectual monopoly is not necessary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity and liberty.”

117. from openness to abundance getting from here to there is non-trivial task

118. how would open projects function without copyright?

119. what would the key issues be in a world without intellectual monopolies?

120. what new roles might open projects play in such a world of abundance?

121. Abundant Knowledge Conference [email_address] @glynmoody on identi.ca/Twitter opendotdotdot.blogspot.com