The Mesh - Lisa Gansky [49]
Great ideas flowed in, and also created a problem. The architects wanted to make it easy to replicate the best and most appropriate designs throughout the developing world. But they were concerned that some company might take the free blueprints and make a profit building from them. With the Internet, this problem has become a common concern for creators. How do you share intellectual property without your work getting ripped off or used for unintended purposes?
Architecture for Humanity turned to Creative Commons, an organization developed by Larry Lessig, a law professor at Stanford. Through a fairly simple licensing mechanism, Creative Commons has enabled intellectual property to be shared widely under terms decided on by the creator—over 130 million works have been licensed in 50 countries since 2002. Options include completely free use, free use only under restricted circumstances (typically only used for nonprofit purposes), and an option similar to ordinary copyright. For the architects, the Stanford group designed an elegant solution, the Creative Commons Developing Nations License. Use the design for its intended purpose, no problem. Use it outside the developing world to make a profit, pay royalties. A combination sports facility and HIV/AIDS clinic in South Africa was the project built under the new license.
and then there was a network, and it was open.
Then Architecture for Humanity went an important step further. To facilitate the widespread sharing of good ideas, they devised what is perhaps their greatest innovation, the Open Architecture Network. (The TED Prize, won by Cameron Sinclair in 2006, largely supported the development of the network.) Architects and other designers can now freely collaborate over the Internet by sharing, and archiving, their best ideas. Not only architects, but also communities and NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) can use the resource to design appropriate local projects. Design, Architecture for Humanity argues, is the ultimate renewable resource. Today, they have 40,000 members in eighty chapters in twenty-five countries that participate. Their cheeky slogan is “Design like you give a damn.”
Why create share platforms where ideas and information can be freely shared? Once the core offering is refined, traditional business logic dictates that a more proprietary approach will distinguish you from competitors, and create protection against them. Individual creators and companies have long built businesses and fortunes by registering patents and enforcing secrecy. General Electric controlled the patents on lightbulbs, invested heavily in plants to manufacture the bulbs efficiently, and made profits by cranking out the bulbs for decades to follow. Sony, Kodak, HP, and many others played this game and won. In the case of Kodak, George Eastman even decided to own the cows to make the gelatin needed for the film emulsion. That way, no one’s pictures from a birth, graduation, or wedding would be ruined because of contaminated gelatin from an outside vendor. Mr. Eastman’s view at the time was that Kodak should be directly responsible for all aspects of quality, since the quality of the photographs would make the brand. In addition and over time, the company’s profits increased by taking out its vendors, or buying them.
Proprietary control carries significant advantages, especially once a business or category reaches a certain size. Owning intellectual property, including manufacturing processes, enables companies to establish a substantial defensive barrier against competitors. In fact, corporations often signal dominance in a category by controlling the ideas, and the relevant supply and distribution chain. Nor is the proprietary model limited to older companies. Successful brands such as Apple, Facebook, and Google employ similar strategies. While some of their platforms provide developers and customers with important collaborative tools, they are careful to guard what they regard as their core intellectual property, including customer data. They buy potential