Do we need to rethink how we see our intellectual property? Even the phrase seems to give the impression of fixed and easy to define....property usually as a boundary, a distinct character?
But as social media progresses, ideas are less like fixed property and more like holiday homes!
Is this good or bad?
Well for ideas they are free to be shared, they can be put out on the social web and embellished by other people and built upon. So for the ideas themselves...GOOD
For the creators and inventors it is much harder to be rewarded for the creativity. Licensing is harder, from a marketing point of view then the exposure of the ideas is welcomed as they become a social object. So for creators....good in terms of exposure, bad in terms of revenue.
How can we ensure that creators are rewarded in the future, to ensure people continue to invent and create?
- We need to see ideas as social objects not as fixed property. We need to find a way of rewarding through the sharing not through allowing the sharing.
- We need to see data as easily replicated.....therefore replication can't be controlled, because it can't be easily policed. If it can't be controlled maybe the fee should be at the access point...part of your monthly broadband fee, general fee payable by social site providers.
Maybe the question we need to start asking ourselves is not how do we protect our ideas but
How do we create revenue streams from actually not protecting our ideas?
It comes back to the post yesterday.....the social web is not about making everything free from value, but free as in liberated to create value?
