We’re strongly tempted to make the comparison. First, the STCW Convention 2011 edition is being retailed in Manila for US$115 equivalent (£73) compared with US$119 for a copy of Windows 7, Home Premium Edition, from Microsoft’s online store. That’s just a four dollar difference. Second, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) controls the market for the STCW document as well as all other international treaties published by the Organization. Similarly, Microsoft, which had been accused in the past of monopolistic business practices, dominates the market for desktop operating systems as well as the browser and office suite markets.
The comparison, however, is unfair to Microsoft so we won’t push it. The company has spent a fortune developing Windows with its army of paid software developers. Clearly, it should have exclusive right to the intellectual property. On the other hand, as we stated in a previous blog post, the STCW embodies the collective intellectual effort of IMO member states. An IMO official has defended the STCW copyright by saying the Organization put in “added editorial value”. Following this line of reasoning, the copyright to any book should go to the copy editors and proofreaders instead of the real author or authors. How preposterous.
We might be willing to pay for a genuine copy of Windows 7. But we use Linux. We have a choice, as do other inhabitants of this planet who find Windows too costly and too vulnerable to viruses and spyware. In the case of the STCW, what choice is there? The complete document isn’t available to download for free from the internet. It’s a captive market for IMO. And so lucrative that IMO is not likely to consider our suggestion that it make the STCW available at least under a Creative Commons License – free to distribute as long as no changes are made to the original.
For IMO to be intransigent on the whole issue will only encourage the rise of a black market in pirated copies of STCW. Or, worse, discourage seafarers from ever reading the full STCW text. We dread the thought. ~Barista Uno
