Accidental Pedagogy

From the collection of really bad ideas: Posner on copyright

From Techcrunch. Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner in a blog post suggests that part of the
solution to the demise of newspapers and the readership and financial crunch they find themselves in is to change copyright laws to prohibit linking. Money quote:

"Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion."

I will try not to dwell on the two most obvious things:

a. we have in the past 15 years seen an enormous expansion of copyright law in favor of big content and

b. the sort of damage this will do to freedom of speech. academic freedom and the economic value generated by the Internet. The currency of the Internet is linking. Kill that and the Internet will slow down to the point that it likely wont be worth it. The simple act of writing this post would entail me first contacting and getting permission from Techcrunch and the Posner himself. Not to mention all the people I'm going to link to below. If I'm lucky in a year or more I'd have all my permissions lined and up and be ready to write and you could read it then zzzzzzzz

Something that struck me about Posner's argument is that he assumes a straight and uncomplicated switch from paid to free. I think that that really over-simplifies the issue. It is part of the story but there is also a question of convenience and added functionality. As one of the commenters points out a big part of the story of the declining profitability of papers comes from declining classifieds revenue. Sure the switch to Craigslist is partly because it's free but it is also easier to use, searchable and yes even fun. With news peoper I read more than ever before but mostly it is because of a larger meta-discussion about what the news is and I find that enormously engaging.

But I do have some sympathy with those trying to figure out how conventional news outlets can find a way into the future. When I read anything about the newspaper crisis I do think about higher ed. We face significant challenges in higher education in how we are going to change how we operate to cope with funding and changing students etc.

A little while back a couple of people on some mailing lists I'm on started making this same analogy - Lanny Arvan was one of those but there were others. They pointed to a interesting article on the newspaper crisis by Clay Shirky. In particular Shirky wrote.

Revolutions create a curious inversion of perception. In ordinary times, people who do no more than describe the world around them are seen as pragmatists, while those who imagine fabulous alternative futures are viewed as radicals. The last couple of decades haven’t been ordinary, however. Inside the papers, the pragmatists were the ones simply looking out the window and noticing that the real world was increasingly resembling the unthinkable scenario. These people were treated as if they were barking mad. Meanwhile the people spinning visions of popular walled gardens and enthusiastic micropayment adoption, visions unsupported by reality, were regarded not as charlatans but saviors.

When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness in an industry. Leadership becomes faith-based, while employees who have the temerity to suggest that what seems to be happening is in fact happening are herded into Innovation Departments, where they can be ignored en masse. This shunting aside of the realists in favor of the fabulists has different effects on different industries at different times. One of the effects on the newspapers is that many of their most passionate defenders are unable, even now, to plan for a world in which the industry they knew is visibly going away."

We see a lot of that I think in higher education. And part of the problem is that we land up with two polarized sides of the debate about our own future, neither of which is very helpful. On the one side there are those who say some version of "online universities are going to eat our lunch" and "everything must be online." And on the other side we have those who argue that we have nothing really to fear as MIT and Harvard aren't going to change and students will still want degrees from them. Well most people don't go to Harvard, they go to community colleges.

Another big part of the problem is that it often gets fought out in terms of technology but it is only very partially a technology issue. It is about accountability and evaluation and accreditation and leadership and the ability to effect change in higher ed.

The answer will come from somewhere in the middle ground between the two extremes. But I don't know what it is. And apparently neither do the newspaper people.

Berman Center video on Harvard Coop textbook madness

The Berkman Center has posted a short video of a discussion between Angela Kang and Seltzer exploring why the Harvard Coop was wrong to claim intellectual property rights in their textbook prices and ISBN's.

Regardless of the copyright claims I think universities should post reading and book lists on their own websites. That would help students get the information earlier and more conveniently and help them make better decisions about where and how to purchase.

Gemany passes law to prohibit copying of music CDs

Via the Future of Music Coalition, this story from Variety on Germany just passing a law that would prohibit the copying of music cds, even for personal use. The article says:

The Bundesrat pushed aside criticism from consumer protection groups and passed the law, which makes it illegal for anyone to store DVDs and CDs without permission. The law also covers digital copies from IPTV and TV broadcasts.

Consumer groups and the Green Party had campaigned in vain to include a "bagatelle exemption," so that the measure would not "criminalize" youths and other private users. The law is set to take effect in 2008.

I havent checked out other sources or commentary on this but this is crazy. Presumably under this law, my iTunes, which contains music from cd's I own would be infringing. Even for those cd's where I have the express permission of the artist who owns her own label to make as many copies as I want.

Update:

Ok, Techdirt has a bit more detail. Apparently it is to further criminalize breaking copyright protection. So you can copy things that weren't protected to start with.

Quick, patent this post!

Tony Karrer at eLearning Technology has an interesting post on LMSs which he's considering from the corporate sector. In the post he looks at why one particular vendor gets low satisfaction marks in the eLearning Guilds report on learning management systems whereas in some other reports, eg Josh Bersin of Bersin and Associates LMS reports they consistently score highly. Karrer points to the different methodologies that are used in the two reports. The eLearning Guild surveys users more generally, Bersin basically asks the companies for a list of customers and then surveys and interviews those. You're obviously going to get a very different response from someone referred to you by the company than you are from a broader swathe of users.

Tony Karrer is right to point us to look closely at methodology as there is a lot of really suspect research out there, suspect because of the the poor methods used. We need to be more critical users and consumers of research.

However, something else in his post caught my eye and is I believe worthy of greater discussion. Karrer takes a quote from Bersin's website where they describe their methods. It goes like this:

Our patent-pending methodology relies on primary                    research directly to corporate users, vendors, consultants                   and  industry leaders.  We regularly interview training                   and  HR managers, conduct large surveys, meet with managers and executives, and seek-out new sources of information. We develop detailed case studies every month. We have the industry's largest database of statistics, financials, trends, and best practices in corporate training (more than 1/2 million data elements).
(The bold is mine, the italics not) the quote is from this page

Excuse me? When did doing primary research, interviewing users, doing surveys and collecting other data become patentable. That sounds pretty much to me like what every social scientist learned to do in graduate school.

I went to check the patent office and couldn't find anything. It is entirely possible that my USPTO research skills aren't up to snuff  but there are three possibilities, two of which make Bersin and Associates look rather bad.
a. They're trying to patent research into technology use and satisfaction. Not very good.
b. They're dissembling about their patent-pending application. Not very good.
c. They have some whizz-bang technology which sounds like all research ever done but that's going to revolutionize research forever. They just can't be specific about it and its buried in the very swanky bowels of the USPTO. This would be better, but I find it unlikely.

As it happens I live just a few blocks from the USPTO. Perhaps I should swing by one of these days to patent my methodology of posting snarky bits of derivative commentary to amuse and enlighten colleagues in academic technology.  So what if others have been doing it longer and better!

Copyright and creativity: an example from music

Wired magazine's Listening Post has a link to a really interesting youtube tracing the movement of  a drum riff, known as the "Amen Brother" loop from the B side of a record released in 1969 to become a stapling sample to a copyrighted piece of content being sold by agencies. The 18 minute video illustrates a great deal about how we produce original work: not from a blank slate but inspired by, influenced by, informed by and from the raw materials of work that has gone before us (though Blackboard might have us believe otherwise).

This process comes across especially clearly in music (and Siva Vaidhyanathan wrote about this eloquently in the horribly titled but very insightful Copyrights and Copywrongs) but it operates in varying ways and degrees in all kinds of endeavors, academic research included.

Another really interesting thing about the youtube (and something I didnt notice until I had watched it twice -- but there again I am not very visual) is that there hardly any video footage apart from a record on a turntable. But it is enormously effective nonetheless and compelly and absorbing.  My one criticism is that it gets a tad strident at the end which I think is unecessary. A story this good doesn't need to be overstated.