[OpenGLAM] Content Trafficking v.3

[heath rezabek]

I think it's worth asking ourselves what the desired outcome is. Knowing
that will clarify the likelihood that the language we use will aid that
cause or simply cauterize the debate.

I also tend to believe that divisionary language is bound to result mainly
in sharper divisions.  Additionally, if any work whatsoever was done on the
material, that work cost the institution money.  Institutions can't
always afford to reorient whole workflows to free up content which they've
spent funding in order to provide some kind of access to, without at least
some suggestion of an alternate workflow that would allow them to vent
their derivative PD works as purely PD.

I'm not articulating very well; it just seems to me that offering a 'best
practices for preserving public domain status for the public good' document
would be a better strategy than branding institutions who may not have
workflows in place to do so.

But again, it all depends on the desired outcome.

Curmudgeonly,

- Heath
  Tx Ambassador for the OKFN

On Wednesday, September 11, 2013, Sarah Stierch wrote:

> True: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trafficking
>
> Revolution can begin with the reclaiming and redefining of things. But, I
> understand if that's not appropriate in this case.
>
> I'm not sure if "copyright overreaching" works either, as if it's public
> domain we're not really overreaching copyright. Hmmm
>
> -S
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 10:10 AM, Ed Rodley <ed_rodley at pem.org> wrote:
>
> I'd have to agree with Beat.  Every other kind of trafficking I can think
> of is a straight-up crime. One could make the case that some of the ways
> institutions try to monetize PD content are fraudulent, but they're not in
> the same league as arms, narcotics and human trafficking. Trying to declare
> it as such seems overly shrill. Also, traffickers know that what they do is
> illegal and they organize to circumvent the law. That is not the case with
> many institutions, which struggle just to undersand how titanically the
> digital landscape has changed.  "Content trafficking" isn't just
> polarizing, it has *only* pejorative connotations. I can't see how we'd
> hope have any constructive dialogue with institutions we'd branded thus.
> Terms like copyright overreaching seem much more accurate.
>
> Ed
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 12:36 PM, Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 8:54 AM, Estermann Beat <beat.estermann at bfh.ch>wrote:
>
>
> Personally, I’m not very happy with the term “content trafficking” as it
> seems unnecessarily polarizing to me. And I wonder whether the kind of
> black-and-white thinking implied by the term “content trafficking” and the
> definition that you suggest, will lead to the best possible results in
> terms of “content liberation”.
>
>
> The word "trafficking" is polarizing in general in this day and age
> ("human trafficking" being the most notable example), though it does
> successfully add urgency to the matter, and in a day and age (again) where
> laws and ideas of openness are evolving quickly, perhaps that urgency is
> needed.
>
>
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> I don’t find it particularly revolting if institutions partly withhold
> public domain works from the public domain if this is necessary to recoup a
> significant part of the costs related to digitization and enhancement of
> metadata. Some of the Google Digitization Partnerships would probably fall
> into this category: Public domain works are made available under some sort
> of a non-commercial use-agreement during 10-12 years; after that the GLAM
> institution is free to make the original scans available as real “public
> domain” works. Being able to full-text-search and consult the documents
> online now with some usage restrictions might be preferable to waiting for
> another 10-20 years, before the GLAM institutions actually is able to raise
> funds from other sources to finance the digitization of the works.****
>
> **
>
>
> I *do* find it rather revolting. I've worked at institutions who have paid
> for employee positions based on the selling of public domain works. It just
> shows that there is a lack of funding on the donor side for digitization
> programs. If donors were giving money to digitize, and provide free access
> to PD collections maybe this wouldn't be a problem. But, development
> departments are generally clueless (at least in the United States) about
> copyright discussions and most donors are as well. It's going to take a
> special type of donor to destroy the power that Google has over these
> organizati
>
>

-- 
Heath Rezabek // labs.vessel.cc
Long Now Foundation (Intern) // Manual for Civilization Project //
longnow.org
Icarus Interstellar // FarMaker Team // icarusinterstellar.org
Open Knowledge Foundation // Texas Ambassador for the OKFn // okfn.org
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