Undermining the Perceived Value of Standards
We already have determined that standards are commodities that possess
significant value. The value of a standard is determined primarily
by its usefulness in gaining market acceptance of the product and the success
of the standard in improving safety and quality of the product. However,
a standard's value is also determined, to a lesser extent, by something
less tangible, something more attributable to the quirks and psyche of
our consumer society: the price tag. Information users place a greater
value on information that comes with a cost than on information obtained
for free. In many cases, providing a standard free of charge would
undermine much of its perceived value and use of the standard would decline.
The "you get what you pay for" mentality permeates our buying habits
and has a strong impact on what we deem valuable and non-valuable.
It applies to standards as much as it does to washing machines and automobiles.
The price tag that an information publisher puts on its information serves
as a psychological measure of value, and users are affected by this perceived
value. Although the empirical value of standards is obviously determined
by more concrete criteria (as stated above), the perception of monetary
value does make a difference. We are a society of consumers that
would tend to pose the question, "If it has no monetary value, how valuable
could it be?"
By making standards available at no cost, we are effectively saying
to users, "An army of volunteers just spent colossal amounts of time and
money on developing this standard. It should be an essential
part of your product development, one of the important requirements for
market acceptance, and the blueprints for the utmost safety and quality
of your product. Now, here it is for free." How credible are
our statements of value and integrity if we give standards away for free?
Imagine buying a new washing machine. You are at the store, reading
the features listed on each machine and comparing price tags. You
come to a machine that claims to do everything that the others do, but
it costs $300 less. Do you quickly write a check and take it home,
or do you get suspicious and wonder why in a whole store of $500-600 washing
machines, is this one $200? Standards users will wonder, "in a world
full of information that costs money, why are standards given away for
free?"
Judith Gire, Professor of Law and Director of the Law Library at Franklin
Pierce Law Center, has firsthand experience on this issue. "In my
experience as a librarian, when people get their information for free,
they place less value on its usefulness and its integrity." Professor
Gire also said that years ago, before they charged for the information
provided through their law library, users were scarce, they gave less weight
to what they received, and less respect to the people providing the information.
"But after instituting a pricing policy for research and for the information
received, people started using the library much more and they put a greater
value on the information received," she said.
Granting License to Violate Copyright
"It's free, so I can copy it." These words are often spoken by
copyright neophytes, Internet surfers, standards users, and many others
who mean well but fail to understand the complexities of copyright law.
Volumes have been recorded about the virtual thievery that takes place
on the Internet. Many information seekers regularly duplicate anything
that looks interesting, using it freely in presentations, term papers,
advertising, and articles of their own. The central impetus for their
misguided literary urges is a basic ignorance of copyright law. Many
users believe that only fee-based information is copyrighted. Others
believe that only individual authors have protection under copyright, while
others have the oddly false notion that only the most commercially published
information is protected, i.e., books, newspapers, and journal articles.
All of this confusion is obvious in the standards community. Even
though standards currently come with a price tag, many users believe that
the documents are in the public domain and therefore have no copyright
protection. Standards users often decline to purchase multiple copies
of documents because they think they can simply copy what they have on
hand. Eliminating the price tag will only worsen the problem.
Providing standards information free of charge will relegate standards
to the class of information that is generally deemed free to copy.
It will result in a proliferation of unlawful duplication, effectively
granting users a license to violate copyright. Without a second thought
or any mention of sources, users will distribute text and graphics, duplicate
the information on their own servers, and incorporate portions of text
into presentations, advertising, and articles of their own authoring.
Tom Field, Professor of Intellectual Property Law at Franklin Pierce
Law Center agrees with this and compares it to the case of Freeware.
Freeware is software that is generally deemed legal to copy and distribute
although in most cases, there are conditions set by the software developer.
Professor Field remarks that people obviously copy and distribute the programs
legitimately, but that a greater frequency of people go beyond those limits,
using the software in ways that they should not. Field says,
"I see the software being used on intranets, on Web sites, and some people
even tweak and rewrite the software to their own liking. They think
that since it's free, it belongs to the world."
Laura Gasaway, Professor of Law and the Director of the Law Library
at the University of North Carolina said the Internet has exacerbated the
problem of understanding copyright on free information. "This is
from personal experience doing copyright law workshops for librarians and
teachers -- they mix up 'public domain' with 'publicly available'."
The prevailing attitude toward copyright protection and free information
should convince standards publishers to think twice before putting standards
into possible peril.
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