The Benefits and Opportunities of Creative Commons and Open Source Licensing

Discover how using these licences to protect your IP can accelerate your company’s rate of innovation and growth through the sharing of ideas

You are invited to join Computer Associates as guests at its Solutions Centre in Slough to learn how the use of Creative Commons and Open Source Software (OSS) licensing can accelerate your company’s rate of innovation and growth through the sharing of ideas, as opposed to their protection through patents and copyright - See Programme

Sharing ideas is what many businesses are doing today to gain market share, save on research and development costs, partner with competitors and benefit their customers with better products. This is not a new way of advancing knowledge and exploiting new ideas – researching academics have done it for decades. They get their rewards from attribution, but how does it work in business and in what situations is it applicable?

The Internet has connected diverse thinkers and enabled the global sharing of ideas. Out of this has come the need for “protection with freedom” for intellectual property, which isn't provided by patents, design rights and copyright. The need has been met by new forms of licensing such as Creative Commons licensing http://creativecommons.org/ which works for authors, artists, designers and educators and Open Source licences http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ which works in the software industry.

So, next time you have an idea don't automatically rush to patent it – you may be able to protect it for free under one of these new licences. Come to this event to find out how!

This business model, where ideas are shared, is working alongside the traditional model of proprietary products in several industries, including:

• Software – operating systems to applications
• audio – music, sound and speech;
• images – photographs, illustrations and designs;
• video – movies, animations and virtual worlds;
• text – books, blogs and encyclopaedias
• education – lessons, courses and textbooks.

Could it work in parts of your industry? Could you benefit if you are a customer of these industries as products may be free and where you need to use them alongside other products they should interoperate easily? Remember, every time you use the Internet you use a stack of OSS so it does work and interfaces reliably with other OSS products.
The opening session explains the ‘Sharing Ideas’ business model with particular reference to the software industry, where the sharing of IP is most advanced. Evidence that it works will provided by four case studies from companies at different ends of the size spectrum.

The morning closes with a session in which you will have the opportunity to shape the future of the Open Forum Europe project, our co-sponsors for this meeting (see below). You will learn about the Forum’s proposed membership offer and services, including training and the ‘Certified Open’ accreditation scheme for software.

An informal buffet lunch will offer you an excellent opportunity to network with fellow delegates and meet the speakers.
After lunch there will be an optional session in which you can offer more feedback and suggestions in respect of the morning’s content, explore how you might go about joining the ‘Certified Open’ accreditation scheme or participate in the Forum’s steering group.

Our two partners for the event are
• Computer Associates – an international software company located on the M4 that runs its business on a mix of proprietary and open source products. They have kindly agreed to host the event and explain their business model.
• Open Forum Europe – a not-for profit organisation that promotes an “open competitive market for IT users”. They have just started an EU funded project called TOF-e to help SMEs and others use and supply Open Source software and IT solutions which have a high degree of “openness” - facilitating choice and easing systems integration.

This meeting will be of interest to anyone engaged in the software industry and to SMEs unable to afford the tens of thousands of Pounds that it costs to patent an idea – or the huge legal cost of defending their ideas against infringement by large companies.

This meeting is free to members of the M4 Innovation Network. The cost to non-members is £85 plus VAT. If you wish to join the Network when booking for this event, simply tick the appropriate box on the booking form and state how you wish to pay. Membership is transferable, so anyone within your organisation can attend any of the minimum five meetings held annually.

Please complete and return the enclosed booking form as soon as possible. If you are paying for attendance, please including either a cheque or a purchase order for the required amount. TVT will send you an invoice, together with directions to the venue.

I can promise you an exciting, stimulating and valuable meeting and I look forward to seeing you at Computer Associates in Slough on Wednesday 31st May - See Programme

Yours sincerely
Lars-Olav Nicolls
Managing Director

Please email stephen.aitken@openforumeurope.org to book a place