Corporate Capitalism's Use of Openness: Profit for Free?
by Arwid Lund (Author), Mariano Zukerfeld (Author)

About this Book
This book tackles the concept of openness (as in open source software, open access and free culture), from a critical political economy perspective to consider its encroachment by capitalist corporations, but also how it advances radical alternatives to cognitive capitalism.

Drawing on four case studies, Corporate Capitalism’s Use of Openness will add to discussion on open source software, open access content platforms, open access publishing, and open university courses. These otherwise disparate cases share two fundamental features: informational capitalist corporations base their successful business models on unpaid productive activities, play, attention, knowledge and labour, and do so crucially by resorting to ideological uses of concepts such as “openness”, “communities” and “sharing”.

The authors present potential solutions and alternative regulations to counter these exploitative and alienating business models, and to foster digital knowledge commons, ranging from co-ops and commons-based peer production to state agencies' platforms. Their research and findings will appeal to students, academics and activists around the world in fields such as sociology, economy, media and communication, library and information science, political sciences and technology studies.

Brief Contents
1 Introduction 1
    1.1 Early Promises and Expectations 1
    1.2 Ideological Distortions Under Capitalism: Californian Ideology Turning into Openness Ideology 4
    1.3 Profit from Openness Versus Profit from Enclosures Models 7
    1.4 What’s Wrong with Profit from Openness? 9
    1.5 Chapter Outline 16
    References 21
2 Profiting from Openness: A Critique of a New Business Model 29
    2.1 From Profits from Enclosures to Profits from Openness: Business Models in Cognitive Capitalism 29
    2.2 Open and Free 38
    2.3 Ideologies and Ideology Analysis 48
    2.4 Labor, Work and Profits 51
    2.5 Commons and Peer Production 67
    2.6 Platforms, Social Actors and Flows in the Profit from Openness Model 81
    References 95
3 Profiting from Free and Open Source Software 109
    3.1 Techno-legal Foundations for Hybrid Business Models Built on Linux Distributions 113
    3.2 Businesses Built on Free and Open Source Code in General, and Red Hat in Particular 121
    3.3 Case Description: Red Hat’s Business Model 124
    3.4 Red Hat’s Products and Prices 125
    3.5 Schema of Flows and Actors 129
    3.6 Regulations 131
    3.7 Role and Enactment of Ideology 134
    3.8 Conclusions 139
    References 140
4 Profiting from Open Access Publishing 149
    4.1 Introduction 149
    4.2 Scientific Publishers’ OA Business Models in General and Elsevier’s in Particular 165
    4.3 Scheme of Flows and Actors 178
    4.4 Regulations 179
    4.5 Role and Enactment of Openness Ideology 181
    4.6 Conclusions 185
    References 187
5 Profiting from Open Audiovisual Content 199
    5.1 Audiovisual Content Platforms and YouTube 199
    5.2 Scheme of Flows and Actors 209
    5.3 Regulations 212
    5.4 Profits and Exploitation 218
    5.5 Role and Enactment of Openness Ideology 223
    5.6 Conclusions 233
    References 236
6 Profiting from Massive Open Online Courses 241
    6.1 MOOCs in General and Coursera in Particular 241
    6.2 Scheme of Flows and Actors 249
    6.3 Regulations 252
    6.4 Profits and Exploitation 260
    6.5 Role and Enactment of Openness Ideology 264
    6.6 Conclusions 269
    References 271
7 Conclusions and Policies 273
    7.1 Summary of Insights from Case Studies 274
    7.2 Policy Discussion Section 279
    References 317
Index 323

Pages: 338 pages
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1st ed. 2020 edition (February 28, 2020)
Language: English
ASIN: B085DNXZS7