Re: Free access versus DRM

["Siegfried Angerer" <sseaprod@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings
I suppose the thing that concerns me is the distinction between free access
and free usage. Let me reassure the academic list members that I am not
strictly speaking against the concept of free access for research and
student use as long as we define what this free access entails. In fact,
most academic sites already define the limitation of what is free and what
is not so free in some manner or form. Whether this is done through paid
membership, enrolment defined login restrictions, or the acceptance of
something for nothing in order to piggy back another discrete service on top
of it / associate to it etc. In the academic world there is probably a good
argument for greater freedom of access to materials as long as we do the
following:
Firstly, we must recognize that someone had to produce and develop the
published content and that this often involves considerable time, money and
effort. In the case of journal articles, the article itself may be written
very quickly, but it is usually the culmination of several years of
research. In the case of online teaching and learning content and resources,
we are generally talking about an individual, or a team of people spending
anywhere from six month to five years working on a single full time
roject  -assuming the intention is to deliver something that is any good.
This type of investment in time, money and expertise must generate a return
and recognition even if parts of the total work are delivered free. The
material that is delivered free must be useful to the intended client
sector, and it must also service the deliberate advertising and capability
focus needs of the project. The client has to know that there is a lot more
quality product that is to be paid for. In brief, a deliberate decision is
made about what should and what should not be available for free access,
because the academic or teacher who wrote this material knows its value
measured in time, effort and money spent.
Let me put this another way! In the case of online teaching and learning
content and resources development, an academic / teacher is paid a
negotiated wage. However, if we assume that we wish to transfer a quality
face to face delivery into an online forum that addresses individual student
learning needs, then the cost of delivering a high quality and very
comprehensive product can rage from approx. $125,000 to $345,000 for the
writing, production and development of a single semester's course. In fact,
I have personally written a full year course over a five year period at a
cost of about $1.2 million. I therefore put it to you, that this cost is a
true indicator of the teaching and learning value (labour value) the
academic / teacher delivers to the students and the institution annually. I
will also put the proposition to you, that the vast majority of academics
and teachers do not receive an annual wage that truly compensates them for
the value of the services they actually deliver - if we equate online with
face to face delivery. In fact, it is far more likely that the executives in
the academic institution are recipients of remuneration packages in excess
of this teaching and learning performance measure.
If we assume that we have made a conscious decision about what is to be
delivered for free public access and what is to be delivered under
restricted access conditions, we then have to ask ourselves whether or not
all materials must be subject to Digital Rights Management assurances. Do we
need to put in place mechanisms that protect authors, copyright holders,
designers, artists and license holders even for the free access materials?
How are we going to do this?
In the academic arena there is certainly a good argument for the management
and tracking of content and rights that protect against plagiarism and other
practices that may impact against the copyright, patent or ownership claims
of any intellectual property that may have been discovered, or that may be
the consequence of prior work. In the case of online teaching and learning
content and resources there is certainly a good argument to protect the
personal investment and intellectual property of any academic who sits down
and writes a high quality online course. After all, how many writers spend
up to five years writing a book and then give the lot to their publishers
with the words - I give this to you as a gift, to do with, and earn revenue
with as you wish, without any restrictions or reservations what so ever and
in perpetuity, etc.
Does this mean that all of us concerned both with free access as well as
digital rights, must attach XRML tracking and recognition code or any other
Trojan code to anything we wish to make available for public access? Who
manages it, who pays for it and why do we need it, if we are not concerned
with Quality Assurance, Digital Rights Management, Digital Original
Registration and Intellectual Property Rights? Does this tracking code
infringe civil liberties and privacy provisions in any state or country
around the world?

No! I put it to you that the notions associated with Quality Assurance,
Digital Rights and Intellectual Property are not compatible with the concept
of free access because free access does not mean free use.

Ps.
Concerning the tax idea in the previous post. Good idea! I wonder how I
could apply it to my own business?
If I spend a million dollars in getting a course developed that meets
national accreditation guidelines and involves multiple institutions who
deliver it collaboratively the issue is not tax credits, the issue is
upfront capital investment and access to the institutions and government
education bodies. Even I have the investment to pump into the best online
photography or engineering course getting national accreditation across
multiple states and multiple academic and industry interest groups,
professional bodies and others who might wish to influence teaching and
delivery guidelines is a nightmare job. It is a job that is even worse in
state education systems where academic and teaching delivery standards are
not centralized and a lot of different boards and advisor bodies influence
curriculum. No!  Your tax idea assumes that we are developing and selling a
new brand of shoes and not an intellectual knowledge service product that
aims to deliver a high quality teaching, learning and research focus
dependent on key ideas and concepts subject to agreed deliver standards.
Selling shoes is easy. Developing, producing and delivery ideas and concepts
under agreed delivery standards requires that we have to deal with a lot of
intangibles.
I can certainly confirm that the response to the free offer of 600 megabytes
of state of the art online learning and teaching content has been under
whelming. Why! Because every teacher, academic and registered teaching
institution out their will ask, nice offer - is it any good - does it meet
my classroom teaching needs - does it approach the course the way I would
teach it - what strings are attached?
Siegfried E. Angerer
Bu. Ph 613 9645538
Ah. Ph 613 96961814