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Science, business and the law - Locking up innovation or sharing and harvesting it - which way to go? |
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As open source software continues to transform the Internet – underpinning the phenomenal growth of businesses like Google, Ebay and YouTube, what can science learn from the computing revolution? Are we missing out on the full benefits of science and technology because of outdated ideas about copyright and patenting? This lecture will consider whether in our rush to protect intellectual property we are locking it up and damaging our capacity to deliver solutions for the critical issues of the 21st Century. John Wilbanks, Executive Director of Science Commons based at Harvard Law School, believes that existing social and legal infrastructures are choking science. He is working to create new ways to share scientific papers through scholar’s copyright; share biological materials, and open source data mining of biological abstracts. Richard Jefferson, the founder and CEO of CAMBIA-BiOS, based in Canberra, says that biological innovation has transformed humanity and still has the potential to dramatically improve the lives of the nearly four billion people in the world who live on daily incomes lower than the price of a latté. However the biotechnology revolution of the last twenty years has led to the tools for innovation becoming locked up. Brian Fitzgerald, lawyer and editor, has seen the best and worst of copyright management. He’s led the introduction of Creative Commons into Australia and has campaigned against the onerous copyright provisions of the Australia US free trade agreement. The discussion will be moderated by science journalist and broadcaster, Robyn Williams. Venue: Village Roadshow Theatrette, State Library of Victoria |
