The audio is hopefully coming soon, along with some more bit and pieces, including the A1 sheets from the Complements and Substitutes session. We have the full case studies up for Tom Reynolds and John Buckman, and just awaiting the final version from David Bausola.

We have also created a CBDE mailing list, which is open to anyone, whether they came to the seminars or not. We’re hoping people will discuss their ideas and thoughts about the use of open IP in business, so please do join us!

Monday was the full day seminar, which ran from 9am until 5.30pm, and carried on at the pub well into the evening! We were totally over-subscribed, so unfortunately had to turn some people away at the application stage, inviting them instead to the evening seminars. Had we known that so many people would want to come to a day-long seminar, I think we would have run two. We could easily have filled both. As it was, we had about 36 people come, and I think we had a pretty good day.

We kicked off with a session explaining what we mean by ‘open IP’, covering the basics of copyright, open licensing, online distribution methods, and business model archetypes. I’m sure for some in the room this wasn’t a revelation, but it’s always important to lay good foundations for the rest of the day.

We then ran an exercise based on the case of Radiohead’s album In Rainbows, which they released online for free download. We asked attendees to form groups and think about what they would do if they were a music industry stakeholder, e.g. a manager, tour promoter, distributor or fan. How would they use ‘free’ to further their business model?

The next session looked at the importance of community in the success of open IP models - a theme that ran strongly through our case studies. It examined how to build communities, and which social software can help fans to coalesce around people, projects and products that they feel passionate about.

A diversion into the microeconomics of complements and substitutes followed. Whilst a little tricky to explain, the concepts are very important to showing us how freeing up our creative works can help us earn money from complementary products. They also illustrate how important it is to identify when a potential product might be undermined by a free substitute, so that we can create a robust income stream that will resist the ongoing digitisation of creative works. Another exercise got people on their feet again, discussing possible complements and substitutes in different industries.

I was very excited that our three case study subjects, Tom Reynolds, John Buckman, and David Bausola (with Rob Myers) had come to speak with everyone about their experiences. I really enjoyed talking to them and we got some great questions from the attendees too. That was certainly the highlight of the day for me.

We then polished off the day with a final exercise where attendees were asked to take a hypothetical product and market and work out a marketing campaign based on ‘free’.

The Tuesday and Wednesday evenings featured Tom Reynolds and David Bausola respectively, with an hour’s lecture covering the basics from the Monday, followed by a Q&A session with our guests. Again we had some great attendees with some very interesting questions.

We’ve had some really good feedback from those who managed to come along. Jude Umeh wrote about the day on the British Computer Society DRM blog. David Bausola also wrote on his blog about the project, explaining a little bit more about how Where are the Joneses? evolved and the importance of community. And I’m delighted to see that CBDE encouraged musician Neil Leyton to start his own blog! If you have written about CBDE on your blog, please do let us know!
Now that the excitement has died down a bit. we’re focusing on getting the last of the materials up on to the wiki for people to add to or reuse. The case studies are nearly all up, with just Where are the Joneses? left to polish off and post. Much of the material we presented on the day is up already, linked to from the Curriculum page.

Marc Hankins came to all three seminars and has put his photos on Flickr under a Creative Commons licence. If you have photos, please do tag them ORG-CBDE so we can find them.

Audio was recorded at all three seminars, and as soon as it’s up online, we’ll blog it.

But this isn’t the end of it. We have our wiki, which you can join and add to, and are starting a brand new CBDE discussion list for people to discuss open IP and their own creative business ideas. If you’d like to join in the conversation, just visit the sign-up page and subscribe.

Finally, Michael and I would like to thank all the people who made CBDE possible:

Tom Reynolds, John Buckman, David Bausola and Rob Myers for giving us so much of their time, answering our questions and coming to the seminars.
Chris Adams for design and typesetting.
Jordan Hatcher for working on the intellectual property page of the wiki.
Marc Hankins for photography.
Chris Mear, Matthew Petty and Felix Cohen for recording the events.
Mandy Berry and Pollyanna Lindley at 01zero-one for help and support.

And all the volunteers who have come into the ORG offices to help out, or who have pitched in on the wiki or ORG discussion list. CBDE wouldn’t have happened without you.

I am excited to announce that we have secured three very special guests for the Creative Business in the Digital Era course!

Monday 17 March
Tom Reynolds, blogger, ambulance technician and author, will talk about his book, Blood, Sweat and Tea, published under Creative Commons licence and in paper by The Friday Project.

Entrepreneur, musician and bibliophile John Buckman of Magnatune will talk about his business, and how to run a CC music label.

Tuesday 18 March (evening)
Tom Reynolds graces our presence again.

Wednesday 19 March (evening)
David Bausola, the creative mind behind interactive online comedy, Where are the Jonses?, will talk about his project.

All of them will be happy to take your questions, so if you’re interested in coming along just download our application form and pop it in the post. Closing date is 15th February, so don’t delay!

• An overview of Intellectual Property
• Digital distribution methods
• A social media primer
• The importance of community
• A look at business model archetypes

We’re working on polishing up the case studies too, and hopefully they’ll start coming online soon.
If this whets your appetite, then get your application form to us sharpish!

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 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.

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.

This means all four of my books are now CC licensed. Code (v1) was licensed under a BY-SA license; so too, Code (v2). And Free Culture and now The Future of Ideas are licensed under BY-NC licenses.

It will be interesting to see if Larry reports any spikes in sales because of this.

The other day, I discovered that one Seesmic-er, Nik Butler, is an ORG supporter, and he called for more info from us from ORG:

To which Eric Rice responded:

So, I recorded a quick intro to ORG:

To which Nik replied:

And then yesterday, a quick intro to Creative Business in the Digital Era:

I’m going to try and do some more CBDE Seesmic videos over the coming week. The site is still quite buggy, but it’s a great community. If you want an invitation code, please let me know. I’ve given codes to Michael, Becky and Glyn, so hopefully they’ll show up on Seesmic soon too.

Why?

I’m hoping that within the next few years, I’ll be making enough money from book sales that I’ll be able to write full time. Isn’t giving the book away somewhat counterproductive to that goal?

I don’t think so. Here’s why: the biggest challenge most authors face isn’t online piracy. It’s not people out there diabolically copying their works and distributing them for free. In fact most authors (including yours truly) suffer from a different problem entirely — no one has ever heard of them. After all, literally hundreds of thousands of new titles come out every year, and only a few hundred writers in the entire United States (if that many) actually live off their books full time. So, by giving away the book, I hope more people actually read it.

And Chris points out:

Tim O’Reilly was the first to say that the enemy of authors isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity. For the vast majority of authors, being read is actually reward enough. How to turn that recognition into a living is a whole other process, and not necessarily one that depends on the traditional book industry to deliver. Good thing, too, since it so rarely does.

But perhaps giving away books might help with that whole making a living thing too? Charles says:

Will giving it away cut sales and make me a poorer person? I don’t think so. There’s plenty of evidence out there that giving away the book will actually boost sales. If you don’t believe me, check out Eric Flint’s column in Jim Baen’s Universe, which actually runs the numbers and takes down some of the myths associated with Digital Rights Management, publishing, encryption, and copyright fanaticism.

And indeed, Eric’s column is well worth exploring as he takes some popular misconceptions and blows them out of the water with some real figures. I particularly like his disembowelling of the concept of “online piracy”.

It’s a good start to the year, and I hope it encourages others to consider that giving stuff away may not be so daft after all.