The Beauty of Copying (and of Being Copied)

How does knowledge spread and make a community growing? Is it copying somebody else good or bad? Should we re-invent the wheel? The ‘non invented here’ syndrome is as an expression used when a team rejects good ideas coming from others, and then time is wasted to re-invent the same solution. Copying someone else’s idea is plagiarism, infringement of patents, un-ethical, or simply not exciting. At the same time, local economic realities, where companies located in a limited geographical area develop similar products, generate new ideas and growth. In some situations, imitating each other, competing for skilled personnel, brings economic growth to an entire region. One example is the Silicon Valley, where in the late eighties, companies working in the field of personal computers, closely interacting one with each other developed an entirely new economy. A valley, once known for walnuts, is now the icon of innovation, high technology and a booming economy. Would that have worked if ideas, skilled resources, and products were kept secret and isolated one from each other? Companies need to protect their inventions to survive in a high competitive market. New products are the results of years of work and large investments. High-tech companies exploit IPRs to generate revenues, letting other copying will surely be detrimental for their bottom line. On the other side, being too protective can be counterproductive, as it limits free circulation of ideas that may lead to inventions and new products. Where is the balance between being open and protective, so new ideas can freely spur and leading companies can keep the edge? Could local economic conditions, maturity of the technology, market volume favor one approach or the other? Is the cubesat phenomenon prone to produce local economy realities where champion companies are concentrated in a small region, or will they remain a global phenomenon? Similar consideration applies to satellite big data. Is free access to satellites data providing new opportunities or killing the return of investment of space assets? Should governments enforce free access to data, as for the European Copernicus or protect the business of space industry manufacturing space assets delivering data? This paper presents the result of the analysis conducted in various market sectors, such as high tech, fashion, art and literature. The analysis reports that in some cases, being over protective has proven to be counterproductive. The work also compares the evolution of other market sectors with the current situation of the Space business, where small satellites and cubesat are game changers in the production of big data. Finally, some considerations are presented on new business opportunities made possible thanks to the free access to large data set. The paper also addresses, with real life examples, what can be considered a deontological approach to free circulation of ideas that gives a better growth to the sector without loosing the leading edge. Some conclusions are presented on how the intervention of governments can generate or inhibit new local economies, with specific reference to the access to big data