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Facebook backs down over controversial privacy policy

facebook_175x125Intellectual Property topics can come from all sorts of unexpected places. The headline above was the lead story facing me as I picked up my local free Metro newspaper this morning.

Firstly, I was surprised to see the social networking phenomenon making it to the forefront of ‘old media’, and secondly, surprised to see Facebook backing down in the face of user complaints so quickly.

The last major U-Turn from Facebook I am aware of was in November 2007 when they removed their online tracking of purchases after more than 50,000 Facebook members signed a petition objecting to the program. Facebook Retreats on Online Tracking.

This time the response from the company has been much more swift, and this evening when I logged into Facebook I was confronted with the message below:

Terms of Use Update: Over the past few days, we have received a lot of feedback about the new terms we posted two weeks ago. Because of this response, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues that people have raised. For more information, visit the Facebook Blog. If you want to share your thoughts on what should be in the new terms, check out our group Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.

Bobbie Johnson in the Guardian explains the background to this latest crisis facing Facebook:

Facebook has backed down on controversial changes to its terms of service that angered users and caused protests across the social networking site.

Two weeks ago the site altered its terms of service so that it continued to retain a copy of all a user’s messages, actions and updates – even if they left the network. Until the change, Facebook’s policy was to delete all traces of a user if they chose to quit the site.

After the potential scope of the new legal wording became clear, thousands of outraged Facebook users and privacy campaigners lobbied for the world’s largest social network to revert to its old terms of service.

On Monday it seemed these calls were falling on deaf ears after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg defended the changes in a blogpost, and suggested that users should trust the site with their data.

However, just 24 hours later the company decided to back down. In a message to users last night, Facebook said it would be reverting to its previous terms and conditions for the time being.

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The BIG and Easy Guide to take a Bright Idea from Drawing Board to Successful Revenue

the_big_and_easy_guideAs a librarian of over 20 years there is nothing I like better than a book whose title describes its contents.

The BIG and Easy Guide to take a Bright Idea from Drawing Board to Successful Revenue is nothing if not informative. However, the fact it is written by Rob Lucas who has helped to develop our e-learning courses in Intellectual Property, and more surprisingly, seems to be a unique publication in covering this important topic, gives it even more value.

Certainly, those better informed on this topic than myself are impressed.

“Whether you are an aspiring inventor working from home or in the R&D department of a major institution, this book is an essential read.  I know of no other book like it”
Dr John Beacham CBE; DSc; FRSC
Former Senior Innovation Advisor to the
Department of Trade and Industry (now the DBERR)

Once again Amazon provides the opportunity to have a peek inside, to see that Rob covers the key topics of confidentiality and when to file for protection.

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Is Creative Commons the future of copyright?

smallcover2I listened to a fascinating discussion on In Business on Radio 4 recently with Professor James Boyle of Duke Law School.

Professor Boyle is the co-founder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain, and Chairman of the Board of Creative Commons, which is working to facilitate the free availability of art, scholarship, and cultural materials by developing innovative, machine-readable licenses that individuals and institutions can attach to their work.

Although not arguing for the end of all traditional forms of copyright. For instance the intellectual property within movies will still need to be protected in order to recover the significant cost of production. However, he argues for a much more flexible approach to use of creative output.

In this spirit he has ‘published’ his latest book The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind both in hard copy and as a free download under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License.

Professor Boyle explains his reasons for taking this approach by indicating that the free publicity gained will lead to more sales than those lost to free downloads.

“Why am I allowing you to copy the book for free?  And why is Yale University Press letting me?   To understand why I am doing it, watch this video by Jesse Dylan.  And if you want to  understand why it  makes economic sense to my publisher, read this short article.”

This may seem like a risky or foolish approach to those with a traditional view of Intellectual Property, but there is growing evidence of its success. The latest high profile example is from heavy metal band Nine Inch Nails, who’s Creative Commons licensed Ghosts I-IV was ranked the best selling MP3 album of 2008 on Amazon’s MP3 store.

In other words, a music album that can be legally downloaded and distributed over the Internet for free, has sold more than any others for $5 each, and earned over $1.6 million in revenue for NIN in its first week.

This is all makes fascinating reading given my participation in the next Real Time Club event, Intellectual Property:  Success Story To Be Extended? Just Desserts or Global Gridlock? on 27 January at the National Liberal Club in London.

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35,000 blog views so far – but the paper clip is King

My weekly sitemeter blog monitoring email has just arrived announcing I have reached 20,271 page views and 16,200  visitors since I started blogging a couple of year ago.

For reasons too complicated to go into here, I maintain a duplicate copy of this blog at http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/inthroughtheoutfield. And this has generated 14,722 page views and 10,344 visitors respectively.

The reason for mentioning this, is the surprising discovery that the most popular story on my blogs (by a factor of 4) was the one about the humble paper clip from August 2007 The not so simple paper clip. I have spent some time trying work out why this particular story has proved to be so popular, but remain bemused.

Equally confusing is why British Standard for a cup of tea – BS 6008 is second on the list.

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The art of business and the business of art

My Business Advice clients vary enormously in their business interests to the point where I rarely get surprised by their ideas.

rachel_whiteread_-_houseHowever last week I saw an artist and her partner, who’s project (an ‘intervention‘ as she called it) involves building a multi-million pound house (with a significant twist). Although houses as art are not new, with perhaps Rachel Whiteread’s House, a concrete cast of the inside of an entire Victorian terraced house completed in autumn 1993 and exhibited at the location of the original house in East London. It drew mixed responses, winning her both the Turner Prize for best young British artist in 1993 and the K Foundation art award for worst British artist.

My client was concerned that her idea, which in some respects is even more simple in concept, if not in construction, would be stolen by rival artists. Unfortunately the nature of intellectual property is that the less tangible the idea the weaker the protection. For example the storyline for a novel is much more difficult to protect than the finished book, printed and bound.

During the advice session she recommended a visit to Roger Hiorns latest work Seizure. This show the results of a giant science experiment in a derelict flat in south London. After reinforcing the walls and ceiling and covering them in plastic sheeting, 80,000 litres of a copper sulphate solution was poured in from a hole in the ceiling. After a few weeks the temperature of the solution fell and the crystals began to grow. The result is spectacular to say the least.

seizure1

seizure2

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seizure4
The artist admiring the fruits of his labour


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Patent myths

Many of the clients I meet who have invented something new have a basic misunderstanding of the power of a patent.

They believe that once they go through the time consuming (and potentialy expensive) UK patent process. Their intellectual property is fully and automatically protected. I have to explain to them that the UKIPO (previously the Patent Office) does not act as an IP police force, they just decide who gets a patent.

In their latest IP Insight article (link) Simon Crossley, technology partner at Eversheds LLP law firm in Cambridge, explains the steps inventors need to employ to protect the commercial content of their ideas.

One of the key activities is to watch the market for infringements.

“You might as well forget about your IP, if you ignore what everyone else is doing in your market and let the unscrupulous trample on your rights. In the same way as you watch your competitors’ marketing strategy and product development, you should think about whether anyone is misusing your rights, swiping your inventions or lifting your software.

If they are sticking your brand on a product, that is easy to point out. In a complex piece of technology, it can be harder to prove that your IP is being abused. But without proof, you are not going to get any sort of remedy.”

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Journey of an invention blog

The British Library has always had a strong fan base, particularly when our funding seemed to be threatened. However it is great to see a new fan in the shape of Liz Joseph an inventor. She has started a brand new blog to follow her journey of discovery as she develops her mass-market product.

She has started her route to success by making full use of the wide range of services we offer, and it is great to see her positive comments on the practical benefits these give.

She has already put in for a detailed patent search, so fingers crossed for a positive result there. I look forward to following her adventures as the days and weeks go by.

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BMJ accuses us of repudiation of the role of libraries

I was rather shocked to see this posting on the British Medical Journal’s website. The author Tony Delamothe, the deputy editor of the BMJ, accuses our use of the shed advert (shown here) as “representing an absolute repudiation of the role of libraries”.

Here is the introductory paragraph from his article entitled Amnesia strikes the memory business.

“A poster advertising the British Library’s Business and Intellectual Property Centre shows a padlocked garden shed, on which the following words have been painted: “Inside is your invention. We’ll help you stop it becoming someone else’s.” Nothing could better symbolise the suburban smallmindedness underlying this initiative.”

Fortunately Stephen C. Due a medical librarian from Australia corrected Tony’s misunderstanding of the role of the Business & IP Centre in providing information and advice that helps people protect their intellectual property. As he correctly states “There is nothing in this enterprise that conflicts with the traditional values of libraries – it is essentially no different from advising an author on how to make the most of his or her rights and opportunities under copyright law.”

Thanks Stephen for leaping to our defence!

My colleagues in our Science collection have asked me to point out that the British Library-led partnership was recently chosen to run UK PubMed Central. This enables scientists to access a vast collection of biomedical research thanks to a major new initiative that aims to promote the free transfer of ideas in a bid to speed up scientific discovery. Based on a model currently used in the United States, UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) provides free access to an online digital archive of peer-reviewed research papers in the medical and life sciences.

Also it seems the British Medical Journal is not entirely controversy free when it comes to open access publishing, as can be seen by this discussion thread Access controls on bmj.com – Restore true open access to bmj.com

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The ‘Not Invented Here’ syndrome

Since joining the British Library in 2006 I have been fortunate enough to meet many inventors. A frequent complaint is about the negativity they come across when trying to promote or sell their invention or idea. This usually stems from a ‘not invented here’ syndrome, and is very frustrating for inventors. The implication is that only a specialist working in a particular area is ‘allowed’ to come up with new ideas in that sector.

I had a client suffering from this syndrome last week, in this instance the resistance came from the shoe trade. Her experience reminded me of the story of my cousin’s invention.

He was a window cleaner and was frustrated by the difficulty in finding his clients locations using local map finding systems. In typical inventor fashion he spent some time thinking of a better way, and came up with “a method of specifying a location on a surface”. As with all the best ideas, it was very simple, and consisted of dividing the map page into 9 sections, in a 3 by 3 grid. This concept was repeated to give up to three levels of accuracy.

Unfortunately, despite having a patent application and a knowledgeable colleague, none of the map producers approached were prepared to take his idea seriously.

Given the cost of maintaining a patent over it’s 20 year lifespan he was forced to let it lapse, which means anyone can now apply the idea.

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Design classics – the Bic Crystal ballpoint pen

Often when talking to innovative designers and inventors in the Business & IP Centre, I discover they have a great fear of having their intellectual property stolen. Of course there are many examples where this has occurred. Our friend inventor Mandy Haberman had her idea for the Anywayup Cup copied, and had to win a legal battle to regain her rights. This experience has turned her into something of spokesperson on the topic.

However for many new products such as the Wattson mentioned in a previous blog post, the key is being first to market, and keeping ahead of the competition.

The other winning approach is to produce a design classic first time out. A case in point is the Bic Crystal ballpoint pen. Designed by Marcel Bich, more than 100 billion Bic pens have been sold since 1950 – enough to draw a line to the moon and back more than 320,000 times, according to the Observer newspaper. The only variation on the original design was to create a hole in the cap to prevent choking.

The pen has even become part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and has been reinventing in various guises.