Reminders: 1)Who is doing a project? You will present on Tuesday of next week (a week from today). This presentation must show your work and explain how it relates to the issues raised in class. Name and term dropping a must! Project and writeup due to my office by next Thursday at 4:15pm. 2)Exam Review on Thursday. EVERYONE be there. Evals will be done. Bribery will be offered (cookies???) 3)Next Tuesday: Presentations 4)Next Thursday: Exam

Remix: Hybrid Economies April 17, 2012

Commercial Economies via Lessig’s Remix  Build value with money at their core  Price is the central term of the normal, ordinary, exchange. [I give you money, you give me X]  In terms of online businesses, think Netflix or Amazon

Commercial Economies 3 Keys to Success  Long Tail  Little Brother  finding ways to match customers to the stuff in the long tail  Increasing the value of the database  Lego-ized innovation: allowing others to innovate upon the platform (think Google Maps or the Netflix Prize)

Sharing Economies via Lessig’s Remix  Build value ignoring money  Price is poisonous; money redefines the relationship in a negative way  Me-Regarding vs. Thee-Regarding  An individual participating in an economy because it benefits her vs. participating in an economy because it benefits others  Connections to civic vs. communal values via Shirky?  Think of Wikipedia or Linux

Hybrid Economies via Lessig’s Remix  Builds upon both the sharing and commercial economies and adds value to both  Is either a commercial entity that aims to leverage value from a sharing economy, or it is a sharing economy that builds a commercial entity to better support its sharing aims  Think Craigslist, Flickr, or YouTube

Community Spaces Hybrid Economy #1  Virtual places where people interact, sharing information or interests.  Egs: Dogster, Craigslist, Flickr, YouTube

Collaboration Spaces Hybrid Economy #2  Virtual places where people believe they are there to build something together  Egs: Slashdot, Last.fm, Microsoft (Usenet), Yahoo! Answers

Communities Hybrid Economy #3  Virtual places people go to hang out….primary goal is to be part of a community (difference from Community Spaces??)  Egs: Second Life

Hybrid Economies: Copyright & Legality  “As hybrids for culture have developed, the most successful of these hybrids have learned that encouraging legal creativity is the key to encouraging a healthy and successful business” (248)

Hybrid Economies: Copyright & Legality  But…when it comes to economies and profits, Lessig points out that “market incentive alone will not be enough. Policy changes will be necessary as well” (249).

Hybrid Economies: Reforming Law  In other words, he argues that there is money to be made by embracing amateur creativity, but that creativity needs to be protected.

Reforming Law  Lessig offers 5 shifts in the law that he claims would radically improve the law’s relation to RW creativity and, in turn, improve the market for hybrids. 1.Deregulating Amateur Creativity 2.Clear Title 3.Simplify 4.Decriminalize the Copy 5.Decriminalizing File Sharing

1. Deregulating Amateur Creativity  Exempt amateur noncommerical uses from the scope of the rights granted by copyright

2. Clear Title  Provide an opt-in instead of an opt-out copyright law. Those who opt-in can register with a large database that tracks usage and makes it clear WHO created the text, when, and what they intended it for.

3. Simplify  Congress must work to make the law simpler and more understandable, and make “fair use” clear and defined.

4. Decriminalize the Copy  The law should not regulate copies (something nearly impossible w/ digital technology anyway, when every use creates a copy), but instead should regulate uses—like public distributions of copies of copyrighted work—that connect directly to the economic incentive copyright law was intended to foster.

5. Decriminalize Filesharing  Congress needs to decriminalize file sharing, either by authorizing at least noncommercial file sharing with taxes to cover a reasonable royalty to the artists whose work is shared, or by authorizing a simple blanket licensing procedure, whereby users could, for a low fee, buy the right to freely file-share.

Creative Commons  Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization devoted to giving authors more control over how their work is used.  If, as an author, you want to make clear that you don’t mind if others reproduce or remix your work so long as you are given credit, you can signal this through the proper CC license.  o

Creative Commons Licenses  Attribution (by): Users may copy, distribute, display and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only if they give the author the credits in the matter specified.  Noncommercial (nc): Users may copy, distribute, display and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only for noncommercial purposes  No Derivative Works (nd): Users may copy, distribute, display and perform only vertabtim copies of the work, not derivative works based on it.  Share-alike (sa): Users may distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the original work.

Creative Commons Licenses  Visit where you will answer a series of questions. You will then be given a license that you can include in your text. It will look something like this:  This work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Creative Commons Licenses  Learn more here:

Final thoughts on Copyright  Fair Use School (response to YouTube):   YouTube Copyright School:  9Ns&feature=related 9Ns&feature=related