Wikipedia:School and university projects/Open Source Culture/DCC

This report funded by the Committee for Economic Development is a surprising and refreshing economic take on what is at stake in the future of copyright. The Committee formed a Digital Connections Council (DCC) to take on the 'digital dilemma.' Their motto is summarized as: "The purpose of protection for intellectual property, therefore, is to keep this virtuous cycle of innovations flowing to those who improve upon them so that those innovations, in turn, can be used by still others. This process lies at the heart of long-term economic growth." This ideal lends itself to an analysis where the rate of societal innovation is deemed most important as it leads to long-term sustainable economic growth. Such forward thinking definitely benefits innovators who work off of previous innovations. However, the report does acknowledge the benefits of some protection in order to provide for incentive. The DCC terms this as 'the basic bargain.'

The report goes over various proposals to equalize the basic bargain, all the while, acknowledging the reality that the laws have historically worked clearly in favor of publishers and copyright holders. It seems as though the DCC's goal is to resolve the basic bargain without turning to the laws. They do not believe in protecting any business model by law or regulation. However, they seem to recognize this goal as lofty, and when turning to proposals, copyright laws make an appearance. They offer extensive analysis on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Hollings Bill, the Berman Bill, and Fair Use Bills. The DCC also considers broadcast flags (mini digital tags which would function as a signal just as the traditional copyright symbol does). Digital Rights Management (DRM), both private and governmental, are considered. DRMs include technologies and services which allow producers to monitor their products or disallow altering, copying, or sharing. The DCC seems to suggest that DRMs are the least economically efficient way to solve the dilemma. Although some benefits of DRM are discussed, they are considered to be a very controversial topic with many economic costs. In general, the report seems to support solutions which are technologically neutral and user friendly -- the DRM not being considered so.

The role of open source is 'systematically ignored' by the writers. In their analysis, open source software is considered to be outside of the effected products. However, they believe that open source is a powerful tool for future innovation. It is interesting that they do not propose open source software as a possible solution.