As you may recall, last month my post was about a training game for nonprofits on open content and Creative Commons licensing. I had a chance to get some feedback at a recent nonprofit and open source software workshop called Penguin Day. Soon after, an interesting conversation has been percolating about open content on the nonprofit technology blogopshere sparked by a thoughtful post from Michelle Murrain commenting on the licensing of the new Journal of Information Technology and Social Change.

"But then I looked deeper. The journal is, basically, business as usual. It's peer reviewed (good), but it's got a rather restrictive license, and the content is not freely available. The licenses are as follows:
'Personal License: If you have purchased a copy/subscription to the Journal with a personal license, this means that it is for your personal use. You may make copies for backup purposes or to allow you to personally use this report on more than one computer. You may also print copies, but not for circulation of any kind [emphasis mine].

Corporate License: For most of you, we recommend a corporate license. If you have purchased a copy/subscription to the Journal with a corporate license, this means that it is for use by people within your organization. You may make paper copies for internal circulation. You may post it to your intranet, so long as access to that intranet is restricted to those who work for your organization [emphasis mine].'

In other words, don't make a copies for a workshop, or for a colleague who isn't inside your organization, and definitely don't make a copy for your mother to read.

But it's a journal about technology and social change! This goes back to my constant refrain - the means are the ends. How can we talk about technology in social change, while, at the same time, publishing in a format that limits the availability of this knowledge to people privileged enough to pay for it? How can we talk about promoting change when we're not pushing this content into the commons?"

Michael Gilbert, the Journals' founder, responded here and invited people to dive in with their thoughts.

"It's always an interesting challenge, trying to figure out how to pay the bills while trying to make the world a better place. I believe this dialogue represents how we can meet that challenge and create our future: One foot in the world as it is and the other in the world as we wish it were."

Michelle Murrain summarises the discussion in other places and adds some food for thought. One of the most widely respected content developers, Laura Quinn of Idealware, in the Nonprofit Technology sector also spoke up quite passionately about the topic.

She explains why she feels the "all content should be open" attitude is not responsible and explains how and why there aren't sustainable business models in nonprofit content creation. Her call to action:

"If we want good nonprofit content in the world, we can't just arbitrarily demand openness. We can't assume that someone else will foot the bill for us, because that just isn't a sustainable long term solution. We need to support the organisations that are writing it in figuring out how to cover their costs. Or these organisations will simply cease to exist."

A few more nonprofit bloggers shared their thoughts. 'Where Most Needed' had this to say. In the comments, Michele Martin points to an interesting article "Saying You Can't Compete for Free Is Saying You Can't Compete." Some, like Michael Stein directly refers to Laura Quinn's provocative post: "Laura is not creating media, as the Social Source blog suggests one ought, to lure you into her site. The media here IS the service. So how do we propose to pay for it?" Deborah Finn throws in her two cents here. And in Michael Gilbert's Top Ten Reports of the Year (2006) list, there is a pointer to the Roadmap for Open ICT Ecosystems as an excellent example of systems thinking that is needed in the nonprofit techspace, as it relates to open content.

At present, a small group of almost 40 nonprofit and technology practitioners have joined the Open Content for Nonprofits NTEN Affinity group to discuss the issue:

This group is designed to provide a forum for frank discussions of open content business models for the nonprofit sector, to discuss what works, what doesn't work, how to evaluate different Open Content business models, and, eventually, to help develop, disseminate and foster different kinds of content business models that provide the ability to provide quality content to the sector in ways that are both financially sustainable for the authors and editors, and are as open and freely accessible as possible.

I suspect that the debate and possible solutions have been explored by other fields and sectors or may resonate with you. What examples, resources, or blogs would you recommend to this group to help inform or frame the discussion? What advice would you offer?

tags: Seattle United States education journal non-profit publishing ipr

extracted from: