Critical Questions regarding IP and participation

From P2P Foundation

From a commentary by Martin Springer at http://camorra.org/swann/2007/01/08/who-controls-a-feed/

1. Who controls the platform to protect intellectual property?

• one or a few private enterprises

• many small enterprises or individuals

• governments elected by the people

2. How can we prevent that the platform will be misused to discriminate value-chain users?

• competition law

• open standards

• free and open source software (FOSS)

• RF (royalty free) patent policies

• flat hierarchies (every user can choose his role in the value-chain)

3. How can we prevent that protection of intellectual property frustrates innovation?

• enforcement of copyright law (e.g. Public Domain)

• support of copyright exemptions (e.g. education, fair use,…)

• open licenses (e.g. Open Content, Open Source)

• new business models (e.g. based on digital services instead of physical objects)

• new payment models (e.g. Open Money)