Innovation in Open Networks – Creative Commons, the Next Layer of Openness

by Joichi Ito

Joi talks about the explosion of innovation around the Internet is driven by an ecosystem of people who work in an open network defined by open standards. However, Joi stresses the fact that the technical ability to connect in an increasingly seamless way has begun to highlight friction and failure in the system caused by the complicated copyright system that was originally designed to “protect” innovation. Just as open network protocols created an interoperable and frictionless network, open metadata and legal standards can solve many of the issues caused by copyright and dramatically reduce the friction and cost that it currently represents.

The article further mentions that the open standards and the small pieces loosely joined had created an ecosystem of components and networks that dramatically lowered the cost of development, collaboration and delivery. This allowed people to innovate, launch, fail, connect, mashup and remix in such an efficient way and at such low cost, that the center of innovation moved from the research laboratories of the giant companies to the startup and venture capital scene in Silicon Valley.

Creative Commons provides tools for users to dedicate their works to the public domain. For some scientific data or educational resources the public domain provides the maximum flexibility and value.