In the free-wheeling digital age, companies are often in the position of competing fiercely while at the same time cooperating -- ensuring that their products and services can work together.

How this cooperation should be brought about is the subject of strongly conflicting views. Everyone agrees that it requires "open standards," interfaces available for use by all. But that is the limit of consensus. One school believes that standards can be called "open" only if they are "open source" -- available at no cost, owned by no one, and produced by a community process. The competing view point says that companies should be able to develop and own proprietary standards, with openness guaranteed by the rules of standard-setting groups, by contract, and by property rights.

At present, the "open source" camp probably has the upper hand in this debate. In this session, James V. DeLong will describe the conflict, and lay out the case for allowing proprietary standards as the best way to provide incentives for innovation and investment while still guaranteeing access.

James V. DeLong is a senior fellow at The Progress & Freedom Foundation where he directs the Center for the Study of Digital Property. Before joining the Foundation, DeLong was senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He also served as general counsel of the National Legal Center for the Public Interest, research director of the Administrative Conference of the United States and assistant director for special projects in the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the FTC.

His book, Property Matters: How Property Rights Are Under Assault - And Why You Should Care, was published by the Free Press in 1997, and he has written widely on copyright and related issues. DeLong is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was book review editor of the Harvard Law Review, and a cum laude graduate of Harvard College.

Date
Wednesday 16 Feb 2005
19h00-21h00

Location
Centre for the New Europe
23 rue du Luxembourg
1000 Brussels

The CNE Political Advisers Forum is Brussels' leading venue for "free beer, free pizza and free trade". It also provides an environment for like-minded PAs to meet and network.

Space is limited, so please notify the Events Coordinator
if you'll be coming this month!