You’re Selfish. No, You’re a Fool
A Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley Debate
I once lost my temper over a subject that should be discussed rationally between two grownups. I believe in sharing collective wisdom, without restrictive copyrights. He sees intellectual property as a cash cow he will never relinquish.
As a former principal, I should have known better; losing one’s temper should be reserved for very rare occasions, and even then, there had better be a good reason. But I hadn’t been a principal for several years. In fact, I wasn’t even at work — just out with a friend, having dinner. Lucky for everyone it was a crowded restaurant with high ceilings and a jazz band. Only an awkward couple on a first date, the next table over, twisted around in their chairs to see what was going on, secretly pleased at the distraction.
The topic seemed innocuous enough, and certainly not a cause for the “Y” vein on my forehead to throb. I had been waxing on about the value of the free and unencumbered distribution of ideas so that communities can remix, reuse, adapt, and adopt the contributions of others, without guilt, as long as the original author is given credit. I wasn’t advocating theft because permission had been given.
I said something about how this is a great era in which to learn from and with each other and stand on the shoulders of giants, that this is what the internet was intended to promote. I quoted a line from a promotional video made by Creative Commons, the group that developed open licenses, in which the narrator argues that Open Educational Resources were “designed to save the world from failed sharing.”
In 1998, a colleague of mine at Utah State University, David Wiley, made the connection between open source code (made available for free in the public domain in order to stimulate collaborative innovation) and open education. Information flowing freely across borders — now that was up my alley.
In 2001, MIT announced its Open Courseware project, targeted for 2002. By July, 2002, “Open Educational Resources”(OER) was coined at a UNESCO Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries. Meanwhile, David was already busy building a social component that would allow educators to make changes necessary to fit local needs.
Today, OER is flourishing. No longer a creative higher-education pilot, OER has been embraced by teachers. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are everywhere. Textbooks or course materials could now be changed and updated. Whole countries have digitized their curriculum, shared resources, and made it all available at little or no cost. I know that content is not necessarily king, nor can the world’s problems be solved by a textbook wiki or a killer app. But information liberated from artificial constraints fuels creativity.
My friend, an Emmy-award winning music arranger, took issue with my enthusiasm about openness. “What I create is mine alone, and must be protected at all costs.”
I retorted with: “What I create, I share. I don’t rip anyone off. Maybe we’re talking about apples and oranges. You’re in the commercial space, and I’m in the non-profit space. But how come public funds, which pay for textbooks, don’t require that a good portion of the content be placed in the public domain? Some of our most dynamic and profitable technology companies are able to build their platforms on open-source code that many of them share. Science communities are sharing data at an unprecedented level. There has to be a more reasonable solution here.”
His response: “You are so naive. Why do you just give your assets away?” he said. “You created it. It’s yours. If you design and knit a sweater, would you just hand it off, even though you’re cold? And about this open thing, don’t you know that there is no such thing as a free puppy? Does your time, blood, sweat, and tears account for anything? Do you expect that the world will reward your hard work with cash? Life is all about quid pro quo. I give you this and you give me that. Why can’t you do-gooders wake up and acknowledge what is so stunningly obvious? I make my money from writing music. You take that away from me, I have nothing.”
I’ll spare you the details about how that argument escalated. The rift between us has not been closed. It is enough to say that this Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley argument escalated into something resembling: “You’re selfish!” and “Well, you’re a fool.”
I had ample reason to take his side a while ago, but I am glad I didn’t. Teachers Without Borders was only in existence four years when I received a call from an established Washington D.C. non-profit. As is our practice, we begin our interactions with inquiries by being generous and hospitable. We provided them with all the content for the Certificate of Teaching Mastery so that their global offices could vet it.
Within two months, they plagiarized the content, slapped their name on it, and received an extraordinarily large grant to train teachers in Iraq. We could do nothing. I was nonplussed, then pissed, then humiliated. I wrote them an email expressing my concerns, asking at the very least for correct attribution. No response. My calls were not returned. My Board told me to suck it up, otherwise Teachers Without Borders would never eat lunch in D.C. again. Who knows, I was told, they might make a personal attack, like telling their buddies at TSA to put me on a no-fly list.
We had already been giving away our content and resources to anyone who asked, without charge. We never gave it a second thought. If something of ours was used, there was always attribution or a link to our site. But we had never dealt with an organization intent to make serious money — at our expense.
Meanwhile, open educational resources and the tools to make them available were becoming increasingly accessible. Rather than horde and protect our content, we would let the world make the judgment about legitimate authorship. Our colleagues at Rice University helped us publish our five-course Certificate of Teaching Mastery in any open form we could find. When the World Bank decided to recycle up to 30,000 computers, our content was available on every one. Teachers Without Borders would be recognized for our generosity.
As it turns out, this was a good plan. We recognized, too, that content and tools are not the only open educational resources. People are, too. We asked our members to take our content and adapt it anyway they could. Besides, we know that content is only as good as the people who embrace it and teach it.
Meanwhile, we learned that the mega “nonprofit” in D.C. was awash in lawsuits, and while I admit to feeling affirmed by our choice to go open, I have been asking myself some different, harder questions. “If content is open and tools are free, how come organizations do not really pool their resources?” True, partnerships are flourishing, but they only go so far. Most of the organizations stay independent, firmly clinging to their special value for the world. In the scheme of things, half the time it feels as if we’re splitting hairs. Why all this separate fundraising? Where are the NGO or nonprofit co-ops? Why do like-minded organizations keep separate membership databases? Why aren’t the borders of like-minded organizations more permeable? How open are we, really? Where’s the real love?”
If I really believe in a shared culture, then I should share my organization — all of it, not just the textbooks. Follow this logic, and Teachers Without Borders can very well give and give itself out of existence. This may be a good idea, even a measurement of our success. I doubt it, though. The need is too great. Then again, we could simply be ripped off. Open has, for some, opened the door to theft. And sharing is not always reciprocated. Nor should Hollywood’s indispensable role in opening windows to new perspectives be dismissed as self-indulgent hoarding.
Sure, our generosity has been abused 49% of the time, but at least we can say that, a majority of the time, people have returned the favor. Hollywood makes abusive films, too, but have also helped illuminate and transform our our lives with messages we can all embrace.
While debates over privacy and piracy, copyright infringement and public domain access continue to rage, I have promised myself to work toward both the integrity and ownership of art and the innovations and opportunities made possible by content made available in the public domain. Surely we can find common ground.
