There’s so much to think about when preparing this course, so much interesting material that we could add in, that we’re really having to focus our minds on what’s essential. To help us do that, and give you an idea of what you’ll be getting on the day long course, we’ve put together a tentative timetable.

9.00 - 9.30: Registration, pastries and tea/coffee
9.30 - 10.30: Introduction: What is Open IP? Open licences; business models; and distribution mechanisms.
10.30 - 11.15: Exercise: Discussion of Radiohead’s In Rainbows experiment.
11.15 - 11.30: Coffee
11:30 - 12.30: Building communities: The importance of community; social media.
12.30 - 1.30: Lunch
1.30 - 2.15: Overview of Case Studies 1 & 2: Magnatune; Where are the Joneses?; discussion.
2:15 - 2.30: Overview of Case Study 3: Tom Reynolds‘ Blood, Sweat and Tea.
2.30 - 3.15: Q&A with Special Guest (TBC)
3.15 - 3.30: Break
3.30 - 4.15: Complements and substitutes: How microeconomics applies to the way we think about creative works.
4.15 - 5.00: Exercise: Examining how different products and business models might work (or not!) together
5.00 - 5.30: Next steps: What will attendees do next?
5:30: End

We’d love your comments, especially if you were expecting to see something different, or think that we’re missing something important out!

Don’t forget to download our Application Pack if you’re interested in coming!

We’ve had several people email us since we announced the Application Pack for the Creative Business seminars last week. Many of them have asked us if we will be recording the seminars so that they can follow along at home.

We’ve thought hard about how best to do this, because the last thing I want is to make the attendees feel self-conscious when they are discussing new ideas. So we’ve decided that we’ll record just the presentations - not the exercises - hopefully in video, but if not in audio, and we’ll put them up online as soon afterwards as we can.

All of the course material will also be released as PDFs and pages here on the blog prior to the seminar so that all attendees can read up on it and be ready for what I hope will turn out to be a very practical and stimulating day! Essentially, we will freeze our materials - preserve them in amber, if you like - so that everyone is referring to the same versions, whilst the wiki continues to grow and change even after the seminar. That way, attendees know that they’ve all seen the same thing, and they’ll all know that they are up to date.

Of course, everything is being released under a Creative Commons licence, so if you want to, you can reuse it.

We’re very excited to be able to announce that the application process for the Creative Business in the Digital Era seminars has now begun! If you’d like to attend, please download our application form, (about which there is more information on our Application Pack page), print it out, and send it back to us. Yes, we know it’s rather old school to ask you to send us a paper form, but it’s easier than getting a whole new database set up, and when we’re done with your forms, we’ll shred them for you.

The seminars are subsidised, and therefore it’s free to all attendees. There are a maximum of 40 places available for the day course, and 50 places for each of the two evening courses. We are anticipating heavy demand for these courses, so we are asking all applicants to tell us a bit about themselves so that we can select a balanced group of attendees. We will in the first instance be looking at which sector you work in and your level of experience. We will then look for commitment to and interest in open content, as illustrated by the 100 word passage that we are asking each applicant to write. Remaining places will be filled by selecting applicants at random.

Please do make sure you get your form back to us by the deadline, 15 February 2008.

Meantime, Michael and I are working hard, getting all the course materials together. We have had Jordan Hatcher putting together the intellectual property module, which is going up on the wiki soon. And we’re busy drafting three case studies:

• Tom Reynolds’ book: Blood, Sweat and Tears
• Online interactive comedy: Where Are The Joneses
• Record label: Magnatune

And I’m also looking at exercises that we can do on the day, and also at business models and microeconomics. Keep an eye on this blog and the wiki for updates!

If you have any questions, please do email us.

One aspect of the Creative Business in the Digital Era project that I’ve been slightly struggling with is defining what makes a good example of open IP? One of the first reactions to the list of projects that might be relevant was “Where is the open source?” It’s a good question.

The answer is that I’m not really sure where open source projects fit in. Being open source by itself isn’t as enough to be included, because this project is about business models, and not all open source projects come with a business plan or are intended to make money. I’ve also been asked about open source infrastructure companies whose work is essential to the success of other people’s businesses. Examples might include things like peer-to-peer clients or server technologies. But again, it really depends on whether the software is being produced as part of a business.

Another facet to open source is the companies that use open source software and are commercial, but aren’t producing any IP themselves. I think I’m pretty clear on this one: these companies do not fall within the CBDE remit simply because they aren’t creating intellectual property.

Then there are companies that use open IP in order to provide a service to others, whether that’s the IP creator themselves or some other party. Sites like Flickr or Moo are important facilitators for people to make the most of their and other people’s intellectual property - in both cases photographs and designs - but I am unclear as to what intellectual property they are giving away that they have created themselves.

I suppose this all revolves around a few key questions:

• What intellectual property is being created?
• How is that intellectual property being given away?
• How does giving away that intellectual property benefit, directly or indirectly, the creator’s business?

I think I may need to rearrange the research page on the wiki to try and clarify what precisely we need to know in order to understand if a particular project or business meets our criteria.