Okay, great. It is 3 p.m. Time to get started for our next talk. This is Zokuen-Yong.
Yep. Thank you.
Thank you. Hi, everyone. My name is Zokuen-Yong, and I'm here to present Harus-C and Open Source,
really imagining creativity. So, I'm first of all, I'm really grateful to be here.
So, today, I'm not going to showcase any products that work out. Instead, I'm going to present
your very personal journey, how my experience with piracy has led me to open source.
So, if you're talking about my personal journey,
let me start from the beginning about who I am, and we already did that come from.
So, I was born in May 1998 in a small city in China,
so technically, I'm a JNZ, probably one of the oldest JNZ about this new concept.
So, JNZ is considered to be the first generation that grow up with the internet.
So, we witnessed a lot of changes that was brought by the internet, and one is among music industry.
So, back when I was young, CD was still quite popular, but still people start to listen to music online.
And when I was about six years old, my parents bought me my first MP3 player,
and back then I had no idea what intellectual property was.
So, I was just going through online trying to download everything I can't find.
So, please raise your hand if you have down something similar like me.
Okay.
So, we all know what I'm talking about.
So, back then, as many of you remember, downloading music for free is very easy,
because there are so many P2P website online, whether it's like Napster, that is more used in Western world,
or the ones that I use growing up in China.
And it's really easy to download them online.
You can just type in the name on the website and then free download option or just pop up.
And of course, those download options are unlicensed, but what did I know I was only six year old back then?
And this was my first encounter with Paris.
But my experience did not stop there.
So, yeah.
Fast forward to around 2016 when I was just started university as industrial design students,
I quickly realized that the cost of ownership doesn't just about the entertainment industry.
It's also about essential tools for example, like the list of software on the screen,
and those designs of yours are very expensive, especially for student with no income.
So, I had to turn triple tax on here.
And at the time, in intellectual property, you felt very distant.
Even though I already know that it's not ethical to use any black software,
but as a student with no income, those software can cause over easily over a hundred dollars.
But back then, my monthly allowance was like three to four hundred dollars months,
so there's really no way for me to afford the real thing.
So, I had to turn triple tax off here.
And back then, it's also quite common in China to use any book at the software.
But as I see those kind of issue getting traction in China,
I also start to see a shift in people's attitude towards it.
So, also around 2016, a very popular artist in China named Da Zhangwei,
was accused of plagiarizing other artists' work, for example, exact or here.
And after this, he has publicly admitted his mistake and apologized
and also paid licensing fee to the artist that he has plagiarized.
And since then, I started to see a shift in people's attitude.
For example, like people used to feel very indifferent in terms of plagiarizing or intellectual property infringement.
But after that, people started to highly condense such behavior.
And a lot of people, even about go to boycotters during company,
that was involved in such behavior.
And also Chinese government are starting to crack down,
and it looked like productions.
And I know as a designer, it should be my instinct to also hate Paris,
because Paris and also copycat are probably what designers most afraid of
because they can actually work for free and then take all of your market share
and eventually drive you out of business.
But also because of my personal experience with Paris,
I would like to keep an open mind and I'm really curious about this.
What is this sudden shift in people's opinion towards Paris comes from?
And also, where does Paris come from?
Why people choose to Paris instead of like innovate?
So this curiosity continues when I moved to the US to pursue my master's degree.
And I discovered that Paris was not something that is unique to China.
My classmate in the US also experienced something similar.
They told me a story about that they will share community,
USB drive around the classroom to download the black software.
And this made me realize that Paris is not something that is just a culture phenomenon.
It's a global one.
And so I'm not trying to justify a Paris C but I begin to feel maybe as long as access to essential resources restricted.
Paris C probably will always exist.
So I decided to work on a thesis project around Paris C.
And every time I tell people that,
one question that always asked me is, have you been to Canal Street?
And after a few time that I was asked that question,
I feel like I had to visit Canal Street in New York.
So Canal Street in Canal Street is located in the center of New York's Chinatown.
And this famous for its counterfeit luxury bags.
And most merchants are used to display their bags publicly.
But now they have involved into something quite innovative.
That they run out of them has a physical manual that has all the bags printed on them.
And people can just point to the bag and order their.
Which is quite clever.
I have to say, because this way you don't have to carry and emerge and dies around you.
And also you say, you're from the police.
So that you can just fold them and then just walk away.
And but after seeing this image, I realized that,
to most people, this is what Paris is looked like.
Is a shaded business that operates in the shadow.
However, Paris is much more to meet in that.
And in order to find out the questions that I was asking myself earlier,
where does the sudden shift in people's attitude to what Paris is come from?
And where does Paris come from?
Why people choose to Paris instead of innovate?
I decided to take a little bit into the history of Paris, to help me find out.
So Paris means to authorize use or reproduction of someone's production or creation.
And today, the US government has been known for its quite strict intellectual property law.
But that wasn't always the case.
Let's take an example of Samuel Slayer.
Samuel Slayer is the father of American Industrial Revolution.
And he brought the spinning field from the UK to American.
And Samuel grew up in England and worked in a water power mill.
And is there where he learned how to how the spinning machine worked?
And when Samuel turned 21, he decided to bring the spinning machine from the UK to US.
But of course, it's illegal for him to travel in such knowledge.
So in order to do that, he has to disguise himself as a farmer.
In order to go to the US and then in the US, he was able to build his own spinning machine.
And that's spinning machine and that's spinning machine and spreading the industrial revolution into the US.
And this reveals a very hidden irony to us is that US now has a gatekeeper of intellectual property.
Also has a deep history of Paris.
And first, we'll work through 20th century.
However, Paris has been more closely associated with Asian countries, for example, at China.
You can see from this graph here is from the European Union intellectual property office.
The highest number of seizure of counterfeits and pirated goods comes from Asian countries with China at the top of the list.
This tells us, and with this graph also, and the US history of Paris is a long forgotten.
And this tells one thing is that we cannot only real piracy without his contacts.
Those who once consider pirates may not be anymore, and those who condemn the act of piracy may be parrot themselves.
And I would like to take China's Shanghai culture as a prime example.
Shanghai is a Chinese term that can loosely translate to mountain threshold or mountain village.
But lately it has been, it's turned into a culture around counterfeit imitation of parody products.
And it all starts within the Shanghai software industry.
The Shanghai software industry began in the mid-2020s and gaining traction by around 2006 to 2007.
And at first, those phones are just cheap knock-off, up-global brands like Nokia.
And they were loaded with flashy, but poorly executed features, for example, like those LED flashes of over here.
Or the software that looks very like a Porsche, but...
But Shanghai software exists for a reason, because they find the market gap.
In the early 2000s, the average monthly salary in Beijing was about like $100.
But when iPhone 3 was first launched in China in 2009, it cost more than $700.
Shanghai phone offers a affordable alternative tailored to the local needs.
And Shanghai companies began by producing knock-off.
But gradually involved creating an oiled design that catered to local market needs,
that was previously ignored by those global tech giants.
And those phones filled a market gap in a few market gaps, such as of reducing car capability or actual loss speakers for people with hearing difficulties.
And some of those features were later adapted by large tech giants, for example,
like Apple now also offers those recent card options, which is a feature that was once pioneered by those Shanghai software manufacturers.
And companies like Xiaomi emerge from those same electronic industry that Shanghai software culture helped you out.
And grow into tech giants by offering high quality products at a compatible price.
And by offering affordable and high quality products to directly quote Xiaomi's founder,
Xiaomi eliminated the existence of Shanghai software since knock-off customer has more affordable and also high quality options.
There is simply no reason to buy any Shanghai software anymore.
And for example, now Xiaomi has hold the third largest global smart phone shipment market share right after Apple and Samsung.
And the story of Shanghai is merely a reflection of China's broader innovation.
Initially, Shanghai manufacturers were known for producing imitation products.
But as China's economy grow, it has evolved into more innovative options in order to capture a much competitive global market.
And this transformation also highlights China's transition for this reputation to imitation to something more innovative.
For example, as we can see in this report in 2024 that China now holds the 11th amount over 100 companies featured in the global innovation index, which is impressive and quite a transition.
But this also leads us to next question.
It's not a China's creative industry is blooming and China's government is also trying to get rid of this reputation by establishing stricture intellectual property laws.
And by protecting innovative industry, the China's turn from a parent into another gay keeper of intellectual property.
Maybe that is a question that only time will answer.
But this also brings me to the last point.
The relationship between piracy and open source.
Although the more than IPLaw is created in the name of supporting innovation, it also allows companies to real intellectual property as some as a entity.
As a intangible wealth that they need to protect. However, intellectual property can also be a critical means for reproduction or an important technological base for for the development, which to me means that as long as there is inequality in economic growth, there are always speed things like piracy.
And let's imagine what it would be like if simultaneously or did not bring the spin machine to the US, what about the world look like now.
And like piracy and Shanghai culture opens source challenge the status quo, but it does so legally, ethically and collaboratively.
It offers us a way forward to address the gap left by the restrictive intellectual property laws to share knowledge freely and to create tools that empower community to
innovate on their own term.
And here's the thing. Open source is a luxury, especially for designers like me.
We may not have the capability to work an open source project or open source of our design, but to me, open source is more than software or tools. Open source should be a philosophy.
A way of thinking that could reach it industries far beyond tech and should not be restricted to only about opening up software's opening up codes.
This way, open source movement will be restricted only in the developer community.
To us, we can also apply this open source mindset to like design process.
For example, even though I cannot open source my design right now, but I made sure that my customers' voice are heard before any design decisions made before any products launched.
So that I can make sure that my design means the real needs.
And by this way, I was also able to share the ownership of my work with my customers, allowing more people to contribute to my work and truly open source the ownership of a product this way.
And thank you. That's it.
That's what we have a lot of time for questions.
Oh, I'm good.
So I made a relationship because it's a frontier of the power of China.
Oh, yeah, well, you mean Xinjiang city, right?
Yeah, so I think Xinjiang culture is also originated from Xinjiang city because it's like the center of China's technology industry.
And Xinjiang culture also originated from that same city.
Well, I think it's a coincidence that it sounds very similar.
Thank you for the really interesting presentation.
I have a question, but most people like to ask you a really nice question.
Even though you're sitting there yourself, you have programs as designers.
Yeah.
And even though there is this big gap that could be open source programs with their sound,
yeah, yeah.
Oh, so you were asking about whether it's a gap in not enough like free and open source software within the design community.
Well, that is a really good question, but I also start to see the changes.
One thing is, Figma is can be considered somewhat free in some level,
and it definitely can be kind of replaced a lot of other software like what Adobe used to have XD,
but they don't have it anymore.
Part of the reason is because Figma is a free software in some level.
And I also, I start to see the change and I am hoping for more in the future.
Yeah.
And I was thinking about the fact that we are seeing a lot of the components of the software.
And I was thinking about the fact that it might also be something that,
if once you start working, the company will actually have to pay for the software.
I would not know if you know what it's like.
This is also has a deeper level.
It's not just about free options.
I've heard people talking about Adobe or some of those big software monopolies.
They kind of somehow allowed the piracy software to exist in some countries.
For example, in China, it was popular to use piracy software.
And Adobe was not very strict like lawsuit.
The trick that they were using to get customer more used to using their software.
So later they can find ways to sue them or some in some way to transfer them into a paid customer.
But I don't think there is really an uncertainty question, but that's something that exists.
Just some addendum to like previous things.
Adobe is actually partly using piracy to upsell the services as well.
Because in some cases, I think for photoshop, which is the most commonly pirated software,
they detect when you pirated, like some piracy versions or things can be detected by Adobe.
And Adobe is giving you even more of a reduced pricing if they detected you piracy.
They give you large bandwidth applications.
Hey, please stop pirating.
You get like 60% off of something for this.
So they even use piracy as an upsidine strategy to get people.
Yeah, exactly.
Piracy sometimes they are seen as a free trial.
And that is why I believe free and open source software is really important.
And we need more of those software in the design industry.
Yeah.
I have a question.
As a student, do you have an option not to pirate?
No.
It's a question like, where are you forced?
For example, to bring the files, the design,
especially in these formats, or it was just like, by default, or how it was.
Just out of curiosity.
By format, too.
By for example, only in Photoshop format.
Or only in a proper way.
Did you have an option not to use, for example, piracy software?
But buying is a sign.
I see.
Okay.
Yeah.
So the question is, as a student, do I have the options to use,
to use something other, other than, like, put that software?
And I think that really depends on different industries.
For where I come from, especially in the design industry.
A few years ago, there is really not so much like open source software,
for example.
That is a really good point.
But I guess if there is option of free and open source software,
that is available, that can totally replace those,
put that software.
I will still choose those out free and open source,
because I know it's more ethical that way.
But the set reality is, is there is not so much in the design industry
so that I had to rely on black software,
especially when I was students.
But I do hope that there will be more options in the future.
Yeah.
So piracy itself is very simple.
Of course, the building of the project is much more difficult.
So how do you manage the growth of open source,
or is it simple to go and apply it as well as the quality of it?
Okay.
How do I encourage free and open source software
if that there are already pirated software exist?
Well, I know that some people are having problems
about how Figma operates right now,
but I still want to use Figma as a good example is that Figma
initially was very encouraging collaborations.
They were opening up their platform,
allowing people to develop plugins within.
And that has been way to challenge how those traditional monopoly
works doing that.
There was no collaborative tools out there before Figma.
And that could be a one way to how to break into that.
Thank you.