#future of open

Our goal is for the Open Movement to develop a new, collective strategy. One that takes into account the experience of the last two decades of open, and the changes in the digital ecosystem that have happened in this period.

The new strategy should leverage the principle of openness to design and build systems that maximize the societal benefits of digital resources while avoiding harm. Doing this requires acknowledging that, in some cases, openness serves to strengthen power imbalances and is thus not emancipatory in itself.

The idea of Open Access and free reuse of knowledge and culture continues to be one of the most powerful challenges to the exclusive control by corporations and states over information goods. And openness is a principle on which a vision of a more just and egalitarian digital society can be built.

It is time to define once again what Open means: the normative vision behind sharing and the way value is created. We are doing this work through sensemaking and building new narratives about Open.


 

Posts

Protecting Creatives or Impeding Progress?

February 17, 2023 by: Paul Keller
As generative machine learning (ML) becomes more widespread, the issue of copyright and ML input is back in focus. This post explores the Eu legal framework governing the use of copyrighted works for training ML systems and the potential for collective action by artists and creators.

Paradox of Open Redux

January 23, 2023 by: Alek Tarkowski et al.
After many conversations on the Paradox of Open, and the series of responses to their essay, Alek Tarkowski and Paul Keller share their reflections on the issue of addressing the power imbalances in the open ecosystems.

Straw Men and Weak Reeds: Persistent Myths About The Open Movement

January 23, 2023 by: James Boyle
James Boyle reacts to Jan J. Zygmuntowski's opinion on Paradox of Open: Responses.

Gatekeepers of open

January 19, 2023 by: Jan J. Zygmuntowski
As a contribution to his fellowship, Jan J. Zygmuntowski wrote an opinion on the Paradox of Open, which builds – and responds to – the series of responses to the Paradox of Open.

How will the AI Act deal with open source AI systems?

December 13, 2022 by: Paul Keller
None of the approaches dealing with open source AI systems in the AI Act address the concerns related to chilling effects on open source AI development so far. The Parliament still has the opportunity to address these concerns without jeopardizing the AI Act’s overall regulatory objective by leveraging on the inherent transparency of open source, writes Paul Keller.

Open Future Fellowship 2023

December 6, 2022 by: Open Future
We are looking for two Fellows to contribute to our work on advancing digital public space and designing the future of open. The application submission deadline is 31 December 2022.

The EU will fund a feasibility study for a public repository of public domain works

November 25, 2022 by: Open Future
In the 2023 budget, the EP allocated funding for a pilot project to explore the feasibility of a Public EU directory of works in the public domain and under free licenses, something that Paul Keller and Felix Reda suggested in a white paper in 2021.

A new civil society Coalition to promote global access to knowledge

October 10, 2022 by: Open Future
Thirty-two civil society organizations worldwide launch the Access to Knowledge (A2K) Coalition to improve access to knowledge around the globe.

Launch of the AI_Commons white paper

September 28, 2022 by: Alek Tarkowski
We are publishing today, as a request for comments, a white paper on understanding the implications of face recognition training with CC-licensed photographs.

Net neutrality: defending the internet “as we know it” is not enough

September 21, 2022 by: Zuzanna Warso
Instead of focusing only on fixing the platforms, the EU must introduce measures that would allow the emergence of alternatives to the current fundamentally flawed system of “online malls.”

Copyright rules for AI generated visuals will determine the future of synthetic worlds

September 9, 2022 by: Paul Keller
Instead of analyzing the functioning of image generators through the lens of copyright, we should ask ourselves a normative question: Why should we want that copyright applies to the visual output of these generators?

Publications

The Growth of responsible AI licensing

February 7, 2023 by: Paul Keller et al.
The RAIL licenses are gaining ground, but permissive sharing is still the prominent norm governing the sharing of ML models on huggingface.co. This analysis aims at understanding how licenses are used by developers making ML model-related code and or data publicly available.

AI_Commons

January 12, 2023 by: Alek Tarkowski et al.
The AI_Commons Final Report summarizes our findings and offers recommendations for commons-based governance of AI datasets.

Paradox of Open: Responses

November 30, 2022 by: Open Future
We asked leaders and experts from the broad open movement to respond to the Paradox of Open, and published their responses in an online anthology.

AI_Commons white paper

September 28, 2022 by: Alek Tarkowski et al.
This white paper presents the case of using openly licensed photographs for AI facial recognition training datasets. The analysis is part of our exploration of how AI training datasets, and works included in those datasets, can be better governed and shared as a commons.

Proposal to leverage Article 17 to build a public repository of Public Domain and openly licensed works.

September 21, 2021 by: Paul Keller
White-paper on how to to leverage Article 17 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market directive to build a public repository of Public Domain and openly licensed works.

The Paradox of Open

March 5, 2021 by: Paul Keller et al.
The Paradox of Open is the essay that we published in March 2021 to mark the launch of Open Future. In this essay we reflect on almost 20 years of our involvement in the open movement.

Events

November 30, 2022

Open Future Salon #2. Launch of Paradox of Open: Responses

November 11, 2022
On 30 November at 17:00 CET (16:00 UTC), online, we hosted an Open Future Salon to launch "Paradox of Open: Responses." 
September 15, 2021

Open Future Sessions Season 2: Conversation of the openness of today and tomorrow

July 5, 2022
A collection of the summaries of the conversations we had with thought leaders from the Open Movement during Season 2 of the Open Future Sessions (September 2021-June 2022), to address the key challenges that Open faces today.
September 21, 2021

Protecting Open Licenses in the EU Copyright Reform at CC Global Summit 2021

December 1, 2021
Presentation of the White Paper: "Proposal to Leverage Art.17 of CDSM Directive to build a public repository of Public Domain and openly licensed works"
September 20, 2021

Future of Open Sessions at CC Global Summit 2021

September 20, 2021
The CC Global Summit is among the events that create the beat of the Open Movement. In this 2021 Summit edition we teamed up with Library Futures, Wikimedia and Invest in Open for a series of interrelated conversations about the Future of Open.
October 29, 2021

Global Congress on Intellectual Property & the Public Interest

August 30, 2021
Workshop on Copyright and the Digital Economy
September 20, 2021

Rethink Design

August 24, 2021
DCODE Summer School 2021: Introducing DCODE challenges, outlining new design ideals for our digital future, and setting the ground for a shared vocabulary.