Page - 89 - in Radical Solutions and Open Science - An Open Approach to Boost Higher Education

94 D.Burgos generatesdoubts regardingcommodification; this is also trueof rights, asdescribed in the followingsection. Forexample, theEuropeanCommissionrequiresthatallresultsfromasubsidised project (e.g.Horizon 2020 orErasmus+) should be open access (EuropeanParlia- ment,2017),andcuriously, thisrequirementisnotonlyforcitizensofEuropebutfor anyindividual inanycountry.ThatmeansEuropeinvestse77billion(theoretically) in the Horizon 2020 program, split between subsidies for research, scholarships, support for SMEs, synergy betweenuniversities, etc. (CDTI, 2014). The results of this investmentduringthesevenyearsof theprogramme(2014–2020)areaccessible from any country, on any continent. Therefore, Europe provides free access to all its subsidisedknowledge,bornof its residents’ taxes.Thisknowledge, thoseresults, and thoseproducts areEuropean, but theycanbeaccessedbyanyone inan instant. Intellectualproperty remains inEurope,but freeaccessdoesnot.Quite theopposite occurs in other continents or countries; Canada, Japan, theUnitedArabEmirates, theUnited States, or Colombia do not systematically yield their research for free, and therefore there is no reciprocity of access to information or to its possibilities for transfer. Conversely,therightofcommodificationinEuropeisregulatedwithinagreements made by a consortium of European partners. If any spin-off commodification is decidedoracontract isobtainedwithanadministration, thebeneficiaryof thatprofit will be stipulated in thecontractbutwill not reach theEuropeanCommission.That is tosay,onceagain,Europefinancesorsubsidisesaproduct, a result thatgenerates acontractoracommodificationofanykindbutdoesnot receiveanypayment in the caseofpositiveproduction. These two examples present a system that favours research in exchange for an expected return (productivity,publication, impactonsociety, etc.)butnotataneco- nomic level.Thepositiveaspect is that a contractwithacompanygenerateswealth and,withluck,booststhatresearchandaproductivelayer.Thenot-so-positiveaspect shows an unbalanced designwhere private business can happen at the expense of public funding,withno return to that sourceof funding. 6.3.2 PropertyRegistration Intellectualpropertyprovestobeausefulandeffectivemechanismtoregistercertain aspectsrelatedtotechnology,suchascontent.Softwareprovestobesomewhatmore elusive, as it is also registeredas text and is subject to the samenormsof similarity ratioswhenfacedwithacopy(Joyce,Ochoa,Carroll,Leaffer,&Jaszi,2016;Bettig, 2018; Stokes, 2019); this is undoubtedly a pending issue in support of developers. Industrial property followsa longprocedurewithmultiple stages thatmeans regis- trationof technologyorprocesses that lead tosoftwaredevelopment isobtained too late,with too-large budgets, and generally in an ineffectivemanner. BothMoore’s Law (Waldrop, 2016) and the biannual logic of updating andmodifying software andhardwaremean that the 2-to-3-year process of patent registration exhausts any