[Advocacy Advisors] European Commission Study on New Business Models

Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov dimitar.parvanov.dimitrov at gmail.com
Wed Feb 19 13:38:45 UTC 2014


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 at maggs.name>:

> 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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