The second day of TACD's conference is in full swing. There have been several interesting presentations, and I can't possibly keep up with all of them. So I'll just raise the points that seemed most interesting to me. Forgive my liberal omissions.

Mark Cooper of Stanford University gave a passionate presentation, talking about how digital technology, especially networks, enables collaborative production - and how inadequate monopoly powers stifle innovation. In a digitally networked environment, "less property gives me more innovation." He called into doubt the view that the current system of copyrights and patents is absolute: "We write and re-write the rules of property throughout history to fit the way in which we live."

The dense presentation summed up two of Mark's papers, to be found here and here.

On the morning's first panel, Leonardo Cervera Navas of the European Commission's DG Internal Market dedicated part of his talks to the way in which his departement considers the impact of the directives and policies they implement. An example was the the evaluation report for the Database directive, which creates a sui generis monopoly power over databases in the EU.

The evaluation report said that the directive had been basically useless, which led Jamie Boyle to describe it as "faith-based intellectual property policy". Navas and his departement, though, seem in no special hurry to do anything about this irrational measure which is hurting the European economy: They're considering all options, from keeping the directive as it is to abolishing it. My guess is that abolishment is not high on their agenda.

An interesting note is that he also talked about an upcoming discussion about extending the term of copyright protection. This is urgently needed, since the current 70 years after the author's death certainly do not suffice to guarantee the revenue of the rightsholders. Mind you that "rightsholder" and "creator" are rarely identical today.

Thus, an extension of the copyright term would benefit rightsholders, but hurt creators by reducing their access to the existing works they need to build upon. I asked Navas if the discussion in his departement would also include the possibility of a shortening of the term. He answered that such a thing is politically unthinkable.

Prepare for soon having copyrighted works protected well into the 23rd century. Or do something about it. Navas mentioned that stakeholders would have a voice in the process. So let's get it to them loud and clear: An extension of the copyright terms is counterproductive. Instead of putting Zombie business models on life support, let's prepare the ground for new kinds of value creation.

If you've stuck with me this far, I'll reward you with two external links: There is an article - spotless, as usual - by IP Watch. Stefan Krempl of Heise is reporting in German.

At TACD's Brussels conference, we've had an interesting panel that recounted the campaing about software patents in Europe. The panel consisted of the liberal EU parliamentarian Sharon Bowles, who is also a patent lawyer; the (not very) covert Microsoft activist Jonathan Zuck; and Florian Müller nosoftwarepatents.com

While there were a lot of the old arguments tossed about, there were some interesting points. Sharon Bowles made a rather daring point when she said that "I never knew a single patent attorney who wanted [american style software patents]". To her mind, there's an area that shouldn't be covered by patents, but as she presumably didn't feel like it, she couldn't define that. Defining it would cause great "collateral damage" to the "electronics industry".

All speakers feigned to be blissfully unaware that software is protected by copyright, and that this does not seem to have harmed the industry so far. Some more far-out claims were that software patents would somehow be an answer to the problem of illicit copying of proprietary software. Mind you, this is not your local coffee-house chat. These people are experts in their field. It's probably best to see any such mistakes as intentional.

A more interesting argument came from Jonathan Zuck, who says that his organisation represents about 3000 small and medium enterprises (try joining, it's free and they don't vote). When I mentioned that software protection happens via copyright, he added that software is also protected by trade secrets. But trade secrets are becoming less feasible due to concerns about interoperability, state sovereignty.

Though minor, this is a point we might want to prepare ourselves to run into more frequently in the future. He didn't answer to my question about how large a percentage the five largest funders of his organisation contribute.

Sharon was kind enough to give a hint for those aspiring to have something patented. Since it's already impossible for patent lawyers to do a reasonably good clearance of prior art - i.e. to check that the invention doesn't already exist - she recommends that you should just apply for a patent and let the reviewers do the checking. According to her, that is the cheapest way to do it.

The ensuing discussion reached a charming conclusion when a German physicist got up and spoke rather passionately about how stupid the idea of patenting software is, since it amounts to patenting mathematic formulae. Though rather new to the debate, he hit the core point: It really *is* a stupid idea to patent mathematic formulae. Period.

For those who read German, Stefan Krempl of heise.de is reporting from this conference. (Thanks, Markus)