Campaign for Cambridge Freedoms

It is not much different from the second report, published on 26 March 2004. That went to a Discussion in the Regent House on 11 May 2004, where it attracted much adverse comment. The authorities then withdrew it for further consultation and redrafting. If you want to know why intellectual property rights are really important to academic and indeed cultural freedom, you could read Larry Lessig's latest book, or my detailed analysis of the first (2002) proposal. Even if you don't have time for that, you really ought to read the account by Mike Clark of how our research bureaucrats agreed, without his knowledge or consent, that he would submit all his relevant publications for vetting by a drug company that had licensed one of the University's patents.

The second and third IP reports are based on the report of the Cornish Committee, published in August 2003. This committee suggested much as I predicted they would back in 2002: that the University take only patent rights, as it won't be politically possible to take copyright too for the time being. This would still be seriously bad news for the University and for the wider economy. Nonetheless, the Cornish Report is still a damning indictment of how the University has managed IP over the last couple of years. There was a Discussion of the Report on the 21st October 2003, which showed that the mood of the Regent House was against even Cornish's compromise, and in favour of restoring our traditional rights.

The controversy has at least helped reinvigorate our democraic institutions. At the 2002 Council elections, both of the members elected in class b were pro-freedom (Ross Anderson and Martin Rees) while two of the four candidates elected in class c had also come out in favour of freedom (Richard Barnes and James Matheson) and the other two had declined to take a position. The openly pro-RSD candidates - John Bell and Jeremy Sanders - were both defeated. At the 2004 elections, the first and second elected candidates (Mike Clark and Bob Dowling) were pro-freedom.

Here follows the old 2002 CCF front page, which is pretty well as relevant now as then:

2002

Freedoms at Cambridge University are under threat. A policy change proposed by the University's Vice-Chancellor will have a number of serious consequences for academics, for the student body and for the wider community.

Previously, the copyrights and other intellectual property rights in academic work at the University belonged (with a few narrow exceptions) to the people who did the work. The Vice-Chancellor's proposals will turn that round completely - everything (with a few narrow exceptions) will belong to the University. The consequences will include the following.

• Research effectiveness: As our most recent Nobel Laureate Sir John Sulston argues, the freedom to share information quickly, without hindrance from patent lawyers or bureaucrats, is critical to effective research. This does not just apply to genetics; in disciplines from physics to computer science, it has become standard practice to disseminate research by sharing software. However, some big donors - such as Microsoft - dislike free software and campaign vigorously against it. In future, the Vice-Chancellor insists that the University supervise all free software releases. This is completely unacceptable. If computer scientists, for example, had to seek approval before even publishing a software patch, this would make them an international laughing-stock.
• Academic freedom: the new policy will severely undermine academic freedom by assuming the copyright in popular books written by academics. So a book expressing controversial ideas could be suppressed. Examples might include an economist criticising a policy dear to the government of the day, or an English lecturer who writes a novel attacked by religious extremists. The University would be in a position to use the copyright either to suppress publication, or to channel it somewhere safely obscure. Even if such censorship were not practised on a daily basis, its mere possibility should be opposed. In fact, a University report earlier this year described academic ownership of copyright as ``an important guarantee of academic freedom' and strongly recommended that ``No change should be made to this basic rule.'' The Vice-Chancellor has completely failed to explain what made the University change its mind on this issue.
• Autonomy: the new policy will mean that academics no longer have a veto on how our ideas are exploited. Many researchers make it a point of principle to publish their ideas rather than patenting them, so they are free for everyone to use. Some oppose patents on principle, for example as harmful to sustainable development. The university's FAQ on this issue says that there is no intention to go against the wishes of the inventor, but that is not good enough. The are persistent rumours that the University plans to bundle up our future IP and sell it off to a bank, as happened at Imperial. A flinty-hearted fund manager at Citibank may not be very sympathetic to a leftist inventor's principles.
• Effects on employment: the proposals will adversely change the employment conditions of existing faculty by expropriating the copyrights and patents in much of the work that we do after the end of 2002. For example, many historians supplement their meagre salaries by writing popular history books. From next year, the University will be in a position to demand up to 67% of the royalty income. This will make recruitment and retention of historians much harder, and many other fields will be hit too.
• Effects on students: even where books are not aimed at the popular market, all books based on lecture notes will be claimed by the University. This is likely to prevent academics who have already written textbooks from producing new editions, to discourage others from producing printed notes on any subject on which they might some day write a textbook. Already, at least one professor has simply cancelled a course that might make his books liable to taxation by the University.
• Effects on industry: despite the damage done in the name of raising money, the proposals will not benefit the majority of businesses in the Cambridge area. Indeed, the definitive study of the Cambridge Phenomenon argued that the large number of high-tech businesses spun off from the University owed a lot to the fact that academics own our patents and copyrights, so those who were inclined to doing business start-ups could do so without having to appease University bureaucrats at every step and hand over most of the resulting profits. (The second edition remarks that it is probably already harder, from an IP perspective, for academics to drive spin-out creation.) The Cambridge technology transfer scene is also very diverse at present; creating a University monopoly on academic IP is simply the worst thing that could happen for entrepreneurship. Most local `business angels' believe that if the proposals go ahead, they will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

The Campaign for Cambridge Freedoms is determined to stop the Vice-Chancellor's proposals going through, if necessary by defeating them in a vote in the Regent House. There was a Discussion in the Regent House on the 15th and 22nd October, that was even reported by the BBC. One of the highlights was a speech by Tom Körner; we also received overwhelming support from Cambridge University Students' Union.

It turns out that Grace no. 6 of 30th March 2001 expropriates all intellectual property resulting from externally funded research in the University. This sneaked through without people noticing it. So it will not be sufficient to defeat the current proposals; we will have to repeal Grace 6 as well, will fully retrospective effect.

If these issues concern you, please reply to the consultation on the proposed changes being run by the Cornish committee. For background data on what other universities here and in the USA do, read our detailed analysis of the proposed changes, which also describes their likely effect on individual faculty members, students, departments, the University, the regional economy, and academic freedom; and you'll likely also want to read up on the history of intellectual property at Cambridge, and see our rebuttal of the arguments used so far by the Vice Chancellor's faction. There's also an ongoing discussion on ucam.change.governance. These resources should help you work out how the proposal will affect your own work, and will give you ammunition when discussing it with colleagues.

The members of the committee are:

• Ross Anderson
• Michael Ashburner
• Mike Clark
• Simon Deakin
• Richard Evans
• David MacKay
• David Newbery

There has been significant press coverage, including articles in the Observer, the Telegraph, the Cambridge Evening News, ZDNET, THES, the Wall Street Journal, the BBC and Varsity.

There is a mailing list you can join, and there is also some discussion of the issue on the ucam.change.governance newsgroup. (We also have our own Dilbert :-)