Thanks for the responses, Luis! It always helps to have several people look
at something, as one can always miss a few points. I might rework some of
the answers from the European perspective. Otherwise all the points seem
relevant.
I am currently looking into the studies they cite on pages 34 and 35. The
last three paragraphs make strong assumptions that need to be backed up by
(very) strong evidence. The link to the first study is dead and there is no
citation to the second quoted study (the IPSOS one). On top of that I am
not convinced the studies actually say what is claimed here.
Also, at the end they cite their own "IP Perception" study, which was
equally cirticised across the board when it was published some months ago.
There seems to be a poliferation of low-quality, assumption driven research
here.
I will see what other civil society orgs have prepared as notes and report
back here.
As to commenting on this report: It does not have to be "official", as this
document is not public and this version in particular never will be (only
on this mailing list :D). Hence, our comments on it won't be public either
(except for this mailing list). What I mean is that I can either draft an
email with our comments and send it over or alternatively just meet with
the OHIM people and point out our remarks over a cup of coffee. The latter
option would save us the need to write up something official, although a
written response always carries more weight. On the other hand a
face-to-face meeting offers a better chance to engage with people. Not sure
which is the better approach... I will keep you posted either way.
Dimi
2014-02-18 11:12 GMT+01:00 Michael Maggs <Michael(a)maggs.name>me>:
These are all very important points and it would be
great if someone could
work something up this week, so that we can respond. I'm not
myself around, unfortunately, but I hope that somebody might be able to
pick this up in the next few days. Shouldn't need too much work, as Luis
has done most of the thinking.
Michael
On 18 Feb 2014, at 02:31, Luis Villa wrote:
It is an interesting document. Some notes:
1. The framing is wrong - it should be "production models", or
"sustainability models", not "business models" - the assumption
that
production of copyrighted works has to happen through "business" is a
harmful and anti-democratic in an age where every citizen has access to
tools that can publish to the entire world.
2. Ditto use of "the industry", as if "the industry" is the only
meaningful producer of content. (Really, these two points alone could make
for a great blog post; this paper is far from the only one that makes these
two mistakes but is particularly blatant in use of the framing.)
3. In part as a result of this framing, it is sad but not surprising
that no citizen/public interest groups were consulted in the creation of
the material. Not sure we'd want to say that to them publicly, but if we
decide not to offer informal comment I'd want to say that publicly in a
blog post when this is published.
4. If the purpose of the observatory is to study infringement, then
clearly peer production should be listed as a "business model" and the
infringement of peer-produced material should be treated on a par with
material produced through the other production models. I'm sure this group
can come up with examples of infringement of our material and of other
peer-produced content.
5. Music: no mention of tools like Soundcloud (.de-based!) that are
intended to democratize music creation and publication.
6. Video: no mention of how Youtube/Vimeo has created a vast amount of
non-industry video content creation, or of regular traditional media
industry infringement of citizen-created video without penalty or concern.
(If we wanted to write this up formally for them, we'd want to find some
examples of this.)
7. Sports: I can't speak to the EU, but in the US, fan-created
commentary (such as
sbnation.com) is now a huge source of reporting on
sports news, often delivering better quality than the traditional news
sources. Probably not directly relevant to this section, though (unless
there have been legal threats in the EU around fan-provided live-streaming
commentary).
8. Press content: at least in the US, donor-supported/non-profit media
is an increasingly important source of news; lots of detail here:
http://www.journalism.org/2013/06/10/nonprofit-journalism/ Don't know
if there are EU-based examples of this.
9. Social media: with regards to 4.7 (news/social media), it should be
noted that social media probably disproportionately *helps* peer-produced
media, since that historically has very few resources to use for
marketing/distribution, and so must rely on word-of-mouth.
10. Sec. 4 and 5 consider "news" and "books"; amazingly, neither
consider new text-centric methods of production of copyrighted works, like
wikis or blogs. Again shows how blind this is to the actual innovation
happening in the content space.
11. Books: no mention that technical protection measures have
encouraged monopolization of the distribution channels, to the detriment of
traditional distribution channels and to blossoming antitrust problems in
the US (and presumably soon in the EU).
12. 6.2: a mention of communities! But on cue, statement that these
authors may not be being remunerated, as if remuneration was the only
potential goal for creators. Youtube gets mentioned here, but not in Sec. 1
(Music) or Sec. 2 (Audiovisual), which is insane.
13. Sec. 7, Business Software: doesn't mention open source. Completely
nuts.
14. Sec. 8, video games: no mention that this is a golden era for
independently-produced games. Not sure that fits our narrative very well,
at least not without a lot of explanation.
15. B2B Services: this feels overly focused on remuneration/commercial
licensing; I suppose that is inevitable to some extent, but it seems like
it would be worth noting the increased options for free, high-quality
content that business can use (e.g., Flickr photos and Commons for stock
photography).
16. "The fact that the legal offers is at least as diverse as the
illegal one" - ahhahahhahahhahaha. Really, it is quite amazing that they
think that providing a "portal" will increase awareness of legal content.
The best way to increase awareness of legal content is to provide it
legally online and advertise it as such...
So, these were not brief. I am unlikely to have time this week to select
the most important points here and craft them into something - but I think
at least a brief statement to them to the effect of "we think this
completely ignores many legal sources of non-industry content and many
sustainability models, such as focus on non-remunerative incentives and
voluntary contributions" would be worth making.
HTH-
Luis
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