Mixing it Up: adding new intellectual property models to your creative practice (part 3)
(Okay, so this post has been a long time coming!)
A while back, ‘Mixing it up: adding new intellectual property models to your creative practice – part 1’ and ‘part 2’ looked at some of the reasons why a creative practitioner may or may not share intellectual property (IP) , and the Creative Commons framework that can be used to manage this. The use of Creative Commons is straightforward for incremental creative production, where an existing version is taken and developed or improved, but not so much for live collaborative projects where a group of people are working to develop something together at the same time. It’s also not possible to release something under Creative Commons to a specified community, so what might be the solution?
Two ways of looking at this are from a ‘protection’ and ‘sharing’ viewpoint. Social Innovation Camp is an example where sharing is the default. This is a weekend where web developers, web designers, entrepreneurs and others get together to work on pre-selected web-based ideas that address a social issue. Project teams are formed, and after approximately 48 hours each team has something tangible to show – a working web prototype.
Social Innovation Camp 08. Image by codepo8 on flickr
Social Innovation Camp is a live example of where people donate their skills, knowledge and talent, without concern of intellectual property, to work towards a greater good. Because of this goodwill and enthusiasm, results are achieved extremely quickly. Furthermore, those involved make new contacts, develop their own knowledge, learn from others and become associated with an interesting project. Financial gain is not the primary goal for any of the projects in Social Innovation Camp (although the ideas do need a sustainable business model), nor for the people involved. The non-monetary benefits – networking, learning etc – are enough for people to feel comfortable giving up their time.
Is it possible to apply these principles to creative and truly collaborative projects, where temporary teams are formed from those with the best skills for the job? And how can creative practitioners feel comfortable enough with sharing their IP to initiate and manage these kinds of projects themselves?
The example above shows that it’s not so much an IP framework that is needed, but more a ‘frame of mind’. When working collaboratively, project members will need to be less protective over ideas, and there needs to be a high level of trust between those involved. This becomes much harder in ad-hoc temporary teams and current approaches in place might be to use a non-disclosure or collaborative agreement, which are important if any disputes arise. But we also need to be wary of being too heavy-handed or prescriptive which could stifle some of the amazing creativity and innovation that could arise.
Perhaps there needs to be a transition, when working collaboratively, from ‘me’ to ‘us’ and from ‘my IP’ to ‘our IP’ - this may not be easy for the individual creative practitioner who is used to working alone. It requires a mindset and approach where project members feel confident about how to make decisions between sharing and protecting in their own practice/business. This starts from knowledge of basic IP principles, seeing examples – both successful and unsuccessful – and first-hand experience of this way of working.
July 18 2009 07:58 pm | Intellectual property
