Facebook, Google, and Intellectual Property

Scott Jaschik sends us to Inside Higher Ed, where a librarian explains why the tradeoffs we're facing with social networking sites — e.g. privacy vs. a space to build one's personal "brand" — echo issues faced years ago by academics who publish in journals that their institutions' libraries can not then afford. The author argues that, as the Open Access movement is busily restructuring academic publishing, we need to find a way of retaining the personal value to the individual of social networking and Web 2.0 sites, and not allow that value to be eclipsed by the commercial worth of the data the sites obtain about us. In the author's view, the tension is in "...the fundamental relationship between the individual's desire to share their thoughts and experiences with others and the commercial entities that provide the distribution channel for that act of sharing."

Comments

Not wanted here...

[GNUPublicLicense]

"intellectual property" is crude evil. A basic human right is to be able to express your smart.
You cannot "sell" your smart. It's above any reasonnable freedom threshold.

Your neurons are patented!

Re:Not wanted here...

[Brian Gordon]

It's amusing to see people exclaim "but the government can't control that!" Well why not? Hume wrote that the universe doesn't bend to ensure people's rights aren't violated- there's not really any such thing as human rights.. there's only how governments agree to protect their citizens. And if the US legislature wants to make IP laws, then there's nothing stopping them until the next election.

Re:Not wanted here...

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

A basic human right is to be able to express your smart.

Aside from patents, I can't think of any form of IP that infringes on that right, and patents only prevent you from "expressing" yourself by creating and marketing a product using your "smarts" that someone has coincidentally created before you. It's not much, but it certainly makes patents the most questionable of IP forms. Still, I see little justification for calling all IP a "crude evil" without resorting to sloppy over-generalisation and irrational prejudice.

Re:Not wanted here...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a gross oversimplification of the whole argument surrounding human rights. Human rights have been noted to spring up of themselves in many societies around the world, even in complete isolation to more advanced societies. This, at the very least, demonstrates rights at a base level of, for instance, the right to defend yourself from attack, or to not fear you will be murdered, tortured, etc. The problem is a lot of things are called "human rights" when in fact they're just rights, or often even just privileges, and this dilutes the term. A human right should not need to be enshrined in law for it to be recognised.

Re:Not wanted here...

[WingedEarth]

Well, there are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, which form the cultural basis of this country, which would imply that the government's role is to maximize LIBERTY (and not just corporate profits). Government moves to control and restrict thought and information are anti-American, because they're anti-liberty.

Re:Not wanted here...

[Amilianna]

It is very interesting, though, that you can directly trace the concept of human rights to monotheistic religion.

Hm... this makes me wonder: can you really trace the concept of human rights to monotheistic religion, or is it just the formal declaration of such? I don't have any references handy, but I've read in many places about various different polytheistic cultures that believed in everyone's right to defend themselves from harm and some other of the basic human rights that we believe in (although, admittedly, not all of them). It was never set down in law because it just was. There was no declaration needed. Now, without my references handy, I can't be sure of the veracity of my memory, but it does make one wonder...

Did monotheism create the idea of human rights, or were they merely the first that felt that human rights needed to be made into laws instead of merely universally accepted as something so profoundly obvious that no one should need to be told?

And, when thinking about it now, wouldn't any set of laws put down originally been to protect human rights? Admittedly, they were abused as they went on (even our own laws have become ridiculous in some areas), but at their onset wouldn't all laws have been written to protect a person's rights from the violation of others?

These are just some thoughts I had while reading this.

Room to shape personal brand

[davetd02]

The thing about Facebook is that it only knows the information you tell it. If you want to shape your "personal brand" (to use the author's term) on Facebook so you appear to be a sophisticated scholar of the finer things in life, then you're free to do so. Similarly, you're free to make yourself appear to be a slacker, an emo kid, an anarchist, or whatever other image you can come up with.

The commercialization is to some degree inevitable--after all, it's unlikely that Facebook would have ever been launched but for the hopes of striking it rich--but as long as the data is limited to what YOU provide then it's hard to complain about Facebook doing exactly what it promised it would do (namely, using that data to support the servers, coders, tech support, etc).

I don't see why it has to be zero-sum. The author suggests that we need to avoid the personal value of the data being "eclipsed" by the commercial data, but they seem totally synergistic: If Facebook can afford to hire more coders to come up with more innovative new ways to connect to each other, then it doesn't matter to me if they make more use of my data for commercial purposes, so long as EACH commercial use is not harmful. This is like the debate over ad targeting all over again -- a lot of people prefer targeted ads ("commercial value") over broadcast ads because sites can recoup their costs with fewer and less intrusive targeted ads, and targeted ads are far less annoying than the v--gra sp-m that we all get by email.

In sum -- there's no reason why commercial and personal uses are in opposition to each other. If each commercial use is not harmful (i.e., my data isn't revealed or mis used) then it supports the personal use. Synergy, not parasitism.

Re:Room to shape personal brand

[wall0159]

Nice post. However, I disagree with this:
"there's no reason why commercial and personal uses are in opposition to each other"

if a user values privacy, and it's profitable to sell/market users' data (as is generally the case now), then there's a fundamental opposition here.
At minimum, it is not in most companys' interest to invest large sums of money protecting users' data...

Also, I think there's a vast difference between targeted ads, and taking user generated content, packaging it, locking it down, and selling it back to everyone. It seems to me that the main point of value in sites like eBay, MySpace and facebook is simply that everyone uses them! It's not like the services they provide are that great. The same is true with academic journals. Academics write (and nowdays often render) the articles, other academics review the articles. What exactly are the journals even doing? Printing the damn thing - that's all. And institutions pay thousands of dollars per year to read the articles. What a racket!

To say it again - it's _only_ the users that give these companies value. They're on a total gravy-train, and they know it.

Re:Room to shape personal brand

[davetd02]

But if the service wouldn't have existed at all but-for the commercial use?

Do you think Google could support 5 gig of storage for every Gmail account if it couldn't target ads? That's an indirect synergistic effect -- a service that wouldn't exist but-for creative commercialization.

And would Amazon be half as useful if it didn't provide the "users who viewed this product also bought ___" feature? That's a direct synergistic effect -- a service that is made more useful by creative commercialization.

I'm not saying every use of data by Facebook is great. They've gone way too far sometimes. But there's no inherent reason why, done RIGHT, commercial use of data can't make the service better. The ground rules still stand---each commercial use must not cause harm, nor may the aggregate---but if we assume that it's done right there's no reason why there must be tension between commercial and private. I want to use the best possible Facebook/MySpace/LiveJournal/etc service and I don't care if Zuckerberg makes a million or two in the process, so long as he doesn't do so by harming me.

Re:Room to shape personal brand

[QuantumG]

You mean other than free access to a site which would otherwise not exist?

Re:Room to shape personal brand

[chatgris]

The user stands to gain the use of the services! Servers, coders, managers (you generally need at least one to keep track of things) don't come for free.

Josh

Re:Room to shape personal brand

[Hognoxious]

reputation management companies that clean up the messes left behind by data breaches.

You know, I accidentally squeezed too much toothpaste out this morning.

Think they could help?

Coming up after the break, genie escapes from bottle.

Re:Room to shape personal brand

[Hognoxious]

There's a difference between data you provide to be published, and data you provide in order to be published.

For example, the email address you use to sign up to slashdot may be shown or it may not - at your option. But would Aunt Mary, Joe Sixpack or Ditzy Teen grok that? And would the site make much of an effort to clarify it, given that from the site's POV more data is better?

Re:Room to shape personal brand

[wall0159]

Hmm. It sounds like you're trying to be a smart-ass. I'm not totally sure what you're trying to say, but I'll attempt to clarify myself:

I've got no problem with companies making money out of user-generated data/effort/networking/etc. Jamendo, Google, MySpace are good examples. But.. I think it's really important that standards and sites are open. eBay/facebook/skype lock-in are (I think) bad for consumers, and those companies are leveraging their position/lockin to remain on top and stifle competition.

For example, compare skype to gizmo. Gizmo uses SIP (hence is open and operates with any other SIP phone. Skype operates with... Skype. I think consumers should consider inter-operability more when making their spending decisions.

Re:Room to shape personal brand

[mr_matticus]

if a user values privacy, and it's profitable to sell/market users' data (as is generally the case now), then there's a fundamental opposition here.
At minimum, it is not in most companys' interest to invest large sums of money protecting users' data... On the contrary, if information gleaned from personal data has a commercial value (i.e. generates revenue), there is an inherent interest in keeping it secure. There's not an interest in keeping it private, but that is a wholly separate issue.

Controlling the flow of data and making sure that your investment and your proprietary information doesn't give a free ride to your competitors sits at the very heart of an information-based economy.

They will invest a considerable amount of money protecting access to data, because if you make money from selling something, it doesn't do well not to build any fences or locks. Why would anyone enter into a financial partnership with, say, Facebook, if they could access that same information without doing so? You can bet they'll go to the mat for your privacy from unauthorized parties. The only conflict arises from who has the power to authorize.

Re:Basic hosting.

[Dada Vinci]

Basic hosting doesn't come with the interactive feaures -- you can't easily see what your friends are up to, browse pictures of events you attended, etc. Yes, it's possible to remember/bookmark the URL of each of your friends' home pages, and then click from each one to each page to see if it's changed, but Facebook/MySpace/Xanga/Orkut(deadpool?) does all that for you. You can easily see which friends have added pictures, see the "status" messages (the modern .plan for all the terminal warriors out there) and all that. Yeah, it's "possible", but Facebook is popular for the same reason that LiveJournal/Blogspot/Blogger replaced manual HTML editing of the first-generation blogs -- it's easier and more interactive.

Re:Basic hosting.

[davetd02]

There's nothing inherently private about posting on the open Internet. If anything, Facebook provides at least a plausible privacy shield against employers finding embarrassing photos: Don't join networks and set your privacy settings high. Something on the open Internet is out there for Google to find and the world to know. Of course you could robots.txt, but then you lose the "personal brand" aspect above. Or you could give out usernames/passwords to your friends, but that's a giant pain and doesn't scale well. There are some benefits.

Inevitable escalation

[kahei]

(small timid voice) Is it ok if I don't have a personal brand?

It's just that when *everyone* has one, you know, you're kind of back to square one. And similarly, when *every* commercial player has a hip social networking solution, they do kind of blend into background noise. I'm going to wait until the inevitable next step, 'social networking site networks' in which networks of social networking sites will busily build *their* brands. And three months later when that brand space is crowded, venture capitalists will eagerly announce netwros of social networking site networks and all the social networks (by that time everyone will have their own social network) will crowd to build their brands in this new tier...

*wakes up in a cold sweat*

Well lets take a look at slashdot

[SmallFurryCreature]

The stories are submitted by the READERS (that is you), the comments are submitted by the READERS, the moderating is done by the READERS, the testing of new features is done by the READERS, the polls are suggested by the READERS, the new layout was created by a READER!

Who earns money from this site? NOT the READERS!

Normally you would expect a site to present content the site owner produced and then display it for money. Social sites, wether it is slashdot, youtube or facebook don't have any content of their own, instead they provide a space for the readers to present content to other readers. This is NOT that new. The letters page in any newspaper gives the paper "free" content as well, but it is nonetheless an odd thing.

There is an unspoken agreement that in exchange for giving you a space to voice your opinion, you allow the space provider to use your comment to make a profit. But slashdot trained monkeys who call themselves editors do occasionaly come up with their own stories, and add idiotic conclusions. Newspapers have other pages then the letter page.

But sides like youtube or myspace have NO content at all of their own. It then becomes a rather difficult question of exactly how much you own them for giving you a space to express yourselve. Remember "free" homepages? The one you probably still have with your ISP subscription? It seems pretty clear there that YOU own the contents of the page. Why should it be different for a social website?

I agree with the article, we seriously need to question just who owns what. Remember the writers strike? One of the things a lot of people mentioned was that reality shows would be on the increase because they don't employ writers. Actually reality shows are written as well (writers do more then just write dialogue), but you might even ask yourselve wether these "real" people that create content through their lives for the TV stations to sell don't qualify as writers as well.

Could the maintainer of a myspace site be listed as a writer? Why is a columnist a writer, but not a blogger? Who owns your content? When do you go from a letter writer to a journalist?

Just how much do you own the hoster of you content in exchange for this service. Myspace has a lot of nudie pics, say it decided to host all these pics on a pay-per-view portion of the site. You agreed for it to be public, but there is a difference between a flasher pic on your own page and it being displayed on a site with nothing but nudie pics. Just how far can myspace go with your content?

Intresting questions, and I fear that sooner or later we will find a story where a site owner goes to far.

No "tension", they won before the first shot

[pla]

the Open Access movement is busily restructuring academic publishing

Well, let's see... With scientific journals, the author pays to publish, has to pay if they want to receive the journal, and the journal retains all the copyrights. So...


and the commercial entities that provide the distribution channel for that act of sharing

I'd say this sounds pretty clear-cut - If you want your personal data to stay personal, pay for your own hosting with a privacy-friendly (which usually also means spammer-friendly, unfortunately) comapany. If you want free hosting, all your base are belong to Facebook.

Re:Aren't there ample precedents that cover this?

[sqrt(2)]

But that wont stop them from trying to establish a new precedent, especially since it would create an INCREDIBLY large new revenue stream for them where there was once none. It's quite the incentive for them but offers no benefit for the user. Which is why this needs to be fought hard, NOW, so that sanity and common sense will be maintained. It's a shame that we even have to fight for common sense on the internet but technology has a way of making normal intelligent people completely dumbfounded and unable to exercise rational judgment.

Re:Aren't there ample precedents that cover this?

[secondhand_Buddah]

Your analogy is flawed. All of the above charge a service fee. Facebook etc don't. An option would be that you could subscribe and have extra privileges, but the question is, would enough people do this to provide a sustainable revenue stream for the companies in question?

I have an idea

[ThirdPrize]

I could start an Social Networking website with no adverts and no creepy big brother stuff. Only thing is, I would have to charge. Do you think I would get many takers?