Opinions On Open

Last month, a graduate student at Georgetown University in the Communication, Culture, and Technology program interviewed me via email about new media and my career path, especially pertaining to my role at Creative Commons. It was mainly for his course, so it wasn’t posted anywhere, but then I remembered this blog after I fed it to P2PU Planet. The questions actually made me think about what I was doing in the open space, so here it is, with a bit of a preface from the student.

This spring I am taking a course entitled, “From Theory to Practice: Persuasion, Narrative & the Portfolio.”… In my class we are developing an online e-portfolio that is meant to clearly communicate to future potential employers the skills and experience that we’ve developed in our time at the CCT program. We are interviewing people in fields and organizations that we are interested in working in to learn a little more about some of the career choices they’ve made to get where they are now, as well as to become more informed on the organizations themselves.

1. Can you briefly describe some of the main elements of your duties as a communication coordinator at Creative Commons?

As the Communications Coordinator for Creative Commons, I help creators, companies, and institutions leverage Creative Commons licenses and CC-licensed content. A huge element in my day-to-day and ongoing communications with others are education around our licenses—this includes education about how CC licenses came into being, how the licenses work, and what CC licenses or CC licensed content may have to offer to different kinds of users. A lot of it is also clearing up misconceptions about what CC licenses mean and what they enable. Another main element is identifying opportunities for CC license integration, and connecting the right people and projects so that CC licenses are used appropriately and effectively. This can mean anything from having informal conversations to officially highlighting or interviewing projects that are innovating in the arts and education. Basically, I help to craft the message of CC and what it does so that it reaches different audiences, fulfilling diverse needs of the community.

2. Have you known for a long time that you were interested in working in the field of intellectual property reform and collaboration facilitation with Creative Commons, or was it something that you stumbled upon more recently? Can you think of any specific moments in your academic or professional career that pushed you into this field?

To put it simply, no. I stumbled upon it a couple of years ago when I was completely new to this space. It helps a lot though that I was in the other person’s shoes—what I call the average person who doesn’t know that much about copyright or copyright law. I can’t think of any specific moments other than the fact that I applied for this job, originally as a Research Assistant and specifically for the education piece of things (CC licensing for educational resources), but maybe my work with high school students had something to do with it. I used to work with first generation college bound youth, and I always thought the traditional education system was failing a lot of students. CC was doing something new in this field, that I could have possibly seen as an effort towards reform at the time, so I applied to become a part of it. For what it’s worth, I was also a Philosophy major as an undergrad, so I have always been interested in the big questions, and conceptually IP is very interesting.

3. How important for your job is it to keep up date with the issues that Creative Commons addresses?

Very important, if not essential. CC’s existence depends on the internet, and the internet is dynamic and always growing. So is IP law, as many lobby for tighter restrictions around the world. It’s important that I keep up with the latest issues so that CC stays relevant and continues to carry out its core mission.

4. It seems that CC has a very diverse staff, with people coming from a lot of different backgrounds. Do you think this makes for a more effective workplace?

I think so, as the entities who use our licenses come from diverse backgrounds. We need to be able to communicate with people in different contexts and also from different cultures where CC might be seen as too radical or too conservative. Diversity keeps us tolerant and neutral, and that’s the organization we are and aim to continue to be.

5. Has the proliferation of the Internet and digital technologies created more problems (i.e. illegal file sharing, remixing, copying and dissemination of copyrighted works) or opportunities overall for content creators?

I don’t know that it’s created more problems than what might have already existed in different and physically underground forms. I think it just brought it out into the open because the internet is accessible by everyone, whereas a bootlegging factory might not be. Certainly, these activities might be proliferated by digital technologies, but at the same time, opportunities for creators have arisen that never before existed. For the first time, creators don’t have to go through a middleman or distribution company anymore—they can connect directly with their audience and with each other. They can also explore new models of creating and sharing content. The possibilities have really become almost endless… and that is really exciting. At the same time, new possiblities exist for companies and institutions, too, to leverage the internet and open licenses to engage with their communities. So I think overall, new opportunities have arisen that haven’t been there before, and I think opportunities that were in the past only available to some are now available to all, whereas the problems that have arisen are ones that have kind of always existed in some form or another.

6. Do you find that the Internet is an increasingly important element of communicating with constituents and developing support networks? If so, do you think it has passed traditional forms of communicating in importance?

In answer to the first question–basically, yes. I think it’s unavoidably the primary medium of communication now for a lot of people, especially the younger generations, and that it will only become more so. In answer to the second, it depends on what you mean by importance—because of course there is a texture to face-to-face communication that cannot (at least currently) be replaced by technologies, no matter how advanced. I think it is a valuable alternative, however, especially in fields such as education where not everyone can afford to attend an institution due to money or time. I think it has surpassed traditional forms in the sense that it has brought another layer to the way we communicate. If you take social media–Twitter, for instance, one of the reasons it is so successful is because it allows for more different layers of interaction than Facebook. Facebook interaction is one-to-one, you can only be friends with someone if they are friends with you. On Twitter, however, you can follow someone without them following you, they can follow you without you following them, or you can both follow each other. I kind of see the internet as the Twitter of the communication medium in general… what used to be limited to one-to-one (the phone) or one-to-many (broadcast media) now allows for many-to-many, many-to-one, etc. I don’t know if the analogy itself perfectly aligns, but you get the picture.

7. Is social networking media an important part of CC’s communication and networking strategies? If so, do you see it having an even more important role in the future and the country becomes increasingly connected?

We use what’s out there currently, yes. We have accounts on FB, microblogging services, internal microblogging services (status.net), etc. I think it’s definitely how we reach most of our users, and we will continue to evolve in how we communicate to our users as social media evolves.

8. Creative Commons’ partnering with Nike and other companies to release the online intellectual property marketplace GreenXchange recently is really interesting to me. Do you think that they are forecasting a new, more efficient development of sustainability business models for the future? The collaborative nature of GX is questioned by some who subscribe to the traditional business models of trade secrets and proprietary trademarks, but do you think that they can set an example for future collaborators and change the paradigm model?

So I am not familiar with the in’s and out’s of the GreenXchange as Science Commons—the science program at CC—have been the ones working with them. The big picture is that Science Commons is exploring patent licenses, as CC licenses only apply to copyrighted works and patents are a whole other story. The GreenXchange is a prototype of this first exploration into patent licensing, and Creative Commons (through SC) is serving as a sort of consultant to the project.

Personally, I think there might be a future in the open innovation models that are sprouting up within companies or collaborations between companies, as limited patent licenses may allow exchange and innovation since they are similar in concept to the “some-rights-reserved” model for content. I don’t know of the collaborative nature of GX being questioned, but I do know that it’s about trying to find sustainability that works, and innovation that leads to helping the environment or society is a good thing in my book. If they are successful, then I think it would be evidence that open innovation can work. I don’t know about changing the “paradigm” model–I think it is the default model right now because it’s what we are used to. But we were used to broadcast media and that has changed, too. I really don’t know too much about all this however, so you should check out http://sciencecommons.org/projects/patent-licenses/.

9. Is there any advice that you would give to someone who was looking to work in the field of intellectual property reform and advocacy?

I would say come up with a plan for what you are specifically interested in that field, such as a problem you’d like to see solved and possible ways for solving it—or at least what people/projects you think would need to be involved to solve it. I would talk to people in the space, attend some conferences, read up a lot. See what it requires for you to really dive into that problem. Are you more interested in the legal side of things? Then maybe law school is necessary, but at a place where things in IP are happening. I mean essentially the question is, why is this field compelling to you and what will you specifically do to make it better? You can contribute from many different angles—whether legal, technical, scientific, educational, etc.