<div id="content" lang="en" dir="ltr"> <h2 id="head-fa11cc8d646f551a86dc6b307135266e8bca2e8e">What is the Sharing Economy</h2> <p> <a class="external" href="http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,608619-2,00.html"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">A Business 2.0 article</a> (article no longer available) did a very good job describing <a class="external" href="http://www.creativecommons.org/"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">Creative Commons</a> and the "sharing economy" which they believe is a multi-billion dollar industry. As I approach companies about trying to adopt creative commons, free software or investment in basic research and innovation, I am struck by the lack of understanding of the value of sharing and contributing from to the commons. It makes a lot of sense to me, but I wonder if it might be useful to try to collect material and generate some addition material that describes the benefits of sharing from a business and economics perspective. </p> <p> <a class="external" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">Lawrence Lessig</a> describes the argument very well in <a class="external" href="http://free-culture.org/"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">Free Culture</a>, but I think that a rigorous business treatment would help the business guys a lot. I think the argument can be made that open protocols such as TCP/IP and http have enabled a great deal of business to happen and if either had been "owned" or patented, we would not have the Internet today. I'm sure IBM can make a strong case about the value of Linux which it has embraced so wholeheartedly. I recently met business researchers in St. Gallen who were displacing management consultants by allowing companies to participate in academics studies about their management that would be contributed to open research. I think there are many arguments about contributing to the commons and how the commons creates a foundation upon which we can build. -- <a href="/joiwiki/JoiIto">JoiIto</a> </p> <h2 id="head-94ac1195973e817eeded674a224554aa2b4f40a4">Types of Sharing</h2> <ul> <li> <p> Free Software </p> </li> <ul> <li> <p> Linux </p> </li> <li> <p> Apache </p> </li> <li> <p> Languages </p> </li> <ul> <li> <p> Python </p> </li> <li> <p> Perl </p> </li> </ul> <li> <p> Protocols </p> </li> <ul> <li> <p> TCP/IP </p> </li> <li> <p> World Wide Web </p> </li> </ul> </ul> <li> <p> Content Sharing </p> </li> <ul> <li> <p> <a class="external" href="http://www.creativecommons.org/"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">Creative Commons</a> </p> </li> </ul> <li> <p> Basic Research </p> </li> </ul> <h2 id="head-5b1e898fc07d61e53c63f3002ef704c95490010b">Theory</h2> <p> Asking the value of a work in the commons is hard to answer. It makes more sense to ask the value of the <em>service</em> of creating a certain work that does not already exist. We might imagine a consortium of all interested users of the work, and ask them what they would collectively pay for the work to be created. We can also ask a potential producer of a work the amount of money they would ask in order to produce it, an amount that may depend on competing bids for the producer's time and effort. </p> <p> Various protocols have been developed along these lines: </p> <ul> <li> <p> <a class="external" href="http://www.schneier.com/paper-street-performer.html"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">The Street Performer Protocol</a> - an artist announces that they will only produce/release a work once a certain amount of money has been raised. Various web sites have used something like this successfully, by announcing that the web site will only continue to exist if a certain amount of money is raised. </p> </li> <li> <p> <a class="external" href="http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue6_6/rasch/"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">The Wall-Street Performer Protocol</a> - bounties are placed on the creation of specific works, based on a kind of bond market. Prizes awarded for the creation of specific open source software are an example of this. </p> </li> <li> <p> <a class="external" href="http://www.logarithmic.net/pfh/rspp"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">The Rational Street Performer Protocol</a> - the value of a work may vary based on the amount of money raised for its creation (a better job can be done with more money). Potential users of a work therefore offer "conditional donations": they agree to pay an amount that is a function of the total amount raised. The largest total amount that may be raised consistent with the terms of each conditional donation is found. </p> </li> </ul> <h2 id="head-5d20d0fee3b91643dd8d272ac33d01ca95179d82">References</h2> <ul> <li> <p> Articles and papers about Content Sharing </p> </li> <ul> <li> <p> <a class="external" href="http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,608619-2,00.html"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">Business 2.0 Sharing Economy</a> </p> </li> <li> <p> <a class="external" href="http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">Harvard UNC study on lack of impact of filesharing on music business</a> </p> </li> <li> <p> <a class="external" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/technology/05music.html?ex=1396497600&amp;en=71b2898a5d0c0b03&amp;ei=5007&amp;partner=USERLAND"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">NYT - A Heretical View of File Sharing</a> </p> </li> <li> <p> <a class="external" href="http://www.redherring.com/opinions_111903.aspx"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">Music Industry: Stop Shirking - only partly related, but an interesting view on the dynamics of sharing</a> </p> </li> <li> <p> <a class="external" href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID472141_code031125510.pdf?abstractid=472141"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">Sharing and Stealing</a> </p> </li> <li> <p> <a class="external" href="http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/BusinessYoureReallyIn.pdf"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">How to Determine the Business You're REALLY In - Several examples throughout this paper presented at Univ of Toronto's Rotman School of Management</a> </p> </li> <li> <p> <a class="external" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674012925/"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">The Success of Open Source by Steven Weber</a> </p> </li> <li> <p> <a class="external" href="http://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.html"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">Yochai Benkler's paper, "Coase's Penguin: Or Linux and the Nature of the Firm"</a> </p> </li> <li> <p> <a class="external" href="http://www.rheingold.com/texts/IFTF_Commons.pdf"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">The Battle for the Commons</a> </p> </li> <li> <p> <a class="external" href="http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">Cory - DRM Bad</a> </p> </li> <li> <p> <a class="external" href="http://www.commons.ca/articles/fulltext.shtml?x=347"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/classic/img/moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">Commonspace: Beyond Virtual Community</a> </p> </li> </ul> </ul> </div>