https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=MauroB&feedformat=atomP2P Foundation - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T12:21:55ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.40.1https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=About_Money&diff=32757About Money2009-10-01T15:08:22Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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[[Image:Money.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Money makes the world go round...]]<br />
<br />
When discussing free and open source software or free culture, one question always pops up: How do people make money from this? It surely can't be done professionally, in the sense that people can make a living from it?! The answer for software developers is that often customization for your client is a central part of your work and that you can build services like support around your software, or get paid by a big company like Google or IBM that heavily relies on free software. And obviously one can accept donations which works also for artists. They can also raise funds from charities or ask the state or museums to support their projects. Even today, most artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers can't make a living on their passion, in part because much money is already spent on the distribution (music labels or movie studios). Interesting examples of art are the Creative Commons licensed [http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/ comic Scott McCloud did for Google] to present Google Chrome or the very personal [http://foureyedmonsters.com/ Four Eyed Monsters] movie and video blog of Susan Buice and Arin Crumley who even put their feature length [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rRFFi_stY movie on YouTube]. But one keeps wondering if there wouldn't be better ways which would enable even more people to make a living from free software and free culture. <br />
<br />
===Micropayments===<br />
One thing that has been proposed for a long time, but has failed to realize as of yet are micropayments. The idea is to make it very easy and cheap to transact very small amounts of money over the internet. When somebody likes a song or a piece of software she can just hit a button on the website and the creator gets his one or two dollars. Such a simple interface and no transaction costs would make tiny donations like that a lot more attractive and hopefully they would add up to a larger pile of money.<br />
<br />
But maybe we need to change something more fundamental. Maybe, as we go from the industrialized information economy to the networked information economy, we do not only need to rethink the rules of ''intellectual property'', but also the rules of money and the economy. Think of all the flaws of the current system (as evidenced by the ongoing financial crisis). The current monetary system works rather against free software/free culture and the spirit of sharing and community. But they still thrive, because humans will always care about such things, and computers and the internet have greatly facilitated them. <br />
One long standing idea is '''basic income''' ([[Wikipedia:Basic income]]) which would grant every citizen a basic minimum income from the state. This would certainly enable more people to work unpaid on projects they would choose themselves.<br />
Another proposal to encourage this and foster community is Open Money. It is still rather a term than an actual concept, but let me now talk about some of the thoughts and ideas that surround it.<br />
<br />
===The current monetary system===<br />
[[Image:Fed.jpg|thumb|300px|The US Federal Reserve headquarters.]]<br />
First, let's have a brief look at how things work today. At the root of almost all money are the central banks of each state: the Federal Reserve (FED) for the US-Dollar, the European Central Bank (ECB) for the Euro and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) for the Yen, to name the three top currencies. They create all the money. For every dollar printed, there used to be a corresponding amount of gold stored in the saves of the central bank and the promise of the state to redeem dollars in gold. But for quite some time this hasn't been the case anymore. Most modern currencies are ''fiat currencies'', which means their value is based entirely on the believe and trust of the people that the currency is actually worth something. Money is a mutual agreement, nothing more. No doubt, it is a very useful agreement, otherwise we'd still have to trade cows for sheep which requires always a ''double-coincidence of wants'' (Person A has a cow and needs a sheep AND at the same time Person B has a sheep but needs a cow). But in the end, money is still nothing more than an agreement. That's why the central banks can create money virtually out of thin air. Although, if they go too far and create too much new money compared to the goods traded, the value of the currency will decrease.<br />
<br />
But the central banks don't put the money directly on the market. Instead, they lend it to private banks at a very low rate of interest – the prime rate (this is always the lowest interest rate in an economy). The private banks in turn lend the money to their customers or other banks at a higher interest rate than the prime, in order to make a profit. <br />
This arrangement has some peculiar consequences. Maybe you never thought about it, but how are all the people (and private banks) able to pay back all their loans plus interest? Where does all the extra money that is required for the interest come from?<br />
<br />
===The infinite growth imperative===<br />
One possibility is that some of the people in the system lose their money to others and go bankrupt – the others are now able to pay back their loans plus interest. That's one of the reasons why competition between companies but also between people tends to get tougher all the time. This obviously works against the spirit of community although it enhances efficiency.<br />
Another way of getting to extra money is that the central bank simply prints more, or lowers the prime interest rate, which has the same effect because then private banks will be able to borrow more money into existence. But if you have the same amount of goods and services traded and increase the amount of money in circulation, it won't take long and people will notice. The value of the money will decrease. A pound of bread may have cost 5$, now it costs 7$ – that's what's called inflation. To prevent this from happening on an exorbitant scale, the economy needs to grow with the money supply. The idea is that if more things are traded in an economy, more money can be created without devaluating the currency. This new money can then be used to pay back the interests after a while and the circle starts anew. That is the source of the growth imperative in our economies. <br />
But how can an economy always continue to grow? One way is to increase the demand for products: more products are sold and more money can be created to compensate. This worked very well during the industrial revolution when people actually gained in welfare when they were able to buy more things. But today, in the industrialized world it is very difficult to sell ever more products. A solution is to manufacture less durable products so people will have to trash them sooner and then have to buy new replacements quicker. You can see this everywhere. Companies that produce too high quality can't sell enough in the long run, so they drive themselves into bankruptcy. Another way for the economy to grow is to have companies take things that previously were free, turn them into a product and charge for them, like for example bottled water. Or Starbucks can charge double the price for a cup of coffee, which is justified by the added experience. For the economy to grow, there should be as much exchange of money as possible. Small favours or mutual care in a family or community are pressured to be replaced by paid work.<br />
The result is always the same: if the economy is growing, more money is needed to change hands. This money can be created by loans – it is virtually loaned into existence. But those loans have interest too, so eventually even more money is required to pay back the interest on those loans. And born is the vicious circle leading to an exponential increase in loans.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Stocks.jpg|thumb|400px|Virtual stocks.]]<br />
Interest obviously also helps making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Because the poor need to borrow money from the rich and have to pay it back plus interest. <br />
So this way of running an economy is not only unfair in the long run, but it has a built-in growth imperative which goes at the expense of the environment. Also, although efficiency is increasing, shorter working hours are nowhere to be seen, because people need to work more in order to earn more money to buy more stuff to keep the economy growing (because individuals are paid for the work done rather than for the work actually needed).<br />
The problems of this system manifest themselves most dramatically in<br />
*financial crises caused by speculative bubbles, currency volatility, or similar<br />
*the problem of supporting the growing percentage of retired people that don't produce money but still need to be cared for (which means in the current system: paid for)<br />
*increasing environmental impact (leading to pollution and climate change)<br />
<br />
While the current economy cries for more products to become commercialized in order to keep the money supply growing, free and open source culture strengthen the non-profit sector and continue to produce value without charging for it. While information doesn't need to be scarce because it is a non-rival good (when you share information you don't lose it), the physical resources of our planet are really scarce indeed (oil, rain-forests, etc). But paradoxically ''intellectual property rights'' try to make information artificially scarce while at the same time the economy needs to grow infinitely, depriving the physical world of its scarce resources in the process. It should be exactly the other way around!<br />
<br />
You won't be surprised to hear now that I have come to the conclusion that this can't go on forever. So what about solutions? There have been numerous proposals to improve the current system, some more radical than others. But none have been tested on a really large scale, which makes evaluating them very difficult. The truth is that the motivations, interactions and the resulting individual and group behaviour of the whole population of earth is so insanely difficult to predict that I don't think we have much of a chance to know whether a proposed economic system works as desired or not without trying it out on a large enough scale.<br />
<br />
===Demurrage===<br />
One way to tackle the problem of interest is to abandon it and replace it with ''demurrage'': a fee for holding money over a given amount of time. This concept was proposed (among others) by the German economist Silvio Gesell around 1900. The largest experiment putting this theory into praxis was when the Austrian town of Wörgl introduced its own currency with demurrage in 1932, when people were saving their money during the Great Depression instead of putting it into circulation again. In such credit crunches, central banks usually lower the prime rates and print more money to get the economy going again, but in times of great uncertainty, people tend to hoard this new money too and the measures have no effect. In Wörgl, people were required to regularly purchase stamps that were attached to the money in order to keep it valid. That way the function of money as a store of value was abolished and it functioned only as a medium of exchange and a unit of account. The experiment was a huge success: people had to spend their money in order to pay less demurrage which resulted in faster circulation of money and rapid growth in employment. Unfortunately, in 1933 the experiment was terminated by the Austrian National Bank on the grounds that it was a threat to the Bank's monopoly on printing money and soon unemployment was on the rise again.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Crowd wallstreet.jpg|thumb|Crowd gathering on Wall Street after the 1929 crash.]]<br />
Today, instead of requiring stamps on paper money, the demurrage can obviously be subtracted automatically from electronic bank accounts. With interest based currencies, you gain money when you hoard it, with demurrage you lose it. So you can't invest your saved wealth in money and expect it to grow. This leads to investments that have a high long term return, as opposed to the short term thinking and infinite growth imperative that dominates the current system. Suddenly, it's more worthwhile to invest in a forest and keep it intact to continue to harvest smaller amounts of wood over a very longer period of time, instead of chopping it all down right now and invest the earnings on the financial market which makes for a higher profit in the short term.<br />
<br />
===Community currencies===<br />
The national currencies issued by the central banks are far from the only currencies. Money which is not legal tender is often called ''scrip''. Frequent flyer miles or similar loyalty programs can also be thought of as currencies and there are many ''alternative'' or ''complementary currencies'' that are in use in combination with standard currencies. Some of them make use of demurrage, others don't. A subset of complementary currencies are ''local currencies'' which can be used only in a small area. This stimulates the local economy and strengthens the sense of community in a town or area. That's why they are also often called ''community currencies''.<br />
One of the first modern complementary currencies is the [http://www.ithacahours.org/ Ithaca Hour]. One Ithaca Hour is supposed to be worth as much as one hour of work done (or can be changed into 10 US-Dollars). They are only redeemable in the city of Ithaca (NY). Because Ithaca Hours don't have demurrage and somebody has to print them, the issuers of the money have to face the same challenges of monetary policy as all the central banks. Too much money in circulation will lead to inflation, too little to deflation. On the other hand, things are simplified by the fact that Ithaca Hours circulate only in a small area and new money is usually inserted into the system by interest-free loans to locals or grants to local non-profits.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Ithaca.JPG|thumb|300px|Shops in Ithaca.]]<br />
An entirely different approach is ''mutual credit''. Most of these systems are called Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). There is no physical money, instead the system is based on central bookkeeping, usually electronically and accessible through a normal web browser. Each participant has an account and when he pays another participant, the amount is simply subtracted from his account and added to the other's. This concept can also be thought of interest-free loans and there is no problem with having a little minus in your account. But if you only buy products and services through the system without giving anything back, your account will go deep into minus at the expense of the other participants. This is usually dealt with caps on negative balance or the participants might be able to look at the account balance of anybody before doing business with him. Also LETS are often local or limited to only a few hundred participants and a network of trust in a community holds people accountable. LETS don't need to worry about monetary policy because money is only created in the instance of the transaction – the system is thus self-regulating.<br />
<br />
A interesting project which is still in its infancy is [http://ripple.sourceforge.net/ Ripple], an effort to develop an open source peer-to-peer protocol to exchange money all over the world. At the core of Ripple lies the idea that within a network of trust between peers, transactions can be made without the need for a third party like a bank that charges for them. <br />
Another proposal is to use units of energy as currency. Coupled with ''smart grids'', radically distributed energy production might become a reality: people would sell energy, for example produced by solar panels on their rooftops. Maybe half of the price of products to purchase would have to be paid in energy units, the other half in a normal currency. The energy part of the price would be exactly the energy that is required to produce and distribute the product.<br />
<br />
There is a huge number of different community currencies. Many new networks choose to experiment with the system's mechanics or adapt it to local circumstances. Although many projects emphasize on local communities, there are also lots of networks that can make transfers all around the world and currencies that have either floating or fixed exchange rates to other community or national currencies. Community currencies need not be centered around geographic communities, there are also communities on the internet. For example virtual worlds like Second Life or World of Warcraft feature their own in-world currencies. They might be a suitable place to experiment with new exotic currencies on a large enough scale as there are often thousands of players in these worlds.<br />
<br />
===Conclusion===<br />
Obviously, no complementary currency has made the breakthrough into mainstream yet. But the ongoing financial crisis will undoubtedly make them more attractive. I sincerely hope that sooner rather than later someone comes up with a system that scales well and that favours long-term investments and the spirit of sharing and community. Complementary currencies will probably continue to exist alongside our current currencies for a long time. If they become mainstream, they will enable more people to make a living from free culture. And our children will be thankful to us if they still have a planet left to live on when they are our age.<br />
<br />
<br />
{{Box-Overview|A Revolution in the Making|title=Navigation|<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[3.1 The State of It All]]<br />
}}<br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=About_Money&diff=32756About Money2009-10-01T15:05:40Z<p>MauroB: /* Micropayments */</p>
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<br />
[[Image:Money.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Money makes the world go round...]]<br />
<br />
When discussing free and open source software or free culture, one question always pops up: How do people make money from this? It surely can't be done professionally, in the sense that people can make a living from it?! The answer for software developers is that often customization for your client is a central part of your work and that you can build services like support around your software, or get paid by a big company like Google or IBM that heavily relies on free software. And obviously one can accept donations which works also for artists. They can also raise funds from charities or ask the state or museums to support their projects. Even today, most artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers can't make a living on their passion, in part because much money is already spent on the distribution (music labels or movie studios). Interesting examples of art are the Creative Commons licensed [http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/ comic Scott McCloud did for Google] to present Google Chrome or the very personal [http://foureyedmonsters.com/ Four Eyed Monsters] movie and video blog of Susan Buice and Arin Crumley who even put their feature length [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rRFFi_stY movie on YouTube]. But one keeps wondering if there wouldn't be better ways which would enable even more people to make a living from free software and free culture. <br />
<br />
===Micropayments===<br />
One thing that has been proposed for a long time, but has failed to realize as of yet are micropayments. The idea is to make it very easy and cheap to transact very small amounts of money over the internet. When somebody likes a song or a piece of software she can just hit a button on the website and the creator gets his one or two dollars. Such a simple interface and no transaction costs would make tiny donations like that a lot more attractive and hopefully they would add up to a larger pile of money.<br />
<br />
But maybe we need to change something more fundamental. Maybe, as we go from the industrialized information economy to the networked information economy, we do not only need to rethink the rules of ''intellectual property'', but also the rules of money and the economy. Think of all the flaws of the current system (as evidenced by the ongoing financial crisis). The current monetary system works rather against free software/free culture and the spirit of sharing and community. But they still thrive, because humans will always care about such things, and computers and the internet have greatly facilitated them. <br />
One long standing idea is '''basic income''' ([[Wikipedia:Basic income]]) which would grant every citizen a basic minimum income for which he didn't even have to apply. This would certainly enable more people to work unpaid on projects they would choose themselves.<br />
Another proposal to encourage this and foster community is Open Money. It is still rather a term than an actual concept, but let me now talk about some of the thoughts and ideas that surround it.<br />
<br />
===The current monetary system===<br />
[[Image:Fed.jpg|thumb|300px|The US Federal Reserve headquarters.]]<br />
First, let's have a brief look at how things work today. At the root of almost all money are the central banks of each state: the Federal Reserve (FED) for the US-Dollar, the European Central Bank (ECB) for the Euro and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) for the Yen, to name the three top currencies. They create all the money. For every dollar printed, there used to be a corresponding amount of gold stored in the saves of the central bank and the promise of the state to redeem dollars in gold. But for quite some time this hasn't been the case anymore. Most modern currencies are ''fiat currencies'', which means their value is based entirely on the believe and trust of the people that the currency is actually worth something. Money is a mutual agreement, nothing more. No doubt, it is a very useful agreement, otherwise we'd still have to trade cows for sheep which requires always a ''double-coincidence of wants'' (Person A has a cow and needs a sheep AND at the same time Person B has a sheep but needs a cow). But in the end, money is still nothing more than an agreement. That's why the central banks can create money virtually out of thin air. Although, if they go too far and create too much new money compared to the goods traded, the value of the currency will decrease.<br />
<br />
But the central banks don't put the money directly on the market. Instead, they lend it to private banks at a very low rate of interest – the prime rate (this is always the lowest interest rate in an economy). The private banks in turn lend the money to their customers or other banks at a higher interest rate than the prime, in order to make a profit. <br />
This arrangement has some peculiar consequences. Maybe you never thought about it, but how are all the people (and private banks) able to pay back all their loans plus interest? Where does all the extra money that is required for the interest come from?<br />
<br />
===The infinite growth imperative===<br />
One possibility is that some of the people in the system lose their money to others and go bankrupt – the others are now able to pay back their loans plus interest. That's one of the reasons why competition between companies but also between people tends to get tougher all the time. This obviously works against the spirit of community although it enhances efficiency.<br />
Another way of getting to extra money is that the central bank simply prints more, or lowers the prime interest rate, which has the same effect because then private banks will be able to borrow more money into existence. But if you have the same amount of goods and services traded and increase the amount of money in circulation, it won't take long and people will notice. The value of the money will decrease. A pound of bread may have cost 5$, now it costs 7$ – that's what's called inflation. To prevent this from happening on an exorbitant scale, the economy needs to grow with the money supply. The idea is that if more things are traded in an economy, more money can be created without devaluating the currency. This new money can then be used to pay back the interests after a while and the circle starts anew. That is the source of the growth imperative in our economies. <br />
But how can an economy always continue to grow? One way is to increase the demand for products: more products are sold and more money can be created to compensate. This worked very well during the industrial revolution when people actually gained in welfare when they were able to buy more things. But today, in the industrialized world it is very difficult to sell ever more products. A solution is to manufacture less durable products so people will have to trash them sooner and then have to buy new replacements quicker. You can see this everywhere. Companies that produce too high quality can't sell enough in the long run, so they drive themselves into bankruptcy. Another way for the economy to grow is to have companies take things that previously were free, turn them into a product and charge for them, like for example bottled water. Or Starbucks can charge double the price for a cup of coffee, which is justified by the added experience. For the economy to grow, there should be as much exchange of money as possible. Small favours or mutual care in a family or community are pressured to be replaced by paid work.<br />
The result is always the same: if the economy is growing, more money is needed to change hands. This money can be created by loans – it is virtually loaned into existence. But those loans have interest too, so eventually even more money is required to pay back the interest on those loans. And born is the vicious circle leading to an exponential increase in loans.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Stocks.jpg|thumb|400px|Virtual stocks.]]<br />
Interest obviously also helps making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Because the poor need to borrow money from the rich and have to pay it back plus interest. <br />
So this way of running an economy is not only unfair in the long run, but it has a built-in growth imperative which goes at the expense of the environment. Also, although efficiency is increasing, shorter working hours are nowhere to be seen, because people need to work more in order to earn more money to buy more stuff to keep the economy growing (because individuals are paid for the work done rather than for the work actually needed).<br />
The problems of this system manifest themselves most dramatically in<br />
*financial crises caused by speculative bubbles, currency volatility, or similar<br />
*the problem of supporting the growing percentage of retired people that don't produce money but still need to be cared for (which means in the current system: paid for)<br />
*increasing environmental impact (leading to pollution and climate change)<br />
<br />
While the current economy cries for more products to become commercialized in order to keep the money supply growing, free and open source culture strengthen the non-profit sector and continue to produce value without charging for it. While information doesn't need to be scarce because it is a non-rival good (when you share information you don't lose it), the physical resources of our planet are really scarce indeed (oil, rain-forests, etc). But paradoxically ''intellectual property rights'' try to make information artificially scarce while at the same time the economy needs to grow infinitely, depriving the physical world of its scarce resources in the process. It should be exactly the other way around!<br />
<br />
You won't be surprised to hear now that I have come to the conclusion that this can't go on forever. So what about solutions? There have been numerous proposals to improve the current system, some more radical than others. But none have been tested on a really large scale, which makes evaluating them very difficult. The truth is that the motivations, interactions and the resulting individual and group behaviour of the whole population of earth is so insanely difficult to predict that I don't think we have much of a chance to know whether a proposed economic system works as desired or not without trying it out on a large enough scale.<br />
<br />
===Demurrage===<br />
One way to tackle the problem of interest is to abandon it and replace it with ''demurrage'': a fee for holding money over a given amount of time. This concept was proposed (among others) by the German economist Silvio Gesell around 1900. The largest experiment putting this theory into praxis was when the Austrian town of Wörgl introduced its own currency with demurrage in 1932, when people were saving their money during the Great Depression instead of putting it into circulation again. In such credit crunches, central banks usually lower the prime rates and print more money to get the economy going again, but in times of great uncertainty, people tend to hoard this new money too and the measures have no effect. In Wörgl, people were required to regularly purchase stamps that were attached to the money in order to keep it valid. That way the function of money as a store of value was abolished and it functioned only as a medium of exchange and a unit of account. The experiment was a huge success: people had to spend their money in order to pay less demurrage which resulted in faster circulation of money and rapid growth in employment. Unfortunately, in 1933 the experiment was terminated by the Austrian National Bank on the grounds that it was a threat to the Bank's monopoly on printing money and soon unemployment was on the rise again.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Crowd wallstreet.jpg|thumb|Crowd gathering on Wall Street after the 1929 crash.]]<br />
Today, instead of requiring stamps on paper money, the demurrage can obviously be subtracted automatically from electronic bank accounts. With interest based currencies, you gain money when you hoard it, with demurrage you lose it. So you can't invest your saved wealth in money and expect it to grow. This leads to investments that have a high long term return, as opposed to the short term thinking and infinite growth imperative that dominates the current system. Suddenly, it's more worthwhile to invest in a forest and keep it intact to continue to harvest smaller amounts of wood over a very longer period of time, instead of chopping it all down right now and invest the earnings on the financial market which makes for a higher profit in the short term.<br />
<br />
===Community currencies===<br />
The national currencies issued by the central banks are far from the only currencies. Money which is not legal tender is often called ''scrip''. Frequent flyer miles or similar loyalty programs can also be thought of as currencies and there are many ''alternative'' or ''complementary currencies'' that are in use in combination with standard currencies. Some of them make use of demurrage, others don't. A subset of complementary currencies are ''local currencies'' which can be used only in a small area. This stimulates the local economy and strengthens the sense of community in a town or area. That's why they are also often called ''community currencies''.<br />
One of the first modern complementary currencies is the [http://www.ithacahours.org/ Ithaca Hour]. One Ithaca Hour is supposed to be worth as much as one hour of work done (or can be changed into 10 US-Dollars). They are only redeemable in the city of Ithaca (NY). Because Ithaca Hours don't have demurrage and somebody has to print them, the issuers of the money have to face the same challenges of monetary policy as all the central banks. Too much money in circulation will lead to inflation, too little to deflation. On the other hand, things are simplified by the fact that Ithaca Hours circulate only in a small area and new money is usually inserted into the system by interest-free loans to locals or grants to local non-profits.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Ithaca.JPG|thumb|300px|Shops in Ithaca.]]<br />
An entirely different approach is ''mutual credit''. Most of these systems are called Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). There is no physical money, instead the system is based on central bookkeeping, usually electronically and accessible through a normal web browser. Each participant has an account and when he pays another participant, the amount is simply subtracted from his account and added to the other's. This concept can also be thought of interest-free loans and there is no problem with having a little minus in your account. But if you only buy products and services through the system without giving anything back, your account will go deep into minus at the expense of the other participants. This is usually dealt with caps on negative balance or the participants might be able to look at the account balance of anybody before doing business with him. Also LETS are often local or limited to only a few hundred participants and a network of trust in a community holds people accountable. LETS don't need to worry about monetary policy because money is only created in the instance of the transaction – the system is thus self-regulating.<br />
<br />
A interesting project which is still in its infancy is [http://ripple.sourceforge.net/ Ripple], an effort to develop an open source peer-to-peer protocol to exchange money all over the world. At the core of Ripple lies the idea that within a network of trust between peers, transactions can be made without the need for a third party like a bank that charges for them. <br />
Another proposal is to use units of energy as currency. Coupled with ''smart grids'', radically distributed energy production might become a reality: people would sell energy, for example produced by solar panels on their rooftops. Maybe half of the price of products to purchase would have to be paid in energy units, the other half in a normal currency. The energy part of the price would be exactly the energy that is required to produce and distribute the product.<br />
<br />
There is a huge number of different community currencies. Many new networks choose to experiment with the system's mechanics or adapt it to local circumstances. Although many projects emphasize on local communities, there are also lots of networks that can make transfers all around the world and currencies that have either floating or fixed exchange rates to other community or national currencies. Community currencies need not be centered around geographic communities, there are also communities on the internet. For example virtual worlds like Second Life or World of Warcraft feature their own in-world currencies. They might be a suitable place to experiment with new exotic currencies on a large enough scale as there are often thousands of players in these worlds.<br />
<br />
===Conclusion===<br />
Obviously, no complementary currency has made the breakthrough into mainstream yet. But the ongoing financial crisis will undoubtedly make them more attractive. I sincerely hope that sooner rather than later someone comes up with a system that scales well and that favours long-term investments and the spirit of sharing and community. Complementary currencies will probably continue to exist alongside our current currencies for a long time. If they become mainstream, they will enable more people to make a living from free culture. And our children will be thankful to us if they still have a planet left to live on when they are our age.<br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=2.2_Information_Technology_and_%27Piracy%27&diff=327332.2 Information Technology and 'Piracy'2009-09-27T12:30:54Z<p>MauroB: /* File Sharing */</p>
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[[Image:Being_mobile.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Computers continue to get smaller, cheaper and more powerful, and wireless Internet is already available at many places.]]<br />
===Information Technology===<br />
As shortly described in the introductory chapter [[A Revolution in the Making]], computers have since the 1970s become ever faster, smaller and cheaper. This led to the availability of personal computers in most homes in the more economically developed countries. By 1995, the public started to realize the potential of the Internet. Through the more recent introduction of broadband Internet, most home computers are constantly connected to the Internet at several times greater speeds than only a few years ago. Individuals have received the power to not only manipulate huge amounts of data ever faster, but also to share the data they produce with others over the Internet. Now it is possible for everyone to manipulate, for example, hours of homemade video and enhance it with some special effects. On the other hand, it has also become easy to mix and manipulate the works of others and share them with all the world, as demonstrated on sites like [http://www.thetrailermash.com/ The Trailer Mash]: Here lots of people present new creative works they created - remixes of official movie trailers, rearranged to tell other stories. Use past culture to create something new. What only some lucky entrepreneurs like Walt Disney could do in the beginning of the 20th century, everybody can do today. Unfortunately, at the moment this is mostly illegal because of lengthy and restrictive copyright law. You can neither copy nor modify any work without the originator's explicit permission. It isn't like those derivative works were hurting sales of official movies or that nobody would listen to classical Mozart anymore (himself long dead) because his music was used and newly interpreted by a DJ. Nonetheless, copyright law has not been altered to let everyone make use of the new technologies, but rather tightened to prevent people from doing so. Under the pretext of protecting established artists' revenues, new artists are prevented from rising. But the truth behind all this is that the record industry fears for it's existence - rightly so. <br />
<br />
[[Image:Server-based-network.png|thumb|200px|Computer network with a central, expensive to operate server from which the clients are downloading.]]<br />
[[Image:P2P-network.png|thumb|200px|Peer-to-peer network - every node is a client and a server, both downloading and uploading.]]<br />
===File Sharing===<br />
Today, some inexpensive home computers and the Internet are superior to the distribution channels of the record industry with its CD manufacturing plants and many shops. Digital technology enables infinite copying of music and movies without any loss of quality.<br />
Shawn Fanning, a then 17 years old student, released Napster in 1999. It was the first peer-to-peer file-sharing system to gain widespread popularity for sharing music. In peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, the data isn't stored on a central server and accessed by clients (which is the case with web pages), but many peers, usually ordinary home computers, share their data with one another. Soon this technology was adopted and improved; after Napster was sued by the record industry and ultimately shut down, new networks emerged which were even more decentralized. Every user downloading is at the same time making available that very same information he/she just downloaded to other participants. The most popular networks as of today are ''eDonkey2000'' (with client-programs as eMule or MLDonkey), ''FastTrack'' (with clients as Kazaa or Grokster) and ''Gnutella'' (with clients as LimeWire or Gnucleus). While these networks are searchable through a client program, in the BitTorrent P2P network, data is found through websites like The Pirate Bay, where a small ''.torrent-file'' is downloaded and then opened in a BitTorrent client such as Azureus or BitTornado, where the actual download takes place. Most of this software is free and open source software ([[1.1 The GNU Project and Free Software]]), but some is also proprietary.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Tape.gif|thumb|200px|left|The record industry has always been cautious about new technology. Here a 1980s campaign logo against home taping cassettes featuring a death's-head.]]<br />
These services are heavily used. Millions of users all over the world share thousands of titles and even rare songs they wouldn't find in stores. The major music labels don't like that and have come up with the term of 'Piracy', equating people that share music with one another with bandits that attack other people's ships. The record industry argues that every downloaded song accounts for a loss in CD sales which ultimately hurts artists. However, it should be kept clearly in mind that not every song downloaded would have been bought. Also through sharing samples, people are exposed to new music and might come to buy CDs they otherwise would never have known of. And downloading old material that isn't available in stores anymore sure doesn't hurt artists. It is also a fact that under the current model of music distribution, the average artists gets something between 5 and 14 percent of the CD sales revenue. The rest trickles away in the business that is the record industry.<br />
<br />
[[Image:ThePirateBay.jpg|thumb|200px|right|The logo of the BitTorrent site ''The Pirate Bay'', mocking the term 'Piracy' when meant to describe copyright infringement.]]<br />
But now a new distribution model becomes feasible. Lots of ordinary people, connected through the Internet, outperform the record industry and make it essentially obsolete in a time where high quality recording equipment to supplement home computers becomes ever cheaper. It simply isn't necessary to buy physical records anymore. Especially for unknown artists, the Internet represents a very attractive marketing ground; with services like [http://www.last.fm/ last.fm] or [http://www.pandora.com Pandora], it has become very easy to discover new music. On [http://www.jamendo.com Jamendo] you can even freely download whole albums licensed under a Creative Commons license. Voluntary donations are then split 50/50 between the artist and Jamendo. Artists who release their music earn money by performing and going on tour (like artists did before recording technology existed). Also alternative payments systems have been proposed: mechanisms like an easy way to donate small amounts of money to musicians over the Internet, or to let every person downloading pay a small monthly fee which is distributed to the artists based on their popularity. This could for example be done by bundling a voluntary fee with the broadband bill (Broadband, unlimited legal downloading included!).<ref>[http://www.eff.org/share/collective_lic_wp.php A Better Way Forward: Voluntary Collective Licensing of Music File Sharing], Electronic Frontier Foundation</ref> With these distribution and compensation methods, artists would most certainly be far better off than now, but the major labels aren't willing to adopt yet. Instead they are fighting windmills, with all means available to them.<br />
<br />
===Lawsuits===<br />
As there is no single instance responsible for the operation of peer-to-peer file sharing networks, there is nobody in particular the music industry can sue. That's why the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) turned to randomly suing people for copyright infringement that have allegedly participated in file sharing, in hope of deterrence. To find people in file sharing networks, they rely on tracing computer's IP addresses. But it is often very difficult to find out who a specific IP belongs to and impossible to tell with certainty. That's why the RIAA has already sued a 66-year-old grandmother for downloading gangster rap<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3140160.stm Grandmother piracy lawsuit dropped], BBC News</ref>, but also families without a computer<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060424-6662.html RIAA sues computer-less family], Ars Technica</ref> and even dead people<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050204-4587.html "I sue dead people..."], Ars Technica</ref> were addressed. The RIAA's tactics are to intimidate defendants and force them into settlements outside court under the threat that they are facing high legal fees. But recently, victims of such random lawsuits have begun fighting back and countersued the RIAA for malicious prosecution.<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070625-exonerated-defendant-sues-riaa-for-malicious-prosecution.html Exonerated defendant sues RIAA for malicious prosecution], Ars Technica</ref>. But it continues to be an uphill-battle and non-profit organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which fight for ''digital rights'' and provide individuals with legal defense, have only limited resources compared to the large legal departments of the major record labels. To preserve its last-century business model, the record industry has actually turned to sue its own customers, something that's only possible because they hold a monopoly on about 90% of the music produced.<br />
<br />
===Copyright in a Digital World===<br />
As video files are larger, downloading movies or TV series isn't as common as sharing music yet, but it is only a matter of time until Hollywood will find itself in the same situation as the record industry is now. Social practices like going to the movies will remain popular in addition to watching films at home. Movies will eventually be produced at lower budgets than what is common in Hollywood today, but there will probably be more ''smaller'' films, oriented towards more specific audiences, than the homogenous monster productions we are seeing today. ([[2.1_Copyright_and_Mass_Media#Mass_Media|2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]])<br />
<br />
Copyright law was always meant to regulate copying. However, in the past this was something only competing businesses like publishers could do. But today, everyone can copy a file by a simple mouse-click. Thus the scope of this law has changed dramatically over time: from regulating anticompetitive business practices to restricting consumers. Keeping up these same rules in a digital world does nothing but render a large portion of citizens criminals - for no obvious reason. Additionally, lots of creative works, which wouldn't have been possible without inexpensive computers and the Internet, are prevented from being published legally.<br />
<br />
Today's copyright law just doesn't make sense when applied to digital technology. For example, it could even be argued that looking at a website is copyright infringement, as in order to display a webpage on the screen, the computer has to download it and make a local copy from the data stored on the server. As this is an unauthorized copy, this is actually illegal.<br />
<br />
===DRM===<br />
But while technology can enable people, it can also be used against them. Under the pretext of fighting 'piracy', the major entertainment companies have come up with ever stronger copy protections, all of them having something in common - they have been cracked very quickly.<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/drmhacks.ars Hacking Digital Rights Management], Ars Technica</ref><br />
<br />
[[Image:DRM_Is_Killing_Music.png|thumb|200px|left|A parody of the image above. This one campaigning against DRM.]]<br />
In the 80s, Hollywood was crying that home video recording would kill the film production. It didn't, although you usually could easily copy VHS video tapes. On DVDs, copy prevention was already present from day 1. Now the industry is pushing a new format to hold HD video (high definition, resulting in a sharper picture) that is meant to replace DVDs: BluRay Discs. It implements new and stronger copy preventions which force the consumer to buy not only new players, but also new displays (so that Hollywood can even control the signal between the player and the display).<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070121-8665.html HDCP: beta testing DRM on the public?], Ars Technica; [http://bluraysucks.com/ Why you should boycott Blu-ray and HD-DVD], Blu-Ray Sucks</ref> Equipment has to be certified to be able to playback BluRay discs (as already the case with DVDs). Free software and open source solutions are thus excluded from the system right from the start - in order to play DVDs on a GNU/Linux computer the copy prevention has to be cracked, which is done very quickly nowadays. However, also the new technologies, implemented in BluRay discs have already been cracked by numerous methods, even before the discs get to consumers homes.<br />
<br />
In the music market, the standard audio CD provides digital music of satisfactory quality to most listeners. CDs have been around for a long time, and stem from a time where copy prevention wasn't common yet. There have been several attempts to implement copy preventions later-on, resulting in audio CDs that some players couldn't play, which led to consumer frustration. With the rise of Apple's iTunes Store, the music industry has slowly started to realize the possibilities of distributing music through the Internet. Now people can buy songs and download them right away. The prices are comparable to CDs. Although virtually all distribution costs go away for the labels, artists don't receive higher payments for the songs sold on the iTunes Store.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Ipod.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The iPod made carrying your whole music collection in your pocket mainstream. Although its monopoly on playing DRM-crippled media from Apple's own iTunes Store on the Internet is criticized, the iPod is no doubt one of the devices spurring the digital revolution.]]<br />
Music doesn’t just reside on a CD anymore: it is sold through the internet and transferred to portable music players like the iPod; the music industry cannot prevent their customers from copying it; as a result, they developed technologies to limit access to music. For these new technologies, the umbrella term '''DRM''' is used. Originally standing for ''Digital Rights Management'', opponents such as the Free Software Foundation named it ''Digital Restrictions Management''. With DRM, the data, for example music or video, is digitally encrypted and can only be played back by specific devices or software. 'Unauthorized copies' can be prevented or content can even be set to expire after a specific time period. Songs purchased on Apple's market leading iTunes Store for example bear the following (compared to others still relatively lax) restrictions: While the track can be copied on up to five different computers, playback is only possible with Apple's iTunes software and on no other portable music player than Apple's iPod. Music isn't bought anymore, it is rather just rented for limited use. <br />
The proof that it is also possible to sell sustainably DRM-free music over the Internet, which can then be played back by any device (including the iPod), was delivered by stores like [http://www.emusic.com emusic] which has currently 250,000 subscribers. However, the major record labels refuse to sell their songs without DRM, leading ''emusic'' and the likes to specialize in independent music.<br />
<br />
As history has shown us, it is impossible to come up with a copy prevention or DRM system that is unbreakable. As long as the music and movie industries try to restrict access to the media they sell, they'll be caught up in a cat-and-mouse game. Whenever a new DRM scheme sees the light of the day, eventually it will be cracked by the many skilled people collaborating over the Internet, and DRM-free copies will be available on the peer-to-peer networks. However, it might one day become ''difficult enough'' for a ''large enough'' part of the population to set the media they paid for free. Consumers might just accept that they have only limited control over their legally bought music collection. And that's the actual goal of the entertainment industry. Not bringing 'piracy' down, because they know that's impossible, but controlling consumers to maximize revenue.<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070115-8616.html Privately, Hollywood admits DRM isn't about piracy], Ars Technica</ref> Then, because you can't copy it and put it on an other device, the entertainment industry will be able to sell you the same song or video several times: once for your computer, maybe a second time for your portable music or video player, then for playback in your living room, and one more time as a ringtone for your cell phone.<br />
<br />
To ensure that it's ''difficult enough'' for most consumers, and first of all illegal, to crack the DRM on their media, additional laws were written. In the USA, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was enacted in 1998, in the European Union the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD) of 2001, which is similar to the DMCA in many ways. Now it is illegal to circumvent DRM or other access control technologies, even when copying the content was permitted under simple copyright law, for example under fair use (about fair use: [[2.1_Copyright_and_Mass_Media#Realities_of_Copyright|2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]]). Under the DMCA, even the production or spread of circumvention technologies was criminalized. <br />
<br />
[[Image:OneSmallStep.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Still frame of Neil Armstrong, stepping out onto the moon - a historical document. But much of our current cultural production is owned by few, and the public is prevented from accessing it freely.]]<br />
<br />
===Implications===<br />
With DRM and laws to criminalize circumvention of DRM in place, our culture gets locked down even more. It has become technically increasingly difficult (and simply illegal) to use many of our cultural products, like pop music or election campaign footage, to create something new. We live increasingly in a ''permission culture'', where new creators have to ask the powerful or creators from the past for permission, rather than in a ''free culture'' that would uphold the individual freedom to create. At the same time, while digital technology would allow us to build a library accessible to everyone larger than the Library of Alexandria, we run the risk of forgetting history as past culture is locked down by law and DRM. While you theoretically still could sometimes make legal use of such material under the terms of fair use, and fight for your right to do so in court, this is no longer possible if law is interpreted by your computer rather than a judge. If the footage of the landing on the moon had been broadcasted with DRM in place, you couldn't reuse one second of the clip, regardless if legal under fair use or not - because your DRM-crippled computer prevented you from doing so.<br />
<br />
===Concluding...===<br />
Wrapped up, the changes we have seen recently in law, technology and in the concentration of the media market, lead to a devastating conclusion: ''"There has never been a time in history when more of our 'culture' was as 'owned' as it is now. And yet there has never been a time when the concentration of power to control the uses of culture has been as unquestioningly accepted as it is now."'' <ref>Lessig, Lawrence; [http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/ Free Culture], 2004, p. 28</ref><br />
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==References==<br />
<references/><br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=A_Revolution_in_the_Making&diff=31920A Revolution in the Making2009-07-31T15:41:00Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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[[Image:Integrated circuit.jpg|thumb|250px|right|A macro-shot of an integrated circuit - where all the computing power comes from.]]<br />
===Technological Premises...===<br />
Devices like home computers and mobile phones continue to receive huge increases in computing power every year, following Moore's Law which predicts that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double every two years. People are thus holding the power to manipulate ever more data ever faster in their hands. Today, an ordinary personal computer is a general-purpose tool for such diverse tasks as simple word processing and Internet browsing, but also for designing detailed plans of houses or electronic circuits, or editing feature-length motion pictures - the possibilities are only limited by the software you run and your ability to learn how to use it. The free availability of powerful free and open source software with good documentation is thus very important.<br />
<br />
The origins of the internet lie in a project of the United States Department of Defense which connected several universities. Today, the internet is a worldwide network and is itself the sum of smaller computer networks which are each operated by various companies such as service providers. They are interconnected through the ''lingua franca'' of computer networks: the TCP/IP-protocol. In its infancy mainly used for email and file transfer, the Internet took really off with the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989. Now it was possible to create formatted pages, interlink them with hyperlinks and instantly search them with search engines. The Internet thus very much resembles road networks. It is a publicly accessible infrastructure, provided by society as a whole, although the various parts are in different private and commercial hands. Nobody has the ultimate control over the Internet and its financing is largely independent of its function.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Internet_map.jpg|thumb|250px|right|A visualization of the various routes through a part of the Internet.]]<br />
<br />
===...for a Revolution in the Making===<br />
*A computer in every home. <br />
*Every computer connected through a global network to every other computer. <br />
What sounds so simple and has become almost ubiquitous in the more developed countries, is actually the setup for a revolution. These technologies enable individuals to do more for and by themselves, alone, or in loose collaboration with others.<ref>Benkler, Yochai; [http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom], 2006, p. 9</ref> How else could we explain the emergence of a situation where teenagers, sharing music over the Internet, are superior to the distribution channels of the recording industry? A situation where an online encyclopedia which every internet user can edit has become a serious competitor to the Encyclopedia Britannica in less than four years? A world in which nine out of ten computer users obtain the software to operate their machines from one single company, and in which at the same time a scene of enthusiast develop an alternative operating system which performs superior, and make it freely available to anybody?<ref>Spiegel, André; [http://die-befreiung-der-information.de/buch.html Die Befreiung der Information: GNU, Linux und die Folgen], 2006 (German), p. 7</ref><br />
<br />
People all over the world try to use the new technologies to organize all human knowledge in a way which is both more efficient and more just. This development is transforming our society in fundamental ways. The very structures of how we communicated and how our economies worked for almost two centuries are changing.<ref>Benkler, p. 1</ref> Some established industries are becoming largely irrelevant and are being superseded by these new mechanisms which generally favour nonmarket production and individuals rather than a strong corporate world.<ref>Benkler, p. 3</ref> The industry is fighting these emerging mechanisms now and tries to use law and technology against them.<ref>Lawrence Lessig, [http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/ Free Culture : How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity], 2004</ref> If they succeed in overpowering this ''digital revolution'' and use technology to control individuals rather than empower them, the revolution's many positive effects will be undone and transformed into their exact opposite. So a new kind of civil rights movement has arisen to defend the ''digital rights'' of individuals - rights that they often don't even know exist and that have backgrounds they yet have to be familiarised with.<ref>Spiegel, p. 8</ref><br />
<br />
===This Text===<br />
The case of software represents the most advanced example for application of these networked production mechanisms. Many later ideas in other domains have built upon the principles and philosophies developed by the free and open source software pioneers. That's why the story of the free software movement, the emergence of open source and the developments of GNU and Linux are described separately, in the first part of this text.<br />
<br />
The second part consist of a short history of copyright, its implications on culture and the change of its scope with the emergence of digital technology. Networked information technology enables an entirely new economic model, making use of commons owned information and collaborating individuals, rather than large industries relying on exclusive rights, making information scarce against its nonrival nature, to produce many copies of the same homogenous information like the mass media did.<br />
Further-on, the implications of these developments on individuals and society as a whole are discussed.<br />
<br />
The short third part lists what is needed for this networked information society to thrive and concludes with the statement that we are facing a choice today of whether to allow these mechanisms to flourish or squash them in favour of the old model of information production.<br />
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==References==<br />
<references/><br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=1.1_The_GNU_Project_and_Free_Software&diff=319191.1 The GNU Project and Free Software2009-07-31T15:40:33Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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[[Image:City_lights.jpg|thumb|500px|right|If you start thinking about it, a rather huge part of our daily lifes is controlled by digital technology. Wouldn't it be nice if the information running these devices was more transparent to everyone?]]<br />
[[Image:Earth_night.png|thumb|500px|right|And wouldn't it be nice if not only everyone in the already lightened coutries, but everybody in the whole world could take advantage of this information?]]<br />
A computer is a machine for manipulating data according to a list of instructions. For example, a digital watch is also a computer. As most technical devices get more complex all the time, computers are becoming ever more important. They have long since started taking over jobs that were previously handled by humans or mechanical devices (e.g. typewriter). As such they greatly influence our daily life. However, for most people they remain a black box, the operation of which they don't understand. This is okay, as in our highly specialised society not everybody has to know (nor is able to know) how everything exactly works. But everybody who is interested in something should be able to find out how it works - the possibility of every individual to learn is a foundation pillar of liberal societies. <br />
<br />
Computers contain a lot of hidden information that usually isn't revealed by just looking at them. For example, while everybody easily managed to understand, reconstruct and improve the workings of a Conestoga wagon and it was still possible for every do-it-yourselfer to fix a broken VW Beetle, modern cars are filled up with computers. Most companies keep the workings of those computers secret to prevent possible spying of the competition and thus lock out everyone but their own developers.<ref>[http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/free_matter_economy_2 Towards a free matter economy (Part 2): The passing of the shade tree mechanic], Terry Hancock at the Free Software Magazine</ref><br />
<br />
As an ever larger part of technology is dominated by such closed computer systems, ever more mechanisms influencing our everyday life are held secret. So the question of open or closed computer systems isn't one that affects only techies, but should concern everyone living in our modern society. This comes at a time when individuals are actually empowered by inexpensive technology to make greater use of information - if it is available. The most powerful informational tool available to broad masses is the personal computer. Today's personal computers are general-purpose computers, which means that they can do lots of different things, and most importantly can always be reprogrammed to fulfill other tasks that they weren't originally constructed to do. While it wouldn't make sense that everyone programmed their own personal computer, it is important that they can choose what software to run on it and that the workings of this software are publicly available. That way the user keeps in charge of the computer and the public can play watchdog over what the software does, which are only two of the many advantages of what is called free and open source software. However, today still far from all software running on most computers is free and open source.<br />
<br />
In this part of the text, the story of the free and open source software movements and its principles are described. Many later ideas in other domains of information production, which will be described later-on, have built upon the principles and philosophies developed by these pioneers and they thus continue to greatly influence the whole ''digital revolution''.<ref>[http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/opensource.html Open Source Everywhere], Thomas Goetz at Wired magazine</ref><br />
<br />
[[Image:PDP-10.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The first PDP-10 model, a mainframe computer also adopted by MIT.]]<br />
===Software sharing users groups===<br />
Before the 1970s, when there weren't any home computers yet, mainframe computers dominated the market. They filled often entire rooms and could only be purchased by universities or big companies. At that time, software was seen mainly as an add-on to make them useful. [[Wikipedia:Users' group|Users groups]] like SHARE and DECUS were formed in which people that worked with the same, or at least similar, computers could meet each other and exchange experiences and their often hard-won knowledge. The software which kept the computers running got improved and often completely new versions were written, independently of the vendor's programming efforts. This software was then shared in the users groups and the users could improve it together, so that everyone could profit and get the most out of his computer. So, at the beginning of the computer era, most software was what we would consider ''free software'' today. It wasn't called that way, because the term didn't exist yet, but that is what it actually was.<br />
<br />
===Richard Stallman===<br />
[[Image:RMS young.jpeg|thumb|300px|right|An early photo of Richard Stallman.]]<br />
<br />
Richard Matthew Stallman (nickname RMS) was born in New York in 1953. Still studying, he started working at the AI Lab (Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) at MIT as a programmer in 1971. There, he became part of the hacker community which had formed around the PDP-10, one of the large computers of the era. This software sharing community was building an own operating system, only for the PDP-10, which they called ITS ([[Wikipedia:Incompatible Timesharing System]]). <br />
<br />
The use of the term ''hacker'' to describe someone who breaks into somebody else's computer was popularized by the mass media after the 70s. Originally the term was just used to describe someone who has a great deal of knowledge or skill in a certain field, or who finds innovative solutions to technical problems. Most computer hackers refuse to recognize the meaning of a security-breaker (who is then often referred to as a ''cracker'') and continue to proudly call themselves hackers. <br />
<br />
===Proprietary Software===<br />
With the invention of the microprocessor computer hardware got smaller and cheaper and in the late 1970s the first home computers were arriving, and with them the possibility to sell software to broader masses. A paradigm shift in the software developing world was taking place. Software sharing users groups and hobbyist came under increasing pressure as demonstrated by an 'Open Letter to Hobbyists' which Bill Gates, cofounder of Microsoft, wrote in 1976 and in which he argued that the hobbyists were stealing the software he wrote. Software was less seen as something which was shared between hackers and improved upon together, but increasingly as the property of the person or the company that wrote it. This was the advent of what is called '''proprietary software'''.<br />
<br />
In the early 1980s, the AI Lab hacker community at MIT, of which Richard Stallman was part, began to fragment. A spinoff company named Symbolics, Inc. was founded and hired most of the AI staff hackers away. They were offered a much higher salary but had to write software which became property of the company and were forced to sign NDAs, non-disclosure agreements which prevent employees from talking to people outside the company about the software they are developing. The depopulation of the MIT hacker community was followed by the discontinuation of the PDP-10, the computer which they had solely written their own operating system for. 15 years of work were rendered useless.<br />
<br />
===The GNU Project===<br />
With the death of his community, Richard Stallman faced a choice: either to work for the proprietary software industry and write code secretly, to leave the software business for good, or to try to do something useful which he could reconcile with his moral conscience. He chose the last one and started writing the most fundamental pieces of software one needs to run a computer from scratch: the operating system. And most importantly, it would be free for anyone to copy, modify and redistribute.<br />
<br />
{{Technology Box|Operating system|<br />
A computer operating system (OS) is a collection of software which performs the most basic tasks of a computer, acting as a platform for higher-level software which wants to use the computer's hardware resources (such as processor power, memory and disk space). An OS provides also a whole lot of different system services that the programs running on top of it can make use of. In most modern operating systems tools such as a text editor, a compiler, programming libraries and a graphical user interface, are included.<br />
<br />
Today, the most commonly used operating systems are Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and some other Unix-like operating systems.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:GNU_logo.png|thumb|170px|left|The logo of the GNU Project, displaying its mascot which is of course a [[Wikipedia:Wildebeest|gnu]].]]<br />
[[Image:FSF_logo.png|thumb|300px|right|The logo of the Free Software Foundation.]]<br />
<br />
Stallman named his operating system GNU (pronounced ''guh-noo''), a recursive acronym for 'GNU's Not Unix', which was chosen because it was going to be similar in design to Unix, a then (and now) popular, but proprietary operating system.<br />
<br />
In 1984, he had started the GNU Project and started promoting the idea of what he called '''Free Software'''. In the English language, the word ''free'' has two different meanings. In this case, ''free'' is not referring to price, but to freedom. To illustrate the concept, Stallman coined the saying ''“Free as in ‘freedom’, not as in ‘free beer’”.'' As more hackers started helping him, he published the GNU Manifesto in which he formulated the goals and philosophical principles of the project and founded 1985 the '''Free Software Foundation''' to support the free software movement and the GNU Project.<br />
<br />
===Free Software===<br />
Free software, as defined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation (FSF), is software which the user can run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve upon, and redistribute. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for you, the users of the software, which all must be granted:<ref>Free Software Foundation, [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html The Free Software Definition], 1996-2006</ref><br />
<br />
*The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).<br />
*The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1).<br />
*The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).<br />
*The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3).<br />
<br />
This doesn't mean that you aren't allowed to ''sell'' copies (remember, it's about freedom, not price). On the contrary, selling CD-ROMs was and sometimes still is a major source of income for free software developers. ''Free software'' doesn't mean ''non-commercial''. But as everybody else also has the right to spread copies at no charge (freedom 2), this has become increasingly difficult with the rise of the internet. Money is rather made by selling support or offering services concerning the software.<br />
<br />
<br />
{{Technology Box|Source code|<br />
<br />
A computer program (e.g. a word processor as ''Word'', a web browser as ''Firefox'', or even a whole operating system like ''Windows XP'') is written in a [[Wikipedia:programming language]]. For the example program ''Hello World'', written in the programming language [[Wikipedia:C (programming language)|C]], which simply prints the sentence "Hello World!" on the screen when executed, this look as followed: <br />
<br />
<code><br />
int main(){ <br />
printf(??Hello World!??); <br />
return 0; <br />
}<br />
</code><br />
<br />
This text is called the source code of the program. It's easily readable by humans and with some knowledge of the programming language you can understand what the program does, how it does it and, if necessary, you can change the program.<br />
<br />
But the computer doesn't know what to do with the source code, the application can't yet be executed. That's because the computer does only understand machine language, which is written entirely in zeros and ones. To translate the program from the source code into machine language, there is a tool called the [[Wikipedia:compiler]]. A clip of the ''Hello World'' program above would then look like the following: <br />
<br />
<code><br />
1100011110111010100101001001001010101110<br />
0110101010011000001111001011010101111101<br />
0100111111111110010110110000000010100100<br />
</code><br />
<br />
The program in this form, which the computer is able to execute, is called a binary. Now you can see why, even for a skilled programmer, it's difficult to figure out what the program can be used for or how it works, not to mention trying to change or improve the application.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
Access to the source code of the software is a precondition for freedoms number 1 and 3 (see above), because without availability of the source code it is almost impossible to modify the program in a useful way and exercise those freedoms. That's why most proprietary software is distributed in binary and source code is a jealously guarded secret.<br />
<br />
By guaranteeing these four freedoms to its users, free software has several advantages over non-free, proprietary software: The user is never dependent on a particular person or company. As technology or the needs of the user evolve and he wants to add specific features (like e.g. support for a rare language) or get the software running on a newer generation of computers, he isn't at the mercy of the supplier, but can check out the source code and make the necessary changes himself. And even if he isn't able to do that, he can always ask or pay somebody else to do that for him. There are other advantages of free software, like the fact that you can check the source code to see whether the program is spying on you and sending information over the internet back to its originator (and even if you aren't able to check it yourself, sure somebody else has done so and if he or she had found something suspicious, spread the word). And because the workings of free software are open, everybody can participate in its development. This leads to a whole new model of development (later-on described in further detail in [[2.4 Property and Commons|chapter 2.4]]). Free software is being mostly built by hundreds of highly skilled volunteers which are coordinating over the internet, but also by employees of companies like Red Hat, Novell or IBM. This way, free software usually evolves faster and bugs (errors in the software) are detected much quicker than in the proprietary software world.<ref>Raymond, Eric S.; [http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ The Cathedral and the Bazaar], 1997</ref> That way security holes are also detected much faster and this mechanism outweighs the tiny benefit gained by closed-source software in security because of its secrecy by far.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Security through obscurity]]</ref><br />
<br />
===Copyleft===<br />
[[Image:Copyleft.png|thumb|197px|right|The copyleft symbol. It is the copyright symbol turned over.]]<br />
<br />
If a program is free software, that doesn't necessarily mean that it will be free software for everyone of its users. If someone receives a free program, can't he then make a copy or a modified version of it and redistribute it under proprietary terms, not allowing the users that receive the program from him to exercise the same freedoms he was granted and profit from his improvements? To prevent this, Stallman invented something called ''copyleft''. <br />
In the legal system of almost every country, copyright law exists, which reserves the right to copy a ''work'' to its originator. In the past, copyright covered only books, nowadays it covers virtually every kind of information; like drawings, movies and even software. It is usually meant to prevent others from reusing published works. (More on that later in Chapter [[2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]].) But the copyright holder can grant other people licenses which permit them to use or copy his work under conditions determined by that license. Now copyleft, a play on the word ''copyright'', uses copyright law, but flips it over. Instead of leaving all the rights to the originator of the work, copyleft grants everybody a license to study, use, modify, and also redistribute the work, but under the condition that if they modify the work, their derived versions of the work must be redistributed under the same license. This ensures that everybody who receives a copy, receives the same rights and freedoms as everyone before him.<br />
<br />
===The GPL===<br />
For software, the most commonly used copyleft license is the GNU General Public License, or GPL for short. It was written by Richard Stallman who released the first version in 1989 and is now maintained by the Free Software Foundation. However, there exist also other licenses for free software.<ref>The Free Software Foundation maintains a [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html list of free and non-free licenses].</ref> Some of them are compatible to the GPL (which means you can share code between GPLed software and software covered by said license), others aren't. There are also free software licenses which don't use copyleft (e.g. the [[Wikipedia:BSD licenses]]). It can be argued that these licenses grant greater freedom to a single user (because if he wants to redistribute his modified version, he isn't forced to do that under the same terms), however, this comes at the expense that not all users of the software will have those same freedoms (as described above).<br />
<br />
In 2000, the FSF released another license which is designed especially for software manuals, documentation and textbooks: the ''GNU Free Documentation License'' or GFDL for short. It is the counterpart to the GPL and gives readers the same rights to copy, redistribute and modify a work, and it is also a copyleft license. Today it is used for many kinds of texts and all the text of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, is licensed under the GFDL.<br />
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{{Box-Overview|A Revolution in the Making|title=Navigation|<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[A Revolution in the Making]] <nowiki>|</nowiki> [[1.2 GNU/Linux and Open Source]] &rarr;<br />
}}<br />
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==References==<br />
<references/><br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=1.2_GNU/Linux_and_Open_Source&diff=319181.2 GNU/Linux and Open Source2009-07-31T15:40:21Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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<div>{{Template:Navigate-Overview|1.1 The GNU Project and Free Software|2.1 Copyright and Mass Media}}<br />
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<br />
===Linux and GNU/Linux===<br />
Back in the 80s, Richard Stallman and the GNU Project were still busy developing an operating system which should be entirely free software. Two important components were an editor called GNU Emacs and tools to compile source code to executable binaries, the GCC (GNU Compiler Collection). The availability of free developing tools was very important to gain more participants. <br />
By 1990 the GNU Project had either developed or found everything which made up an operating system, except one component: the kernel. <br />
<br />
{{Technology Box|Kernel|<br />
[[Image:Kernel.png|200px|right]]<br />
A Kernel is the central component of an operating system, but usually not the largest. It is responsible for the communication between hardware and upper-level software and thus makes the hardware, like CPU and memory, available to all other software running on the computer.<br />
}}<br />
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<br />
[[Image:Linus Torvalds.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Linus Torvalds]]<br />
[[Image:Tux.png|thumb|150px|right|The penguin Tux, the official mascot of the Linux kernel.]]<br />
<br />
In 1991, Linus Torvalds (born 1969 in Finland), started work on the Linux kernel and released it in 1992 under the GPL. Users started to pair it with other free software they found. They combined the almost complete GNU system with the Linux kernel and got, without knowing it, the first completely free operating system. Most of them called it simply ''Linux'' as they didn't know about the goal of the GNU project and were starting from the Linux kernel. The media and most people still call the whole system only ''Linux'', although Richard Stallman urges everybody to call it ''GNU/Linux'', as he sees it as a GNU system, based on Linux. While ''Linux'' is the shorter, and also the more common name for the whole operating system, it is important not to forget that without the GNU project's struggle for a free operating system, for the sake of freedom, we wouldn't have one today. Users of the system should know its history and value the freedom it gives them. There are still lots of traps for free software, and freedom will be valued most when it's already lost. As Linus Torvalds and the name ''Linux'' don't emphasize very much on this issue, I personally prefer to call the whole system ''GNU/Linux'', but it's up to every single person to make his choice. Of course, everybody agrees that the sole kernel is just called ''Linux'' (for more information, have a look at [[Wikipedia:GNU/Linux naming controversy]]).<br />
<br />
The very open and collaborative software development style used by Linus Torvalds with the Linux kernel, relying on early and frequent releases of still unfinished software, was soon broadly adopted in the free and open source community as its advantages resulting in faster evolving projects became clear.<ref>Raymond, Eric S.; [http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s04.html Release Early, Release Often], ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar'', 1997</ref> In fact, this is the first example of a large scale peer production. More on that later on in [[2.4 Property and Commons#Peer Production|Chapter 2.4]].<br />
<br />
===Open Source===<br />
As the GNU/Linux operating system and the very effective development method of free software was gaining more momentum, also businesses were beginning to show interest. In 1998, Netscape released most of the source code of its internet browser ''Netscape Communicator''. The browser was until then proprietary but still popular, although it was loosing ground to Microsoft's ''Internet Explorer'' that ships with its ''Windows'' operating system, both being proprietary, too. The liberation of the ''Netscape Communicator'' kicked off the Mozilla project that lead eventually to the popular Firefox browser. At a strategy meeting of several people interested in free software it was decided to use this chance to convince more businesses of the superiority of an open development process. In their opinion, the ideological and sometimes confrontational attitude which had been associated with free software needed a change. Emphasizing on the pragmatic advantages, they created a new marketing term for free software which wasn't bothered by the ambiguity of the English word ''free''. They came up with '''open source''', as the source code needs to be open to the public. Richard Stallman and other opponents of the term note that it can easily be misunderstood or even misused and still prefer the term ''free software''. If, for example, you can look at the source code of a program, but aren't allowed to change or redistribute it, the software has an open source, but is neither free software nor open source software. <br />
<br />
[[Image:OSI_logo.png|thumb|144px|left|Open Source Initiative (OSI) Logo]]<br />
<br />
Still in 1998, Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond founded the Open Source Initiative (OSI), a non-profit organization to further promote the idea, especially to the corporate world. The OSI has also published its own [http://opensource.org/osi3.0/node/4 Open Source Definition]. Most of what is qualified as open source software is also free software as defined by the Free Software Foundation. Thus the terms can usually be used interchangeably. So, although the free software movement and the open source movement have different philosophies (one emphasizing freedom, the other a superior development methodology leading to technologically better software), they agree on the practical recommendations and work together on many projects.<br />
<br />
To avoid having to choose one term over the other, people suggested different names like "'''Software Libre'''" (libre as in liberty), "Free and Open Source Software" ('''FOSS''') or "Free/Libre/Open-Source Software" ('''FLOSS'''). However, there are also similar terms describing non-free software which can be confusing: ''Freeware'' is proprietary software, given away at no cost. ''Shareware'' is proprietary software which is distributed free of charge for trial purposes, however it is limited until the user pays its full price.<br />
<br />
In the 90s, new companies like Red Hat were founded whose sole business is to develop free and open source software and provide support for it, mainly targeting enterprises. In the 2000s, technology giants like IBM and Novell were beginning to massively invest in GNU/Linux, also providing legal defense.<br />
<br />
===GNU/Linux distributions===<br />
[[Image:command_line.png|thumb|200px|right|A screenshot of a computer running a Command Line Interface, every hacker's best friend.]]<br />
[[Image:GUI.png|thumb|200px|right|Most computer users today use a graphical user interface (GUI). Here a screenshot of KDE.]]<br />
<br />
While the Open Source Initiative was persuading the corporate world and ''open source'' achieved much press coverage, the free and open source ecosystem and GNU/Linux were further evolving. <br />
In 1996, Matthias Ettrich launched the KDE desktop environment, providing GNU/Linux with a graphical user interface. Because KDE was based on the proprietary Qt toolkit, the Free Software Foundation paid Miguel de Icaza to create GNOME and therewith a completely free alternative which didn't depend on underlying proprietary software. Fortunately, the Qt toolkit was released as free software in 1998, and now, KDE as well as GNOME are widely used. Both are based on the X11 windowing system.<br />
After Netscape had released the source of its internet browser, Sun Microsystems freed its StarOffice suite in 2000, and the resulting OpenOffice.org project remains the most feature-filled free alternative to the proprietary Microsoft Office suite. Replacing ''Word'', ''Excel'' & Co, it does not only run under GNU/Linux but also under Windows and other operating systems. By now, there are thousands of smaller and larger free and open source software projects and for nearly every proprietary program there exists a free alternative. ([[Wikipedia:List of open source software packages]])<br />
<br />
As everybody is free to change and redistribute all free and open source software, it is easy to fork projects, if for example disagreements between developers arise. Sometimes this is favourable, as the projects evolve in different directions and provide solutions to different problems, or different solutions to the same problem, leading to more choice. But sometimes it is also a waste of development resources as it's often laborious to reintegrate changes from one forked version into another. Also, it's not always easy for users new to the Linux world to choose the software which fits their needs best.<br />
<br />
Soon after the Linux kernel was paired with parts of the GNU system, people started to bundle also other pieces of software together to form a complete operating system, including diverse userlevel applications. This made it a lot easier to install and start off with GNU/Linux. Such a bundle is usually called a Linux distribution, or just a '''distro'''. Today there exist over three hundred distros in active development. Some, like "Ubuntu Linux", are considered more user-friendly, others, like "Gentoo", are more the geek-thing. There's a list of [http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major The Top Ten Distributions] over at DistroWatch.com. There are also ''LiveDistros'', which are GNU/Linux distributions on a CD-ROM, ready to run without having to install and alter the computer's harddrive. Live CDs are considered a good way to try out an operating system without the slightest risk. A popular LiveDistro is [http://knopper.net/knoppix/ Knoppix]. It is derived from the community-driven Debian GNU/Linux which in turn is known for its adherence to the free software philosophy. <br />
<br />
===Present day===<br />
[[Image:RMS 2005.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Richard Stallman in the year 2005.]]<br />
Today, the Linux kernel is used in anything, from small embedded devices such as cell phones, to huge supercomputers, often paired with many components of the GNU system and other free and open source software. Because of its reliability and security, GNU/Linux is a very popular choice on the server market, adoption increasing.<ref>[http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS)? Look at the Numbers!]</ref> Especially for web-servers, the LAMP solution stack is broadly used. It consists of '''L'''inux (referring to the operating system), the '''A'''pache web server, the '''M'''ySQL database management system, and the '''P'''HP programming language, all being free software. On desktop computers and laptops adoption has been weaker, but still increasing.<br />
<br />
Linus Torvalds continues to direct the development of the Linux kernel. Richard Stallman heads the Free Software Foundation that now concentrates on legal and structural issues which concern the free software movement and community.<br />
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{{Box-Overview|A Revolution in the Making|title=Navigation|<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[1.1 The GNU Project and Free Software]] <nowiki>|</nowiki> [[2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]] &rarr;<br />
}}<br />
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==References==<br />
<references/><br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=2.1_Copyright_and_Mass_Media&diff=319172.1 Copyright and Mass Media2009-07-31T15:39:46Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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<div>{{Template:Navigate-Overview|1.2 GNU/Linux and Open Source|2.2 Information Technology and 'Piracy'}}<br />
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<br />
So far, the historical development of free and open source software and the ideas that lie behind it were summarized. These philosophies and production mechanisms were later applied in many domains of information production other than software, and the rest of this text shows how this culture of sharing rather than hoarding information could be of benefit to all of us.<br />
<br />
===The Origin of Copyright===<br />
[[Image:Copyright.png|thumb|197px|left|The copyright symbol.]]<br />
<br />
Before the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1445 it was very laborious to copy books. It was mostly done by monks who simply copied them by hand. But thanks to Gutenberg, suddenly relatively cheap reproduction of text in big quantities was possible, which gradually weakened the information monopoly of the catholic church. Martin Luther was able to spread his disputations and the bible text in dialect instead of latin and started the protestant reformation. With the advance of the printing press and broader literacy, there also emerged the possibility to earn some money through writing books for the first time. Particularly in northern Europe early capitalistic enterprises started selling book copies, usually while giving the authors a fair share. But soon competing publishers reprinted those texts without compensating the original authors. The first actual copyright law is considered to be the british ''Statute of Anne'' of 1710 which was intended to protect authors and their publishers from foreign book printers. It granted the copyright holders the exclusive right to print their books, however only for a limited term. Copyright expired fourteen years after a book was published: the text passed in the so-called '''public domain''' and was free for everybody to reprint. The british parliament chose to limit the duration of the monopoly on printing it granted to the originator in order to ensure that this monopoly wasn't exploited. Critical information or controversial texts couldn't forever be prevented from circulating in this way, but the market on which cultural works were sold was free. Additionally, when printers chose to register a book for copyright, they had to provide copies to nine british libraries.<br />
<br />
As time passed and new technologies were invented, copyright law was automatically adapted to include not only books and maps, but successively also paintings, photographs, sound recordings, films, and so on. The ''Berne Convention'' of 1886 represents the first agreement of multiple sovereign states to recognize each others copyrights. At that time, under the pressure of publishers and content-holders, as they were to be called, copyright had already mutated to extend its terms to 50 years after the death of the author and the signing nations were prohibited from requiring registration: as soon as someone writes something on a sticky, it is automatically covered by copyright. Additionally not only the actual work was covered now, but it was also forbidden to create '''derivative works''', that are works which include major aspects of a previously created, copyrighted work, like for example translation or the adaption of a story to another form (e.g. create a film or a children's book based on a novel).<br />
<br />
[[Image:Hollywoodland.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Hollywood started as 'Pirates'.]]<br />
===Early 'Pirates'===<br />
It hasn't always been the same folks who have profited from exclusive rights like copyright and patents. In the infancy of cinema, Thomas Edison owned some important patents on the movie-making process and he was keen on enforcing them. Filmmakers that used his techniques without his permission were heavily hindered, but this impediment was overturned easily as independent filmmakers simply fled to the West Coast of America. California was then remote enough to escape the law and by the time enough marshals were present, Edison's patents had already expired, as at that time they were granted for only seventeen years. This is how a new creative industry was born: Hollywood.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Steamboat-willie.jpg|thumb|200px|right|''Steamboat Willie'' starring Mickey Mouse.]]<br />
In 1928, Walt Disney released the short film ''Steamboat Willie''. It was the first sound cartoon to attract widespread attention and it made the Mickey Mouse character famous. Disney had successfully adapted this technique to cartoons, while the first feature-length motion picture with synchronized sound (''The Jazz Singer'') had been released only one year earlier. Also the plot was not entirely original but rather a parody of the feature-length silent film ''Steamboat Bill Jr.'', which was released earlier in the same year. This movie in turn was inspired by a song named ''Steamboat Bill'', and in both ''Steamboat Bill Jr.'' and Disney's ''Steamboat Willie'' the song is used. This borrowing and the forth and back of ideas and stories brought us Mickey Mouse and a whole lot more of what we consider to be part of our culture today. These practices were nothing uncommon then, and so nobody stopped Walt Disney from taking the grim fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and turning them into the wonderfully animated children's films that we all have come to love. This was still possible in a time where the average term of copyright was about thirty years and the majority of creative work wasn't even copyrighted as a rich public domain existed.<ref>Lessig, Lawrence; [http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/ Free Culture], 2004, p. 24</ref> Past culture was free to build and innovate upon.<br />
<br />
===Mass Media===<br />
Since then however, copyright law has become stricter and stricter. The innovators from then have become an industry. The technologies of the 20th century and their application led to the advent of the mass media: television, radio, music recordings, cinema, newspapers, books and magazines that are meant to reach a very large audience and because they are very expensive to operate, they promote a one-to-many broadcast model. Not everybody can have his own television network. The major source of income for the mass media, if they are not heavily state-financed, is advertisement. As the mass media follow the economics of industrial production (i.e. producing large amounts of the same good) they have increasingly come to adapt the '''principle of the lowest common denominator''': they produce content which keeps an audience as large as possible watching and consuming. The audience doesn't necessarily have to be excited, but they have to be kept in front of the screen in order to watch the advertisement. To minimize the risk of broadcasting material that doesn't attract a large audience, new content is produced based on concepts which are known to work while innovation and radically new approaches are seldom allowed.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Hollywood-Sign.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Hollywood has become an industry.]]<br />
The same industrial economies have also led to an increasing '''concentration of media ownership'''. The Big Four record labels (Sony BMG, EMI, Universal and Warner) have a worldwide market share of over 80%. The Big Six film studios (Sony, News Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, Time Warner, Viacom and General Electric) hold a market share of over 90%. Through most of the US television history, The Big Three Television Networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) broadcasted up to 99% of the content watched. Lateron, Fox and The CW gained also a considerable share. Similar structures can be found in the radio business. An example: In 1997, Clear Channel Communications Inc. owned 173 radio stations, in 2004 it were over 1200 stations.<br />
Not only do rather few companies hold rather big market shares, but these companies, which control the various mass media, are in turn owned by even fewer media conglomerates. The nine current media conglomerates are Disney, CBS, Time Warner, News Corp, Bertelsmann AG, Viacom, General Electric, Lagardère Group and Vivendi SA. These companies together own more than 90% of the media market. For a visualization of the many mergers and buyouts in the mass media business which have led to the current conglomerates, have a look at this [http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/03/and_then_there_were_eight.pdf chart].<br />
<br />
This concentration of media ownership has significant effects on what gets produced and what information is presented to the public. In this absence of competition, the media conglomerates oblige rather their major advertisers and the government than the general public, to maximize revenue and keep their dominant position. Thus the television studios have a policy to avoid "controversial" ads. Unfortunately, they have decided that all government-sponsored ads are uncontroversial and the ones disagreeing with the positions of the government are controversial. And as the overwhelming part of the mass media are controlled by these few companies, nobody is in a position to let the public know of alternative opinions or promote stories which the major studios would rather like to ignore.<br />
<br />
===Realities of Copyright===<br />
Throughout the 20th century the mass media had a huge influence on the general public. Apart from less known artists or local newspapers, their products were what was available and thus determined what was to be seen and heard. Their products form a major part of our culture today. <br />
Of course all these works were covered by copyright. Nobody else was and is permitted to make any use beyond simple consumption of the material without asking them for permission. They can then decide to grant the applicant a license which gives him specified rights, like for example using a scene in a remix clip of several classic motion pictures. <br />
<br />
In reality, the first major obstacle is usually to find all the actual copyright holders. Since registration isn't necessary anymore but everything created is automatically covered, no lists exist to look up who holds which copyrights, and often they have been transfered from the original creators to some production company to some other company and so forth. Even if you manage to find all the people involved, in a movie this is every artist from the director to all the actors, stuntmen and musicians, then you still have to contact every single one of them and arrange a deal to get their permission to use the material and pay them royalties. Some of them will be glad to help you, others might refuse to grant you permission or demand a price you are unable to pay. All in all, this is a very, very time-comsuming and expensive process which you are only able to undertake if you are backed-up or employed by a company with rather large resources available.<br />
<br />
To ease this problem, a doctrine exists in most countries which provides exceptions to copyright law and permits limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holder for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research.<ref>Cornell University Law School, [http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000107----000-.html TITLE 17, CHAPTER 1, § 107, U.S. Code Collection]</ref> In the United States this doctrine is called '''fair use''', in Great Britain and other members of the Commonwealth of Nations '''fair dealing'''. However, in practice it is often difficult to determine if an actual use is ''fair use'' and it is also considered to depend upon how large a part of the work is used, whether the use is commercial or nonprofit, and the effect of the use on the market value of the copyrighted work. So if you actually decide to use, let's say 30 seconds of the film ''Gone with the Wind'' in your documentary, without asking the studio for permission, relying on fair use, it is likely that you get into trouble. The last thing you and your producer want before the scheduled release of your documentary is licensing issues. And as fair use is rather vaguely defined, there exists a big chance that the Hollywood studio will try to squeeze as much money out of your already tight budget as possible, or otherwise take you to court if you try to argue for your fair use rights. Then it comes down to who has better lawyers and deeper pockets, you or the media conglomerate. Because even if you win, you still have to pay your attorney's fees or you could try to countersue them for recovery. Anyway, it would end up in a long and complicated legal battle which is neither easy nor cheap for you to survive.<ref>A good example of this problem is described in Lawrence Lessig's [http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/ Free Culture], 2004, p. 95; Chapter Seven: Recorders. Have also a look at [[Wikipedia:Spamigation]]</ref> Fair use was meant to qualify copyright and render important parts of our culture open as a base for further creativity and innovation, but the law continues to fail in practice. This law rather shapes who is able to do business and who is not.<br />
<br />
===Expansion of Copyright===<br />
[[Image:Capitol.jpg|thumb|600px|right|The movie and recording industries are a strong lobbying group in the U.S. Congress.]]<br />
<br />
Fortunately, copyright is granted only for a limited period of time and after that the works pass into the public domain. Then, everybody is free to copy and share them with their friends, alter them or create new works based on these old ones, retelling the stories, adapting them to a new time or to a new medium. Obviously, the mass media companies, which hold the copyright for all of their past and recent productions, would rather like to keep their exclusive copyright forever. <br />
<br />
The legal base for all U.S. Copyright and also patent law is a clause in the Constitution which allows Congress to ''promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.'' Copyright thus isn't required by the Constitution but only allowed for a limited term. In the British ''Statute of Anne'' of 1710 as well as in the first copyright law of the United States 80 years later, this term was 14 years. In the U.S., the authors could opt to extend this period after that for another 14 years. However, most didn't, as the vast majority of works have an actual commercial life of just a couple of years. Except for a tiny minority which become classics, books go out of print, movies and music get forgotten and it's not profitable enough to produce new spools or records anymore. Nonetheless, copyright terms have greatly increased since then. In 1831, the initial term was extended to 28 years. In 1909 also the renewal term was set to 28 years. The maximum was thus 56 years. But then the expansions took really off. Starting in 1962, Congress has extended copyright terms eleven times in 40 years. In 1976 all existing copyrights were increased by nineteen years. And in 1998, with the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Congress extended the term of existing and future copyrights by another twenty years. <br />
<br />
Today copyright in the United States persists for 70 years after the author's death, and for "corporate works" it's 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever is shortest. If you compare these terms with the original ones - 14 years after registration - one has to wonder what benefit it could be to society or the author to keep his works copyrighted 70 years after his death. Copyright is meant to be granted for a limited term, and for a limited term only. But if the current politics continue, the actual limit will be pushed into eternity. ''Steamboat Willie'' has been close to entering the public domain several times, and because of that, the 1998 Copyright Extension Act has also been dubbed "Mickey Mouse Protection Act". It is widely recognized that the expansion of copyright law is a product of extensive lobbying of the movie and record industries. In fact, the Big Six film studios have founded an organization to promote their interests, the MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America). It's equivalent in the recording industry is the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). <br />
Thus Big Business prevents products of our culture from becoming freely available and keeps us from making it our own again. Today, Disney denies us to build upon their work in the same way they were allowed to build on the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm.<br />
<br />
These extensions of copyright in duration and scope haven't only taken place in the United States. The European Union and others have introduced the term of 70 years past death of the author, too. Politicians in the more economically developed nations have come to adopt ever stricter copyright laws in the firm believe that stronger protection is better and in order to protect their established industries. These nations are pushing the same policies as well through international organizations, like the World Trade Organization with it's TRIPS agreement or the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), to get their perceptions of "good copyright law" enforced all over the world. This internationalization is then in turn used to justify the ever increasing terms, calling it "harmonization".<br />
<br />
The proponents of broad exclusive rights argue that they encourage innovation. I'm going to question this claim in [[2.3 Economics of Information Production|Chapter 2.3]]. However, in the next chapter, I'd first like to introduce another very important component of the issue: Technology. If the developments in information technology are taken into account, another aspect of the problem reveals itself.<br />
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{{Box-Overview|A Revolution in the Making|title=Navigation|<br />
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==References==<br />
<references/><br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=2.2_Information_Technology_and_%27Piracy%27&diff=319162.2 Information Technology and 'Piracy'2009-07-31T15:39:11Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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[[Image:Being_mobile.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Computers continue to get smaller, cheaper and more powerful, and wireless Internet is already available at many places.]]<br />
===Information Technology===<br />
As shortly described in the introductory chapter [[A Revolution in the Making]], computers have since the 1970s become ever faster, smaller and cheaper. This led to the availability of personal computers in most homes in the more economically developed countries. By 1995, the public started to realize the potential of the Internet. Through the more recent introduction of broadband Internet, most home computers are constantly connected to the Internet at several times greater speeds than only a few years ago. Individuals have received the power to not only manipulate huge amounts of data ever faster, but also to share the data they produce with others over the Internet. Now it is possible for everyone to manipulate, for example, hours of homemade video and enhance it with some special effects. On the other hand, it has also become easy to mix and manipulate the works of others and share them with all the world, as demonstrated on sites like [http://www.thetrailermash.com/ The Trailer Mash]: Here lots of people present new creative works they created - remixes of official movie trailers, rearranged to tell other stories. Use past culture to create something new. What only some lucky entrepreneurs like Walt Disney could do in the beginning of the 20th century, everybody can do today. Unfortunately, at the moment this is mostly illegal because of lengthy and restrictive copyright law. You can neither copy nor modify any work without the originator's explicit permission. It isn't like those derivative works were hurting sales of official movies or that nobody would listen to classical Mozart anymore (himself long dead) because his music was used and newly interpreted by a DJ. Nonetheless, copyright law has not been altered to let everyone make use of the new technologies, but rather tightened to prevent people from doing so. Under the pretext of protecting established artists' revenues, new artists are prevented from rising. But the truth behind all this is that the record industry fears for it's existence - rightly so. <br />
<br />
[[Image:Server-based-network.png|thumb|200px|Computer network with a central, expensive to operate server from which the clients are downloading.]]<br />
[[Image:P2P-network.png|thumb|200px|Peer-to-peer network - every node is a client and a server, both downloading and uploading.]]<br />
===File Sharing===<br />
Today, some inexpensive home computers and the Internet are superior to the distribution channels of the record industry with its CD manufacturing plants and many shops. Digital technology enables infinite copying of music and movies without any loss of quality.<br />
Shawn Fanning, a then 17 years old student, released Napster in 1999. It was the first peer-to-peer file-sharing system to gain widespread popularity for sharing music. In peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, the data isn't stored on a central server and accessed by clients (which is the case with web pages), but many peers, usually ordinary home computers, share their data with one another. Soon this technology was adopted and improved; after Napster was sued by the record industry and ultimately shut down, new networks emerged which were even more decentralized. Every user downloading is at the same time making available that very same information he/she just downloaded to other participants. The most popular networks as of today are ''eDonkey2000'' (with client-programs as eMule or MLDonkey), ''FastTrack'' (with clients as Kazaa or Grokster) and ''Gnutella'' (with clients as LimeWire or Gnucleus). While these networks are searchable through a client program, in the BitTorrent P2P network, data is found through websites like The Pirate Bay, where a small ''.torrent-file'' is downloaded and then opened in a BitTorrent client such as Azureus or BitTornado, where the actual download takes place. Most of this software is free and open source software ([[1.1 The GNU Project and Free Software]]), but some is also proprietary.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Tape.gif|thumb|200px|left|The record industry has always been cautious about new technology. Here a 1980s campaign logo against home taping cassettes featuring a death's-head.]]<br />
These services are heavily used. Millions of users all over the world share thousands of titles and even rare songs they wouldn't find in stores. The major music labels don't like that and have come up with the term of 'Piracy', equating people that share music with one another with bandits that attack other people's ships. The record industry argues that every downloaded song accounts for a loss in CD sales which ultimately hurts artists. However, it should be kept clearly in mind that not every song downloaded would have been bought. Also through sharing samples, people are exposed to new music and might come to buy CDs they otherwise would never have known of. And downloading old material that isn't available in stores anymore sure doesn't hurt artists. It is also a fact that under the current model of music distribution, the average artists gets something between 5 and 14 percent of the CD sales revenue. The rest trickles away in the business that is the record industry.<br />
<br />
[[Image:ThePirateBay.jpg|thumb|200px|right|The logo of the BitTorrent site ''The Pirate Bay'', mocking the term 'Piracy' when meant to describe copyright infringement.]]<br />
But now a new distribution model becomes feasible. Lots of ordinary people, connected through the Internet, outperform the record industry and make it essentially obsolete in a time where high quality recording equipment to supplement home computers becomes ever cheaper. It simply isn't necessary to buy physical records anymore. Especially for unknown artists, the Internet represents a very attractive marketing ground; with services like [http://www.last.fm/ last.fm] or [http://www.pandora.com Pandora], it has become very easy to discover new music. Artists who release their music earn money by performing and going on tour (like artists did before recording technology existed). Also alternative payments systems have been proposed: mechanisms like an easy way to donate small amounts of money to musicians over the Internet, or to let every person downloading pay a small monthly fee which is distributed to the artists based on their popularity. This could for example be done by bundling a voluntary fee with the broadband bill (Broadband, unlimited legal downloading included!).<ref>[http://www.eff.org/share/collective_lic_wp.php A Better Way Forward: Voluntary Collective Licensing of Music File Sharing], Electronic Frontier Foundation</ref> With these distribution and compensation methods, artists would most certainly be far better off than now, but the major labels aren't willing to adopt yet. Instead they are fighting windmills, with all means available to them.<br />
<br />
===Lawsuits===<br />
As there is no single instance responsible for the operation of peer-to-peer file sharing networks, there is nobody in particular the music industry can sue. That's why the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) turned to randomly suing people for copyright infringement that have allegedly participated in file sharing, in hope of deterrence. To find people in file sharing networks, they rely on tracing computer's IP addresses. But it is often very difficult to find out who a specific IP belongs to and impossible to tell with certainty. That's why the RIAA has already sued a 66-year-old grandmother for downloading gangster rap<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3140160.stm Grandmother piracy lawsuit dropped], BBC News</ref>, but also families without a computer<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060424-6662.html RIAA sues computer-less family], Ars Technica</ref> and even dead people<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050204-4587.html "I sue dead people..."], Ars Technica</ref> were addressed. The RIAA's tactics are to intimidate defendants and force them into settlements outside court under the threat that they are facing high legal fees. But recently, victims of such random lawsuits have begun fighting back and countersued the RIAA for malicious prosecution.<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070625-exonerated-defendant-sues-riaa-for-malicious-prosecution.html Exonerated defendant sues RIAA for malicious prosecution], Ars Technica</ref>. But it continues to be an uphill-battle and non-profit organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which fight for ''digital rights'' and provide individuals with legal defense, have only limited resources compared to the large legal departments of the major record labels. To preserve its last-century business model, the record industry has actually turned to sue its own customers, something that's only possible because they hold a monopoly on about 90% of the music produced.<br />
<br />
===Copyright in a Digital World===<br />
As video files are larger, downloading movies or TV series isn't as common as sharing music yet, but it is only a matter of time until Hollywood will find itself in the same situation as the record industry is now. Social practices like going to the movies will remain popular in addition to watching films at home. Movies will eventually be produced at lower budgets than what is common in Hollywood today, but there will probably be more ''smaller'' films, oriented towards more specific audiences, than the homogenous monster productions we are seeing today. ([[2.1_Copyright_and_Mass_Media#Mass_Media|2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]])<br />
<br />
Copyright law was always meant to regulate copying. However, in the past this was something only competing businesses like publishers could do. But today, everyone can copy a file by a simple mouse-click. Thus the scope of this law has changed dramatically over time: from regulating anticompetitive business practices to restricting consumers. Keeping up these same rules in a digital world does nothing but render a large portion of citizens criminals - for no obvious reason. Additionally, lots of creative works, which wouldn't have been possible without inexpensive computers and the Internet, are prevented from being published legally.<br />
<br />
Today's copyright law just doesn't make sense when applied to digital technology. For example, it could even be argued that looking at a website is copyright infringement, as in order to display a webpage on the screen, the computer has to download it and make a local copy from the data stored on the server. As this is an unauthorized copy, this is actually illegal.<br />
<br />
===DRM===<br />
But while technology can enable people, it can also be used against them. Under the pretext of fighting 'piracy', the major entertainment companies have come up with ever stronger copy protections, all of them having something in common - they have been cracked very quickly.<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/drmhacks.ars Hacking Digital Rights Management], Ars Technica</ref><br />
<br />
[[Image:DRM_Is_Killing_Music.png|thumb|200px|left|A parody of the image above. This one campaigning against DRM.]]<br />
In the 80s, Hollywood was crying that home video recording would kill the film production. It didn't, although you usually could easily copy VHS video tapes. On DVDs, copy prevention was already present from day 1. Now the industry is pushing a new format to hold HD video (high definition, resulting in a sharper picture) that is meant to replace DVDs: BluRay Discs. It implements new and stronger copy preventions which force the consumer to buy not only new players, but also new displays (so that Hollywood can even control the signal between the player and the display).<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070121-8665.html HDCP: beta testing DRM on the public?], Ars Technica; [http://bluraysucks.com/ Why you should boycott Blu-ray and HD-DVD], Blu-Ray Sucks</ref> Equipment has to be certified to be able to playback BluRay discs (as already the case with DVDs). Free software and open source solutions are thus excluded from the system right from the start - in order to play DVDs on a GNU/Linux computer the copy prevention has to be cracked, which is done very quickly nowadays. However, also the new technologies, implemented in BluRay discs have already been cracked by numerous methods, even before the discs get to consumers homes.<br />
<br />
In the music market, the standard audio CD provides digital music of satisfactory quality to most listeners. CDs have been around for a long time, and stem from a time where copy prevention wasn't common yet. There have been several attempts to implement copy preventions later-on, resulting in audio CDs that some players couldn't play, which led to consumer frustration. With the rise of Apple's iTunes Store, the music industry has slowly started to realize the possibilities of distributing music through the Internet. Now people can buy songs and download them right away. The prices are comparable to CDs. Although virtually all distribution costs go away for the labels, artists don't receive higher payments for the songs sold on the iTunes Store.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Ipod.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The iPod made carrying your whole music collection in your pocket mainstream. Although its monopoly on playing DRM-crippled media from Apple's own iTunes Store on the Internet is criticized, the iPod is no doubt one of the devices spurring the digital revolution.]]<br />
Music doesn’t just reside on a CD anymore: it is sold through the internet and transferred to portable music players like the iPod; the music industry cannot prevent their customers from copying it; as a result, they developed technologies to limit access to music. For these new technologies, the umbrella term '''DRM''' is used. Originally standing for ''Digital Rights Management'', opponents such as the Free Software Foundation named it ''Digital Restrictions Management''. With DRM, the data, for example music or video, is digitally encrypted and can only be played back by specific devices or software. 'Unauthorized copies' can be prevented or content can even be set to expire after a specific time period. Songs purchased on Apple's market leading iTunes Store for example bear the following (compared to others still relatively lax) restrictions: While the track can be copied on up to five different computers, playback is only possible with Apple's iTunes software and on no other portable music player than Apple's iPod. Music isn't bought anymore, it is rather just rented for limited use. <br />
The proof that it is also possible to sell sustainably DRM-free music over the Internet, which can then be played back by any device (including the iPod), was delivered by stores like [http://www.emusic.com emusic] which has currently 250,000 subscribers. However, the major record labels refuse to sell their songs without DRM, leading ''emusic'' and the likes to specialize in independent music.<br />
<br />
As history has shown us, it is impossible to come up with a copy prevention or DRM system that is unbreakable. As long as the music and movie industries try to restrict access to the media they sell, they'll be caught up in a cat-and-mouse game. Whenever a new DRM scheme sees the light of the day, eventually it will be cracked by the many skilled people collaborating over the Internet, and DRM-free copies will be available on the peer-to-peer networks. However, it might one day become ''difficult enough'' for a ''large enough'' part of the population to set the media they paid for free. Consumers might just accept that they have only limited control over their legally bought music collection. And that's the actual goal of the entertainment industry. Not bringing 'piracy' down, because they know that's impossible, but controlling consumers to maximize revenue.<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070115-8616.html Privately, Hollywood admits DRM isn't about piracy], Ars Technica</ref> Then, because you can't copy it and put it on an other device, the entertainment industry will be able to sell you the same song or video several times: once for your computer, maybe a second time for your portable music or video player, then for playback in your living room, and one more time as a ringtone for your cell phone.<br />
<br />
To ensure that it's ''difficult enough'' for most consumers, and first of all illegal, to crack the DRM on their media, additional laws were written. In the USA, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was enacted in 1998, in the European Union the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD) of 2001, which is similar to the DMCA in many ways. Now it is illegal to circumvent DRM or other access control technologies, even when copying the content was permitted under simple copyright law, for example under fair use (about fair use: [[2.1_Copyright_and_Mass_Media#Realities_of_Copyright|2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]]). Under the DMCA, even the production or spread of circumvention technologies was criminalized. <br />
<br />
[[Image:OneSmallStep.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Still frame of Neil Armstrong, stepping out onto the moon - a historical document. But much of our current cultural production is owned by few, and the public is prevented from accessing it freely.]]<br />
<br />
===Implications===<br />
With DRM and laws to criminalize circumvention of DRM in place, our culture gets locked down even more. It has become technically increasingly difficult (and simply illegal) to use many of our cultural products, like pop music or election campaign footage, to create something new. We live increasingly in a ''permission culture'', where new creators have to ask the powerful or creators from the past for permission, rather than in a ''free culture'' that would uphold the individual freedom to create. At the same time, while digital technology would allow us to build a library accessible to everyone larger than the Library of Alexandria, we run the risk of forgetting history as past culture is locked down by law and DRM. While you theoretically still could sometimes make legal use of such material under the terms of fair use, and fight for your right to do so in court, this is no longer possible if law is interpreted by your computer rather than a judge. If the footage of the landing on the moon had been broadcasted with DRM in place, you couldn't reuse one second of the clip, regardless if legal under fair use or not - because your DRM-crippled computer prevented you from doing so.<br />
<br />
===Concluding...===<br />
Wrapped up, the changes we have seen recently in law, technology and in the concentration of the media market, lead to a devastating conclusion: ''"There has never been a time in history when more of our 'culture' was as 'owned' as it is now. And yet there has never been a time when the concentration of power to control the uses of culture has been as unquestioningly accepted as it is now."'' <ref>Lessig, Lawrence; [http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/ Free Culture], 2004, p. 28</ref><br />
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{{Box-Overview|A Revolution in the Making|title=Navigation|<br />
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==References==<br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=About_Money&diff=31915About Money2009-07-31T15:38:53Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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[[Image:Money.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Money makes the world go round...]]<br />
<br />
When discussing free and open source software or free culture, one question always pops up: How do people make money from this? It surely can't be done professionally, in the sense that people can make a living from it?! The answer for software developers is that often customization for your client is a central part of your work and that you can build services like support around your software, or get paid by a big company like Google or IBM that heavily relies on free software. And obviously one can accept donations which works also for artists. They can also raise funds from charities or ask the state or museums to support their projects. Even today, most artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers can't make a living on their passion, in part because much money is already spent on the distribution (music labels or movie studios). Interesting examples of art are the Creative Commons licensed [http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/ comic Scott McCloud did for Google] to present Google Chrome or the very personal [http://foureyedmonsters.com/ Four Eyed Monsters] movie and video blog of Susan Buice and Arin Crumley who even put their feature length [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rRFFi_stY movie on YouTube]. But one keeps wondering if there wouldn't be better ways which would enable even more people to make a living from free software and free culture. <br />
<br />
===Micropayments===<br />
One thing that has been proposed for a long time, but has failed to realize as of yet are micropayments. The idea is to make it very easy and cheap to transact very small amounts of money over the internet. When somebody likes a song or a piece of software she can just hit a button on the website and the creator gets his one or two dollars. Such a simple interface and no transaction costs would make tiny donations like that a lot more attractive and hopefully they would add up to a larger pile of money.<br />
<br />
But maybe we need to change something more fundamental. Maybe, as we go from the industrialized information economy to the networked information economy, we do not only need to rethink the rules of ''intellectual property'', but also the rules of money and the economy. Think of all the flaws of the current system (as evidenced by the ongoing financial crisis). The current monetary system works rather against free software/free culture and the spirit of sharing and community. But they still thrive, because humans will always care about such things, and computers and the internet have greatly facilitated them. A proposal to encourage and facilitate them even more is Open Money. It is still rather a term than an actual concept, but let me now talk about some of the thoughts and ideas that surround it.<br />
<br />
===The current monetary system===<br />
[[Image:Fed.jpg|thumb|300px|The US Federal Reserve headquarters.]]<br />
First, let's have a brief look at how things work today. At the root of almost all money are the central banks of each state: the Federal Reserve (FED) for the US-Dollar, the European Central Bank (ECB) for the Euro and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) for the Yen, to name the three top currencies. They create all the money. For every dollar printed, there used to be a corresponding amount of gold stored in the saves of the central bank and the promise of the state to redeem dollars in gold. But for quite some time this hasn't been the case anymore. Most modern currencies are ''fiat currencies'', which means their value is based entirely on the believe and trust of the people that the currency is actually worth something. Money is a mutual agreement, nothing more. No doubt, it is a very useful agreement, otherwise we'd still have to trade cows for sheep which requires always a ''double-coincidence of wants'' (Person A has a cow and needs a sheep AND at the same time Person B has a sheep but needs a cow). But in the end, money is still nothing more than an agreement. That's why the central banks can create money virtually out of thin air. Although, if they go too far and create too much new money compared to the goods traded, the value of the currency will decrease.<br />
<br />
But the central banks don't put the money directly on the market. Instead, they lend it to private banks at a very low rate of interest – the prime rate (this is always the lowest interest rate in an economy). The private banks in turn lend the money to their customers or other banks at a higher interest rate than the prime, in order to make a profit. <br />
This arrangement has some peculiar consequences. Maybe you never thought about it, but how are all the people (and private banks) able to pay back all their loans plus interest? Where does all the extra money that is required for the interest come from?<br />
<br />
===The infinite growth imperative===<br />
One possibility is that some of the people in the system lose their money to others and go bankrupt – the others are now able to pay back their loans plus interest. That's one of the reasons why competition between companies but also between people tends to get tougher all the time. This obviously works against the spirit of community although it enhances efficiency.<br />
Another way of getting to extra money is that the central bank simply prints more, or lowers the prime interest rate, which has the same effect because then private banks will be able to borrow more money into existence. But if you have the same amount of goods and services traded and increase the amount of money in circulation, it won't take long and people will notice. The value of the money will decrease. A pound of bread may have cost 5$, now it costs 7$ – that's what's called inflation. To prevent this from happening on an exorbitant scale, the economy needs to grow with the money supply. The idea is that if more things are traded in an economy, more money can be created without devaluating the currency. This new money can then be used to pay back the interests after a while and the circle starts anew. That is the source of the growth imperative in our economies. <br />
But how can an economy always continue to grow? One way is to increase the demand for products: more products are sold and more money can be created to compensate. This worked very well during the industrial revolution when people actually gained in welfare when they were able to buy more things. But today, in the industrialized world it is very difficult to sell ever more products. A solution is to manufacture less durable products so people will have to trash them sooner and then have to buy new replacements quicker. You can see this everywhere. Companies that produce too high quality can't sell enough in the long run, so they drive themselves into bankruptcy. Another way for the economy to grow is to have companies take things that previously were free, turn them into a product and charge for them, like for example bottled water. Or Starbucks can charge double the price for a cup of coffee, which is justified by the added experience. For the economy to grow, there should be as much exchange of money as possible. Small favours or mutual care in a family or community are pressured to be replaced by paid work.<br />
The result is always the same: if the economy is growing, more money is needed to change hands. This money can be created by loans – it is virtually loaned into existence. But those loans have interest too, so eventually even more money is required to pay back the interest on those loans. And born is the vicious circle leading to an exponential increase in loans.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Stocks.jpg|thumb|400px|Virtual stocks.]]<br />
Interest obviously also helps making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Because the poor need to borrow money from the rich and have to pay it back plus interest. <br />
So this way of running an economy is not only unfair in the long run, but it has a built-in growth imperative which goes at the expense of the environment. Also, although efficiency is increasing, shorter working hours are nowhere to be seen, because people need to work more in order to earn more money to buy more stuff to keep the economy growing (because individuals are paid for the work done rather than for the work actually needed).<br />
The problems of this system manifest themselves most dramatically in<br />
*financial crises caused by speculative bubbles, currency volatility, or similar<br />
*the problem of supporting the growing percentage of retired people that don't produce money but still need to be cared for (which means in the current system: paid for)<br />
*increasing environmental impact (leading to pollution and climate change)<br />
<br />
While the current economy cries for more products to become commercialized in order to keep the money supply growing, free and open source culture strengthen the non-profit sector and continue to produce value without charging for it. While information doesn't need to be scarce because it is a non-rival good (when you share information you don't lose it), the physical resources of our planet are really scarce indeed (oil, rain-forests, etc). But paradoxically ''intellectual property rights'' try to make information artificially scarce while at the same time the economy needs to grow infinitely, depriving the physical world of its scarce resources in the process. It should be exactly the other way around!<br />
<br />
You won't be surprised to hear now that I have come to the conclusion that this can't go on forever. So what about solutions? There have been numerous proposals to improve the current system, some more radical than others. But none have been tested on a really large scale, which makes evaluating them very difficult. The truth is that the motivations, interactions and the resulting individual and group behaviour of the whole population of earth is so insanely difficult to predict that I don't think we have much of a chance to know whether a proposed economic system works as desired or not without trying it out on a large enough scale.<br />
<br />
===Demurrage===<br />
One way to tackle the problem of interest is to abandon it and replace it with ''demurrage'': a fee for holding money over a given amount of time. This concept was proposed (among others) by the German economist Silvio Gesell around 1900. The largest experiment putting this theory into praxis was when the Austrian town of Wörgl introduced its own currency with demurrage in 1932, when people were saving their money during the Great Depression instead of putting it into circulation again. In such credit crunches, central banks usually lower the prime rates and print more money to get the economy going again, but in times of great uncertainty, people tend to hoard this new money too and the measures have no effect. In Wörgl, people were required to regularly purchase stamps that were attached to the money in order to keep it valid. That way the function of money as a store of value was abolished and it functioned only as a medium of exchange and a unit of account. The experiment was a huge success: people had to spend their money in order to pay less demurrage which resulted in faster circulation of money and rapid growth in employment. Unfortunately, in 1933 the experiment was terminated by the Austrian National Bank on the grounds that it was a threat to the Bank's monopoly on printing money and soon unemployment was on the rise again.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Crowd wallstreet.jpg|thumb|Crowd gathering on Wall Street after the 1929 crash.]]<br />
Today, instead of requiring stamps on paper money, the demurrage can obviously be subtracted automatically from electronic bank accounts. With interest based currencies, you gain money when you hoard it, with demurrage you lose it. So you can't invest your saved wealth in money and expect it to grow. This leads to investments that have a high long term return, as opposed to the short term thinking and infinite growth imperative that dominates the current system. Suddenly, it's more worthwhile to invest in a forest and keep it intact to continue to harvest smaller amounts of wood over a very longer period of time, instead of chopping it all down right now and invest the earnings on the financial market which makes for a higher profit in the short term.<br />
<br />
===Community currencies===<br />
The national currencies issued by the central banks are far from the only currencies. Money which is not legal tender is often called ''scrip''. Frequent flyer miles or similar loyalty programs can also be thought of as currencies and there are many ''alternative'' or ''complementary currencies'' that are in use in combination with standard currencies. Some of them make use of demurrage, others don't. A subset of complementary currencies are ''local currencies'' which can be used only in a small area. This stimulates the local economy and strengthens the sense of community in a town or area. That's why they are also often called ''community currencies''.<br />
One of the first modern complementary currencies is the [http://www.ithacahours.org/ Ithaca Hour]. One Ithaca Hour is supposed to be worth as much as one hour of work done (or can be changed into 10 US-Dollars). They are only redeemable in the city of Ithaca (NY). Because Ithaca Hours don't have demurrage and somebody has to print them, the issuers of the money have to face the same challenges of monetary policy as all the central banks. Too much money in circulation will lead to inflation, too little to deflation. On the other hand, things are simplified by the fact that Ithaca Hours circulate only in a small area and new money is usually inserted into the system by interest-free loans to locals or grants to local non-profits.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Ithaca.JPG|thumb|300px|Shops in Ithaca.]]<br />
An entirely different approach is ''mutual credit''. Most of these systems are called Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). There is no physical money, instead the system is based on central bookkeeping, usually electronically and accessible through a normal web browser. Each participant has an account and when he pays another participant, the amount is simply subtracted from his account and added to the other's. This concept can also be thought of interest-free loans and there is no problem with having a little minus in your account. But if you only buy products and services through the system without giving anything back, your account will go deep into minus at the expense of the other participants. This is usually dealt with caps on negative balance or the participants might be able to look at the account balance of anybody before doing business with him. Also LETS are often local or limited to only a few hundred participants and a network of trust in a community holds people accountable. LETS don't need to worry about monetary policy because money is only created in the instance of the transaction – the system is thus self-regulating.<br />
<br />
A interesting project which is still in its infancy is [http://ripple.sourceforge.net/ Ripple], an effort to develop an open source peer-to-peer protocol to exchange money all over the world. At the core of Ripple lies the idea that within a network of trust between peers, transactions can be made without the need for a third party like a bank that charges for them. <br />
Another proposal is to use units of energy as currency. Coupled with ''smart grids'', radically distributed energy production might become a reality: people would sell energy, for example produced by solar panels on their rooftops. Maybe half of the price of products to purchase would have to be paid in energy units, the other half in a normal currency. The energy part of the price would be exactly the energy that is required to produce and distribute the product.<br />
<br />
There is a huge number of different community currencies. Many new networks choose to experiment with the system's mechanics or adapt it to local circumstances. Although many projects emphasize on local communities, there are also lots of networks that can make transfers all around the world and currencies that have either floating or fixed exchange rates to other community or national currencies. Community currencies need not be centered around geographic communities, there are also communities on the internet. For example virtual worlds like Second Life or World of Warcraft feature their own in-world currencies. They might be a suitable place to experiment with new exotic currencies on a large enough scale as there are often thousands of players in these worlds.<br />
<br />
===Conclusion===<br />
Obviously, no complementary currency has made the breakthrough into mainstream yet. But the ongoing financial crisis will undoubtedly make them more attractive. I sincerely hope that sooner rather than later someone comes up with a system that scales well and that favours long-term investments and the spirit of sharing and community. Complementary currencies will probably continue to exist alongside our current currencies for a long time. If they become mainstream, they will enable more people to make a living from free culture. And our children will be thankful to us if they still have a planet left to live on when they are our age.<br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=2.3_Economics_of_Information_Production&diff=319142.3 Economics of Information Production2009-07-31T15:38:28Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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[[Image:Circuit_board.jpg|thumb|400px|right|The value of this piece of silicon doesn't lie in the material but in the information on how it is organized.]]<br />
===Industrial and Networked Information Economy===<br />
For the last 150 years the economies of the more advanced nations have been mainly industrial economies. The Industrial Revolution has led to the cheap mass manufacturing of physical goods where producing 100 or 100'000 copies of a product costs nearly the same. As in the 20th century information was also mainly distributed through media with high up-front costs, like broadcasting or physical records and prints, and information production wasn't quite cheap, the industrial information economy produces content for an audience as large as possible to gain more profit per-copy.<ref>Benkler, Yochai; [http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom], 2006, p. 32</ref> This led to the rise of the mass media and the commercialization and concentration of information production. ([[2.1_Copyright_and_Mass_Media#Mass_Media|2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]])<br />
<br />
However, with the advent of the personal computer and the internet, the capital necessary to produce and distribute information is now widely available to millions of people. These are the prerequisites for the emergence of the networked information economy.<ref>Benkler, p. 3</ref> These changes come at a time when especially technical products grow ever more complex and more of the value of a material product is contained in the information it carries, rather than its material substance.<ref>[http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/free_matter_economy Towards a free matter economy (Part 1): Information as matter, matter as information], Terry Hancock at the Free Software Magazine</ref> Thus the focus of economies in industrialized nations is shifting from manufacturing goods to information production, as cheap labour is available in emerging markets like China, and the issue only gains in importance. <br />
<br />
==='Intellectual Property'===<br />
In most countries, there exist a lot of different laws today concerning entitlements attached to certain names, written and recorded media, and inventions. The most important are ''copyright'' which is meant to regulate copying, ''patents'' that are meant to prevent others from practicing an invention, and ''trademarks'' which make sure a distinctive sign or indicator that is used to identify an organization's product as its own, is not used by other businesses. The controversial umbrella term ''intellectual property'' is often used to lump all these different laws together. In recent years, we have observed calls to ever stronger ''intellectual property rights'' arguing that they encouraged innovation. Jack Valenti, long-time president of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and one of the most influential pro-copyright lobbyists in the world, formulated what he considered 'the fundamental issue' simple:<br />
<cite>Creative property owners must be accorded the same rights and protection resident in all other property owners in the nation.<ref>Quoted from Lessig, Lawrence; [http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/ Free Culture], 2004, p. 117</ref></cite><br />
<br />
[[Image:Note.jpg|thumb|150px|left|A song is...]]<br />
[[Image:Chair.jpg|thumb|150px|left|...not a chair.]]<br />
This claim is intuitively plausible, because it's simple. But it ignores one significant fact which the misleading term ''intellectual property'' already implies: Intellectual works are not analogous to physical property. A song is not the same thing as a chair. What we call ''intellectual works'', or ''ideas'' is ultimately information. For example knowledge written down in a book, or virtually anything that can be digitally represented as a series of zeros and ones - be it text, sound, video or virtual 3D objects - is information. And information is a nonrival good. That means that it can be used by one person without preventing others from using it simultaneously. If I sit on a chair, nobody else can (comfortably) sit on the same chair at the same time. But if I watch television, this doesn't prevent anybody else from watching television too. What is more, with digital technology huge amounts of information can be copied without consuming anything but a tiny bit of electricity. That's the difference between stealing a chair from my neighbour and downloading a song from another computer. My neighbour can't make use of the chair anymore, because it isn't there anymore, whereas the song was copied and resides now on both computers - joy shared is joy doubled.<br />
<br />
The other distinct quality of information is that existing information itself is a prerequisite to produce new information. It is difficult to invent a bicycle if the basic invention of the wheel is not known. That's why the simple logic currently held by most governments doesn't deliver. It says that ever more exclusive rights like copyright and patents will lead to more innovation, because innovators have greater incentive to innovate as they can then make exclusive use of their invention. But many potential inventors are locked out from innovating because they can't pay for yesterday's information. <br />
<br />
When information is given away for free, this is to the best of society's overall welfare because that way many more people can profit from it. As information is nonrival, this doesn't hurt anybody if there is enough incentive to produce information in the first place.<br />
<br />
===Patents===<br />
In today's complex products, much information needed to understand or improve them is designated 'property' of various entities. For example a DVD player contains about a dozen devices that are patented by different companies. A single microchip can contain over 5,000 different patents.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Tragedy of the anticommons]], 29. July 2007</ref> As of 2005, there are over 1.5 million patents in force only in the United States.<ref>[http://www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/statistics/patents/inforce/index.html Patents in Force], WIPO</ref> Thus, further innovation in many industries is only possible with access to a large number of patents. It can be very expensive to get certain patents licensed from their owner which has the consequence that certain new inventions that rely on patented information are never produced. And because it is expendable to identify the needed patents and license all of them one by one, many companies use cross-licensing agreements which basically say that each company has full access to the other's patent portfolio. <br />
This locks out small innovators and leads to a concentration of information property. Thus law relying heavily on exclusive information property rights shapes business practices, favouring exclusive-rights-based strategies of closed companies rather than nonproprietary ones where a large community forms around a pool of commons-owned information as for example in free software projects. <br />
<br />
In order for an issued patent on an invention to be granted it has to meet certain criteria: <ref>[[Wikipedia:Patentability]]</ref><br />
* The invention or discovery of a new and useful process must lie within ''patentable subject matter'', for example scientific theories, mathematical methods or aesthetic creations are not patentable.<br />
* The invention must be ''novel'',<br />
* It must be non-obvious (in United States patent law) or involve an inventive step (in European patent law),<br />
* and be useful (U.S.) or be susceptible of industrial application (Europe).<br />
When a patent is filed, the patent office has to consider whether it is valid under these criteria and can then grant the patent. It is then in force for usually 20 years from the filing date, provided the patentee pays the renewal fees, generally due each year.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Software_patents.JPG|thumb|200px|left|Growth of issued Software patents in the United States.]]<br />
Patents are meant to encourage innovation. In some industries this aim may be achieved with patents, in others this is highly questionable. Especially software patents are under heavy fire at the moment. While they are allowed in the United States, in the European Union it is held that software isn't patentable as such. In the rapidly developing field of software development, many techniques that have been granted a patent by the patent office are all too obvious to most developers and while writing software they always have to fear that they infringe on some patent that they didn't even know existed and then get sued.<ref>[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fighting-software-patents.html Fighting Software Patents - Singly and Together], Richard Stallman</ref> It is virtually impossible to develop software without hitting a patent sooner or later. Software companies are thus forced to acquire a large patent portfolio of their own in order to countersue a competing company that might chose to sue them for infringement, something that isn't possible for small developers. Additionally, patents on file formats hinder implementation of these formats in other programs and thus prevent interoperability, forcing consumers to use only one program and many free and open source software projects that operate at practically no budget can't pay for patent licensing.<br />
Also patents in other industries, especially patents on human genes, are highly disputed and in medicine they often prevent cheap generic drugs that might be badly needed by the poor of the world.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Newspapers.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Newspapers are an example of information production business that doesn't rely on the protections of intellectual property. If competition were to copy an article it was an old hat when printed the next day.]]<br />
Most firm managers don't see patents as the most important way to capture the benefits of their research and developments and most innovation doesn't come from businesses relying on exclusive rights, but from nonmarket sources (both state and private) and market actors whose business models do not depend on the protections of intellectual property.<ref>Benkler, p. 40-41</ref><br />
<br />
===Exclusive Rights in a Digital World===<br />
The three primary inputs needed for information production are existing information, mechanical means of production and distribution, and human communicative capacity.<ref>Benkler, p. 52</ref> With computers and the internet, the costs of the second category are now radically low. While exclusive rights do encourage information production on a limited scale as the expected benefit is greater, they do primarily stifle information production as the up-front cost of obtaining the information necessary to further innovate is higher. <br />
If existing information wasn't locked down by 'intellectual property law', with computers and the internet being the only resource left narrowing informational and cultural production would be human communicative and creative capacity. But as it is now, laws are hindering the potential of the networked information economy. <br />
In the next chapter, the workings of the networked information economy are being looked at.<br />
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==References==<br />
<references/><br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=2.4_Property_and_Commons&diff=319132.4 Property and Commons2009-07-31T15:38:00Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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[[Image:Steel_furnace.jpg|thumb|350px|right|Production of physical goods is mostly handled by the market...]]<br />
===Nonmarket Production===<br />
Nonmarket production plays a bigger role in our economy than often realized. Whether it's a parent looking after the children the whole day or people just voluntarily helping each other, a lot of things get done without money ever changing hands. It has also always been true that nonmarket mechanisms were much more important in the production of information than physical goods. There are no voluntary steel manufacturers and we don't just pick up a new car for free because someone feels like producing one. Nonetheless, we rely on a large volume of information everyday that is produced on a voluntary basis. Non-governmental organizations and private foundations are dedicated to solving pressing issues the market doesn't care about and governments don't have resources at hand to solve. In everyday life we obtain counsel and information from colleagues about what film to watch or what road to drive and virtually all of our basic research is funded by governments or nonprofit institutions. With computers and the internet readily available to millions of people, the means of producing and distributing information are now widely held throughout the population. Thus nonmarket behaviour is becoming central to how our information and culture is produced.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Flyers.jpg|thumb|250px|right|...while information also gets often produced on a voluntary basis.]]<br />
As working hours are going down in the economically more developed countries, more spare time is available for voluntary activity. Through information and communication technology, these resources can be used more effectively as people have better access to existing information and have a medium through which they can express themselves, communicate and collaborate with others.<br />
<br />
The highest motivation for work is usually thought to be money. However, we are motivated by a wide range of things. We look for social rewards like acknowledgments or higher social standing in our communities. We have intrinsic motivations like pleasure or personal satisfaction when we feel we have achieved something. Even small payments may undermine intrinsic motivations as we might prefer to work for free for a good cause rather than do the same work for a monetary reward.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Motivation crowding theory]]</ref><br />
<br />
===Peer Production===<br />
Resources can be handled either as property or as a commons. Most physical objects and also land are usually considered property while for example the roads network, water or public services are shared within a community and are thus commons. When information is treated as property it is made scarce against its nonrival nature. Proprietary information introduces transaction costs which ultimately hinders overall information production as shown in the [[2.3 Economics of Information Production|previous chapter]]. Through the internet, a new model of production has evolved which relies heavily on the sharing of information as a commons. It also works radically decentralized. Everyone can drop by, participate and contribute in the domains that interest them personally the most — as opposed to centralized production, where some boss somewhere decides what gets done by whom. This decentralized collaborative production method in which the resources are organized as a commons is called '''commons-based peer production'''.<ref>Term coined by Yochai Benkler. Benkler, Yochai; [http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom], 2006, p. 60; [[Wikipedia:Commons-based peer production]]</ref><br />
<br />
Until now, the most advanced example of large-scale peer production is the development of free and open source software. ([[1.1 The GNU Project and Free Software]] and [[1.2 GNU/Linux and Open Source]]) Hundreds of volunteers are collaborating over the internet, using such diverse tools as email, mailing lists and chat. But, first of all, specialised revision control software helps to organize all the code and keeps track of the many changes it is undergoing. To date, the result of these collaborative acts is thousands of software packages that compete with and often outperform the established software industry's products. As software is a finished product that consists solely of information, it is only natural that commons-based peer productions work very well here.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Wikipedia-logo.png|thumb|left|The logo of the English Wikipedia.]]<br />
This production strategy was also adopted outside the domain of software. Wikipedia, a multilingual encyclopedia which everybody can edit with only a simple web browser, started in 2001 and continues to grow at a huge pace, hosting over 7 million articles today. Although often criticized to be untrustworthy, vandalism is usually reverted very quickly<ref>[http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/papers/history_flow.pdf Studying Cooperation and Conflict between Authors with History Flow Visualizations]</ref> and the fact that Wikipedia is one of the top ten most-visited websites worldwide proves that it is a very valuable resource.<ref>Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation that is now operating Wikipedia and its sister projects emphasize on the importance of free knowledge and free software.[http://blog.jimmywales.com/index.php/archives/2004/10/21/free-knowledge-requires-free-software-and-free-file-formats/]</ref> Other peer productions include the news site Slashdot, NASA clickworkers (where volunteers can map martian craters on satellite imagery) or Project Gutenberg (where old texts long in the public domain are scanned and then proofread for errors by many participants, the result being an ever growing library of digitized books freely available over the internet as plain text).<br />
<br />
[[Image:Clickworkers.jpg|thumb|right|NASA Clickworkers: Each dot is where a participant clicked on the rim of a crater, resulting in a digital map.]]<br />
In all these different peer productions, the whole project needs to be broken down in smaller parts that individuals can work on in the limited time they have. So, naturally, some projects work better as peer productions than others. The work on Wikipedia with its many independent encyclopedic articles is easier to distribute among many participants than, let's say, the writing of a book which needs to have a consistent style and structure. However, if parameters are clearly stated from the start and everybody is willing to write one small chapter, a task like writing a book can also be accomplished. As the concept of peer productions is still very young, new organizational methods are being discovered and technical tools built every day to help coordinate work and realize projects never thought possible before.<br />
<br />
While some projects need to be centrally controlled and will never work very efficiently as peer productions, commons-based peer productions do have some significant advantages. When the workers themselves choose what to do, they identify much more with their tasks and can spontaneously help out without needing to ask anybody for permission or signing a new employment contract first. This can, however, also easily lead to individuals misjudging their own abilities: an important part of every peer production is thus quality control by other participants. What is the case with the ever increasing amount of information to be found on the internet is also the case for single peer productions: The accreditation and the mapping for relevance and quality are as important as the actual production of the information. But also this work can also be peer produced. Many sites have implemented features for voting the comments or contributions of others up or down. Filters which hide low-rated comments initially are very useful. While the Google search engine ranks sites which are often linked-to from other sites higher in their search results,<ref>More information about the Google search algorithm: [[Wikipedia:PageRank]]</ref> Wikipedia relies primarily on social mechanisms and favours discussion as a means to reach consensus. <br />
<br />
Commons-based peer productions are here to stay. Humans have always shared and collaborated with one another. Of course, not everything is always shared, but when widespread technology facilitates sharing, sharing will happen more often. Information and communication technologies have enabled projects where lots of people can work together although they are spread all around the globe. Peer productions don't draw labour away from the market; instead, they use resources unused by the market and thus form a competition to market production in some domains. Firms can also profit from these mechanisms when working together with nonmarket forces. The border between producers on one side, and consumers and users on the other side, blurs. Increasingly, consumers come to produce what they want themselves, collaborating with like-minded people or companies. New business models and more 'interactive products' are needed in this networked information economy. Relics and business models out of the industrial information economy need to be overcome.<br />
<br />
===Free Content===<br />
Commons-owned information that can be accessed and (re)used by everyone is more valuable to the economy and society as a whole than proprietary information. Thus, commons-based peer productions with their non-proprietary outputs should be welcomed twice. However, there are also peer productions that output proprietary information which can't be reused for further information production as its use is restricted by 'intellectual property' law. YouTube is an example for this, the videos hosted on this user-powered site can't be downloaded again, but are held on the central server where they are meant to reside, flushing ever more advertising revenue into the company's cash-boxes. While there's no doubt that some very interesting and often entertaining content is to be found on YouTube, the works are trapped there and can't be creatively reused.<br />
<br />
On the other side, non-proprietary information production enables a free culture ([[2.2 Information Technology and 'Piracy'|Chapter 2.2]]). '''Free content''' (as in freedom) is any work having no significant legal restriction relative to people's freedom to use, redistribute, and produce modified versions of and works derived from the content.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Free content]]; [http://freedomdefined.org/Definition Definition of Free Cultural Works]</ref> To achieve this, default copyright has to be overridden and the owner of the work has to license it to the public and permit everyone to copy, change and redistribute it. <br />
<br />
[[Image:CreativeCommons.png|thumb|317px|right|Creative Commons logo.]]<br />
This strategy was first used by the free software community, and later the emerging free culture movement took those ideals and extended them from the software field to the whole culture. ([[1.1 The GNU Project and Free Software#Copyleft|Chapter 1.1]]) The most commonly used software license is as said the GNU GPL. For text, especially functional works such as textbooks, the GNU FDL (GFDL) was developed and all of Wikipedia's text is licensed under it. Both are copyleft licenses, meaning they allow redistribution of derivative works under the condition that this happens under the same license, preventing the content from becoming non-free. Also commercial redistribution is permitted. <br />
<br />
To provide potential authors with a greater set of choices, the non-profit organization '''Creative Commons''' created six licenses of their own, meant for text as well as music, images and video. Now, creators can choose a license and allow copying of their works for noncommercial use only, or changes may be prohibited. The original author, however, always has to be attributed when a work is copied. For artistic works, the Free Art License can also be used.<br />
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{|border="1" style="text-align:center"<br />
|-<br />
! colspan="2"|License<br />
! Attribution required?<br>[[Image:Cc-by.png]]<br />
! Commercial use allowed?<br>[[Image:Cc-nc.png]]<br />
! Derivative works allowed?<br>[[Image:Cc-nd.png]]<br />
! Copyleft (Share-Alike)<br>[[Image:Cc-sa.png]]<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"|[http://www.gnu.org/ GNU]<br />
| GPL (software)<br />
| no<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
|-<br />
| GFDL (text)<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="6"|[http://creativecommons.org/ Creative Commons]<br />
| Attribution (by)<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| no<br />
|-<br />
| Attribution-NonCommercial (by-nc)<br />
| yes<br />
| no<br />
| yes<br />
| no<br />
|-<br />
| Attribution-NoDerivs (by-nd)<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| no<br />
| no<br />
|-<br />
| Attribution-ShareAlike (by-sa)<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
|-<br />
| Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (by-nc-nd)<br />
| yes<br />
| no<br />
| no<br />
| no<br />
|-<br />
| Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (by-nc-sa)<br />
| yes<br />
| no<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
|-<br />
| [http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/ Copyleft Attitude]<br />
| Free Art License<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
|-<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
This flood of different licenses has, however, led to some confusion and even incompatibility. For example, a work licensed under the GNU FDL license cannot be joined with a work under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license as both licenses require any modified version of a work to be under the exact same license again.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Lessig.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig promoting free culture.]]<br />
Everybody agrees that even the most restrictive of the Creative Commons licenses, the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, is better than complete default copyright. However, only two of the various Creative Commons licenses qualify as free content licenses: the Attribution and the Attribution-ShareAlike license.<ref>[http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses Definition of Free Cultural Works: Licenses]</ref> The others impose too severe restrictions on the reuse of the work. On the other hand, works of personal opinion probably shouldn't be altered. In such cases, a bloated license isn't even necessary and it might be sufficient to add a phrase like this: ''Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted worldwide without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.''<br />
<br />
===Sharing Hardware===<br />
Not only does information, knowledge and culture get peer produced, but also material resources are shared. That's the way peer-to-peer file-sharing networks work ([[2.2 Information Technology and 'Piracy'#File_Sharing|Chapter 2.2]]), users sharing the storage space on their computers and their internet bandwidth with one another, thus distributing the hardware costs typically needed to spread such massive amounts of data. But also the computational power of many home computers inter-connected over the internet outperforms the most powerful server farms in existence. Every computer owner connected to the internet can download a free [http://boinc.berkeley.edu/ program] that runs in the background all the time and calculates data when the computer is idle. These distributed computing projects range from analyzing radio telescope data in Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI@home) to calculating molecular dynamics simulations that can eventually be used in fighting diseases (Folding@home). Again, the power to perform such high-capacity calculations is achieved through voluntarily pooling resources. The participants don't receive any payment but they are listed on the project's websites in order of their contribution and do it for a goal greater than themselves.<br />
<br />
This sharing of hardware only makes sense because technology developed to make it possible for cheap, high-performance hardware to be widely distributed among the population. If really fast network connections were significantly cheaper than fast computational hardware, computers might have been centralized in order to be used economically. We would then have thin clients (a monitor, keyboard and mouse) connected to a remotely located server. If this were the case, then there wouldn't be any excess computer capacities to be used by distributed computing projects.<br />
<br />
<br />
{{Box-Overview|A Revolution in the Making|title=Navigation|<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[2.3 Economics of Information Production]] <nowiki>|</nowiki> [[2.5 Individual and Public]] &rarr;<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==References==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=3.1_The_State_of_It_All&diff=319123.1 The State of It All2009-07-31T15:37:45Z<p>MauroB: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Template:Navigate-Overview|2.5 Individual and Public|Appendix: About Money}}<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:Earth.jpg|thumb|400px|right|A bit of farsightedness is sometimes needed.]]<br />
<br />
Now we have seen the many advantages the networked information economy has over the industrialized information economy in both economics as well as potential in providing for a society more free and more just. However, the necessary developments in technology won't lead automatically to the utilization of the enabled potentials. Whether this is the case or not depends on a number of factors, most significantly on the social practices in a given society (will people share and collaborate under these circumstances?) and the political actions taken by legislature (are those practices legal and are they favoured or hindered?). <br />
<br />
In fact, we are seeing strong opposition to the concepts of the networked information society, originating either from poor understanding and the firm believe in exclusive rights on information, or from fear for last-century business models. This has led to strong lobbying and tilted the institutional ecology of the digital environment in favour of the industrial instead of the networked information economy. The current extremism held by most legislatives is resulting in ever stronger 'intellectual property' laws and established industries, like Hollywood and the recording industry which hold a huge part of our culture of the 20th century, are hoarding information and try to prevent people from sharing. We are at a critical time and the decisions we are facing today will greatly influence the availability of basic resources for information production and exchange now and in the future. <br />
<br />
For the networked information society to work, two things are needed to supplement human creativity: existing information and tools to create and share more information. <br />
<br />
===Tools===<br />
The tools necessary are firstly general-purpose computers over which the users have full control and can make whatever use of they want, and secondly a neutral network over which people can freely exchange whatever information they want. At the moment, both of these are available in form of personal computers and the internet. However, there are a number of threats to this. <br />
<br />
[[Image:TComputing.jpg|thumb|300px|left|Frame out of the animated short film [http://lafkon.net/tc/ ''trusted computing''].]]<br />
The general-purpose computer is in danger by a technology dubbed ''Trusted Computing'' which more accurately is called ''Treacherous Computing''. It is a technology implemented in both hardware and software that would give the responsible companies full control over your computer.<ref>[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html Can You Trust Your Computer?], Richard Stallman</ref> As those companies don't trust you, they build a combination of hard- and software they can trust (hence the term), relying on a TPM-chip in the computer that makes it uniquely identifiable. A nearly unbreakable DRM system is imaginable where data like music or personal information could be encrypted in a way that only the exact same combination of software (like iTunes) and hardware (your computer) would be able to decrypt it again. Copying of DRM-ed music would be rendered impossible and your computer could even refuse to allow not-certified software to be run. The only way to be sure what your computer is exactly doing is to run free and open source software whose workings are laid open and even this might be prevented with ''Trusted Computing'' on hardware-level.<br />
Also mobile phones that are operator-controlled deny the user access to the full capabilities of the phone.<br />
<br />
At the moment, a rich ecosystem of free and open source software guarantees that everybody has the tools to use his computer for lots of different purposes. The internet is built on open standards that non-profit organizations like the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) or the Internet Engineering Task Force are developing. But proprietary software and especially proprietary file formats are counteracting the networked information society. Whereas open standards can be used and implemented by anyone without need for licensing, data saved in proprietary file formats can only be thoroughly retrieved with the same or a licensed program because only the vendor knows how the data is stored exactly. This leads to vendor lock-in and prevents interoperability. Microsoft has used its monopoly extensively and tries to lock consumers for example into its proprietary Word program or by implementing internet standards incorrectly, pressing website developers to create websites that would display wrongly in other browsers than Microsoft's market dominating Internet Explorer.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Criticism of Microsoft#Market power]], [[Wikipedia:European Union v. Microsoft]], [[Wikipedia:United States v. Microsoft]], [[Wikipedia:Halloween documents]]</ref><br />
<br />
On the network side, a neutral network is needed where all information flowing is treated equally. The biggest threat to this are currently ISPs (Internet Service Providers) that might want to control the last mile, the network connection from a communications provider to the customer (you). They might choose to prioritize some data packages or block certain services (like peer-to-peer file-sharing systems or the website of a competitor) entirely. Internet censorship is already widely practiced in countries like China. Initiatives against this threat are municipal broadband and the development of open wireless networks. The technology is there to build devices like computers and mobile phones that have wireless ad-hoc networking capabilities. Then every device would forward data from other devices, carrying each others data flows and self-configuring into a high-speed wireless network. This way consumers could build their own last mile. Unfortunately, telecommunications service providers might not want this to happen but keep a monopoly on the last mile and refuse to sell such devices or even boycott manufacturers that produce such equipment.<br />
<br />
[[Image:PirateParty.jpg|thumb|300px|left|A rally of the Pirate Party.]]<br />
<br />
===Existing Information===<br />
For a networked culture to thrive, access to existing information is crucial. Sadly we are seeing policy makers in favour of exclusive rights and copyright terms for example are just going up and up. On the other hand, there exists an increased sharing practice on the internet and people all over the world start to realize the importance of the issues outlined in this text. The initiatives of free culture and open source are building alternative systems to the exclusive rights based one. At the same time, there are also efforts in persuading politicians on reforms and in Sweden the first political [http://www.piratpartiet.se/international Pirate Party] was founded, promoting intellectual property reforms and strengthening of the right to privacy.<br />
<br />
[[Image:PLoS.jpg|thumb|196px|Public Library of Science logo.]]<br />
In the domain of scientific publication, researchers and scholars used to submit their papers exclusively to acknowledged journals such as ''Nature'' or ''Science'' in order to gain reputation promoting their career. Usually they then have to pay for submission and have to reassign the copyright of the text to the journal, the text then gets peer reviewed by other experts of the field. This way the research is locked in and to get again access to the information and ongoing research of others, universities have to pay incredibly high subscription fees for the journals which especially institutes in the developing world simply can't afford. Taking the internet into the picture, the concept of '''open access''' has emerged.<ref>[http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm Open Access Overview], Peter Suber</ref> The information is published on the internet and released as free content ([[2.4 Property and Commons#Free Content|chapter 2.4]]) so everybody has unrestricted access and can profit from existing research. At the moment there are two slightly differing models of open access (OA): <br />
'''OA self-archiving''' where authors still publish their work in traditional journals but additionally are allowed to make it freely accessible on the internet, sometimes with a delay or only the not peer reviewed version, and '''OA publishing''' where authors submit their work to open access journals where it is freely and immediately accessible.<ref>[http://www.doaj.org/ Directory of Open Access Journals]</ref><br />
As most of our basic research is taxpayer-funded it is only honest that the outcome should be publicly accessible and some government institutions are starting to mandate open access publishing of the research they finance. <br />
Different open access publishers have different financing models. Non-profits like the Public Library of Science ([http://www.plos.org/ PLoS]) apply peer review and demand a submission fee of the authors, while for example the also non-profit [http://arxiv.org arXiv] is a highly automated archive and its contents are not peer reviewed but publication is free in turn. The arXiv is already broadly accepted in the fields of mathematics and physics and most of the research in these fields is published there. There are also for-profit open access publishers like the [http://www.biomedcentral.com/ BioMed Central] that publish the papers also as free content and have diverse revenue streams.<br />
<br />
[[Image:BiOS.gif|thumb|196px|BiOS logo. Also in the field of agriculture and medicine open approaches are explored.]]<br />
In the fields of agricultural biotechnology and medicine, which are especially important for the people in economically less developed countries, most information is still handled as property. Research for example on different crops resulting in higher yields in agriculture and increasingly research in genetically modified plants is property held by a few companies or even universities and scientist in poorer countries have no chance to further innovate or adapt these technologies more precisely to their local climate. HIV/AIDS drugs are sold at very high prices that millions of people in the poorer parts of the world simply can't pay for and die because the companies holding the patents prevent competitors from producing cheap generics. On the other hand, teenagers in the industrialized world get ever finer acne products while there is still no malaria vaccine - not because nobody would need it, but because nobody could pay for it. Nonprofit research and the pooling of information and research results as a commons would lead to more innovation and access to core technologies would enable people in the economically less developed countries to help themselves. <br />
In agriculture, initiatives like [http://www.bios.net/daisy/bios/1373.html BiOS] (Biological Innovation for Open Society/Biological Open Source) of the international non-profit institute CAMBIA or the formation of the [http://www.cgiar.org/ CGIAR] (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) are a start while in the health sector and in the development of drugs and medicine still only Big Pharma business is dominating and only the [http://www.oneworldhealth.org/ Institute for OneWorld Health] is worth mentioning.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Fab@Home.png|thumb|300px|right|An assembled fabber of the [http://www.fabathome.org/ Fab@Home project].]]<br />
While the core of these mechanisms of collaboration and sharing is information, the value of many physical products lies increasingly in the information they contain rather than the material. A drug may be just one small pill, a computer just a bunch of silicon, but nonetheless the information that lies behind the production of these objects is immense and makes them powerful. The free/open design movement, which is still in its infancy, aims to collaborate on the design of physical objects which is facilitated for example by the modeling of virtual 3D objects on the computer and other CAD software.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Open design]]</ref> Also the design of computer hardware itself is starting to be peer produced.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Open source hardware]]</ref> If 3D printers or fabbers (digital fabricators) that can make 3D objects described by digital data become one day as cheap as ordinary paper printers, the digital revolution brought about by home computers might step into the realm of physical objects.<ref>[http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.09/fablab.html The Dream Factory], Clive Thompson at Wired magazine</ref><br />
<br />
Another important area where the networked information society might come to play a major role is in coining virtual money. Future currencies need not necessarily be created and administred by states. [http://www.mindjack.com/feature/futuremoney.html A brief text available here.]<br />
<br />
===Concluding===<br />
The claim presented in this text is not that technology will magically lead to a better world, but rather that technology does influence a given society. Depending on what use people make of these available technologies, they have different effects on a society. Computers and the internet provide for new models of information production which are, if realized, beneficial to individual freedom in liberal societies. However, these technologies could also be used to control the individual rather than empower it. DRM and Treacherous Computing as well as various efforts threatening privacy such as government-spying are dangers not to be understated. <br />
<br />
If people choose to rely on proprietary information instead on sharing or if legislatures render sharing illegal or hinder peer-produced innovation for example by means of exclusive rights, the networking information society is weakened. Whether technology will be allowed to unfold its possibilities and the networked information society will become a widespread reality or whether these possibilities are turned down depends largely on the actions and decisions we are facing now. Today, we live in a critical time of technological and social change. We as a society now have the choice of using these technologies to a greater benefit or letting this moment of opportunity pass.<br />
<br />
<br />
{{Box-Overview|A Revolution in the Making|title=Navigation|<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[2.5 Individual and Public]] <nowiki>|</nowiki> [[Appendix: About Money]] &rarr;<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==References==<br />
<references/><br />
[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=2.5_Individual_and_Public&diff=319112.5 Individual and Public2009-07-31T15:35:41Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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<div>{{Template:Navigate-Overview|2.4 Property and Commons|3.1 The State of It All}}<br />
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[[Image:People.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Technological changes influence societies in distinctive ways.]]<br />
The changes brought about by the networked information economy have great implications not only on the economy but also on the individual and society as a whole. Here is why they are to be welcomed.<br />
<br />
===Individual===<br />
In the industrial information economy work was organized hierarchically: workers had to do what their boss told them to, whereas in the networked information economy they can work more autonomously and often choose what task to address themselves. If they feel the need for something, they may well be able to do it themselves. (Raymond coined the phrase: "Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch."<ref>Raymond, Eric S.; [http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s02.html The Mail Must Get Through], ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar'', 1997</ref>) With lots of information and tools to produce information right at their hands, it has become much more feasible for the individual to get a task done at his own account. On the other hand, as there are millions of people connected to the internet, the chance of finding someone trying to solve the same problem is also much higher. So it is also much easier to find likeminded people and start a collaborative effort to get the task done. The passive consumers of the industrial information economy are changing to active participants and producers of the networked information economy. Individuals can do more for and by themselves, alone, or in loose collaboration with others.<ref>Benkler, Yochai; [http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom], 2006, p. 9</ref> <br />
They become more critical consumers as they understand the process of information production better and doing things themselves come to understand the workings of media better. The transparency of internet culture leads to a more self-conscious and critical discourse about the culture we inhabit.<br />
<br />
With much unfiltered information easily accessible on the internet, individuals have a greater foundation of knowledge from various sources available to base their decisions on. <br />
If for example uncertain what product to buy, it is easy to compare various competing products by prices and quality. A wide range of critical opinions may lead an individual to consider possibilities to shape their lives never thought of before. This increases individual autonomy and individual freedom.<br />
<br />
===Public Sphere===<br />
Media play a big role in how liberal democratic societies reach their decisions and how public opinion is formed. The economics of the industrial information economy led to the concentration of the mass media and control over public opinion. ([[2.1 Copyright and Mass Media#Mass Media|Chapter 2.1]]) Even mass media like the BBC that are state-financed and don't depend on advertising revenue still tend to have a rather limited intake compared to the 'new media' emerging on the internet. Whereas the old media enabled only one-to-many broadcasts, on the internet everybody gets to talk to everybody else. Today, everyone who wants to voice something can do so. <br />
<br />
[[Image:CameraPhone.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Technology like mobile phones with built-in cameras enables ordinary citizens to become journalists.]]<br />
On millions of blogs (web-logs or journals) people write regularly about specific topics of their interest like food, politics, or music, or just use the platform as an online diary. An important part of most blogs are comments that usually follow the original post and can be written by everyone visiting the page, leading often to discussions. Many blogs interlink heavily with blogs covering the same or similar topics. Links are more often found to blogs with similar opinions, but also opposing opinions are often cited. The community of all blogs is called blogosphere. There are not only text blogs but also photoblogs, videoblogs (vlog) and podcasts (iPod+broadcast) that are audible episodes that can be listened on a computer or transfered to a portable music player. However, blogs are not the only means ordinary people are using to take over the function of the mass media. E-mails, mailing lists, web pages or collaborative content production systems like wikis (as Wikipedia is one) provide for new ways of news and information to flow. The same goes for mobile phones with their text messaging capabilities and integrated cameras. Protest and boycott actions can be easier organized and people are able to check out original sources of information that are spread or linked to, rather than having to trust established news media like the New York Times for facts.<br />
<br />
People are thus empowered through technology. However, there have also been critiques to the claim that the internet has democratizing effects. It was said that in this flood of information only a few top-sites with high advertising revenues would stick out, because nobody would find or bother to check out the many small specialised sites theoretically available, and thus the internet would reproduce the topology of the mass media. The other critique, aiming in the opposite direction, was that the many small sites would lead to a fragmentation of discourse and public opinion where people hyped each other up in small groups which would lead to polarization in the end. As it turns out, both critiques were wrong. The internet is neither too concentrated nor too chaotic and fragmented.<ref>Benkler, p. 239</ref> While it's true that overall only very few sites on the world wide web have huge amounts of incoming links and most sites are not heavily linked to, sites form hundreds of small clusters that are each strongly interconnected. New information is often brought to light by small websites and then, if found noteworthy, adopted by bigger sites in the same cluster. These bigger sites in turn are being looked at by more people and if the story is good enough it is adopted again by a site even bigger. Following these routes of clusters, important information flows up its way to the top-sites. The web has thus developed an intrinsic filtering mechanism that is a peer production in itself.<br />
<br />
While professional journalists might still have a resource advantage in deeply investigative journalism, the internet provides for a much more participatory public sphere where everyone has the chance to be heard and the networked information economy is able to peer produce the watchdog function more effectively than old mainstream media could.<ref>Have a look at the [http://participatoryculture.org/ Participatory Culture Foundation's] free (as in freedom) [http://www.getmiro.com/ Miro Media Player]</ref> The internet is also far more difficult to control, for example by authoritarian regimes. And if something has once been posted on the internet the genie is out of the bottle and can't be put back again.<br />
<br />
===Justice and Development===<br />
[[Image:OLPC.jpg|thumb|400px|right|A prototype of the One Laptop per Child program which aims to develop an inexpensive GNU/Linux-powered laptop for children.]]<br />
Obviously, to benefit from the workings described above, people need to have access to information and communication technology. In the economically more advanced countries this concerns mostly the poorer part of the population. But there is also a global digital divide between the economically more and less developed countries of the world. In large parts of Africa there is neither internet access nor do the people have computers. However, mobile phones are more broadly used there. Specific initiatives, like MIT's One Laptop per Child program which aims to manufacture a small and inexpensive laptop with ad-hoc networking capabilities for children around the world, as well as generally declining hardware costs and satellite instead of landline connectivity help bridging the digital divide. It is hoped that the global penetration of information and communication technology will soon be much higher.<br />
<br />
When the material foundations are broadly established, free content and free and open source software come to play an even bigger role in enabling development - globally, and even for the poorer people in industrialized nations.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Information and Communication Technologies for Development]]</ref><br />
The system of property is based on an asymmetrical distribution of goods, resulting in trade and a market. It is one system to organize and distribute scarce resources. Information on the other hand isn't scarce by nature as it is nonrival, but only rendered scarce by exclusive rights. The more information is freely available, the more justly human knowledge is distributed. Individuals are empowered instead of being restrained by the imposed scarcity of informational resources which they need to realize their plans.<br />
<br />
Access to existing information is crucial for marginalized countries to catch up. With free content, developing nations can make existing knowledge their own and bring up an industry around it themselves, as already seen with free software, rather than being dependent on foreign companies once more. Unfortunately, the USA and the EU are pushing for ever stronger 'intellectual property' laws internally as well as in the World Trade Organization (WTO), and developing nations don't have much power to oppose this trend.<br />
<br />
<br />
{{Box-Overview|A Revolution in the Making|title=Navigation|<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[2.4 Property and Commons]] <nowiki>|</nowiki> [[3.1 The State of It All]] &rarr;<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==References==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=P2P_intro&diff=30342P2P intro2009-05-13T09:01:51Z<p>MauroB: Redirected page to In a Nutshell</p>
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<div>#REDIRECT [[In a Nutshell]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=P2P_intro&diff=30341P2P intro2009-05-13T08:59:37Z<p>MauroB: Redirected page to A Revolution in the Making</p>
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<div>#REDIRECT [[A Revolution in the Making]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=About_Money&diff=29228About Money2009-03-08T15:24:49Z<p>MauroB: /* Community currencies */</p>
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[[Image:Money.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Money makes the world go round...]]<br />
<br />
When discussing free and open source software or free culture, one question always pops up: How do people make money from this? It surely can't be done professionally, in the sense that people can make a living from it?! The answer for software developers is that often customization for your client is a central part of your work and that you can build services like support around your software, or get paid by a big company like Google or IBM that heavily relies on free software. And obviously one can accept donations which works also for artists. They can also raise funds from charities or ask the state or museums to support their projects. Even today, most artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers can't make a living on their passion, in part because much money is already spent on the distribution (music labels or movie studios). Interesting examples of art are the Creative Commons licensed [http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/ comic Scott McCloud did for Google] to present Google Chrome or the very personal [http://foureyedmonsters.com/ Four Eyed Monsters] movie and video blog of Susan Buice and Arin Crumley who even put their feature length [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rRFFi_stY movie on YouTube]. But one keeps wondering if there wouldn't be better ways which would enable even more people to make a living from free software and free culture. <br />
<br />
===Micropayments===<br />
One thing that has been proposed for a long time, but has failed to realize as of yet are micropayments. The idea is to make it very easy and cheap to transact very small amounts of money over the internet. When somebody likes a song or a piece of software she can just hit a button on the website and the creator gets his one or two dollars. Such a simple interface and no transaction costs would make tiny donations like that a lot more attractive and hopefully they would add up to a larger pile of money.<br />
<br />
But maybe we need to change something more fundamental. Maybe, as we go from the industrialized information economy to the networked information economy, we do not only need to rethink the rules of ''intellectual property'', but also the rules of money and the economy. Think of all the flaws of the current system (as evidenced by the ongoing financial crisis). The current monetary system works rather against free software/free culture and the spirit of sharing and community. But they still thrive, because humans will always care about such things, and computers and the internet have greatly facilitated them. A proposal to encourage and facilitate them even more is Open Money. It is still rather a term than an actual concept, but let me now talk about some of the thoughts and ideas that surround it.<br />
<br />
===The current monetary system===<br />
[[Image:Fed.jpg|thumb|300px|The US Federal Reserve headquarters.]]<br />
First, let's have a brief look at how things work today. At the root of almost all money are the central banks of each state: the Federal Reserve (FED) for the US-Dollar, the European Central Bank (ECB) for the Euro and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) for the Yen, to name the three top currencies. They create all the money. For every dollar printed, there used to be a corresponding amount of gold stored in the saves of the central bank and the promise of the state to redeem dollars in gold. But for quite some time this hasn't been the case anymore. Most modern currencies are ''fiat currencies'', which means their value is based entirely on the believe and trust of the people that the currency is actually worth something. Money is a mutual agreement, nothing more. No doubt, it is a very useful agreement, otherwise we'd still have to trade cows for sheep which requires always a ''double-coincidence of wants'' (Person A has a cow and needs a sheep AND at the same time Person B has a sheep but needs a cow). But in the end, money is still nothing more than an agreement. That's why the central banks can create money virtually out of thin air. Although, if they go too far and create too much new money compared to the goods traded, the value of the currency will decrease.<br />
<br />
But the central banks don't put the money directly on the market. Instead, they lend it to private banks at a very low rate of interest – the prime rate (this is always the lowest interest rate in an economy). The private banks in turn lend the money to their customers or other banks at a higher interest rate than the prime, in order to make a profit. <br />
This arrangement has some peculiar consequences. Maybe you never thought about it, but how are all the people (and private banks) able to pay back all their loans plus interest? Where does all the extra money that is required for the interest come from?<br />
<br />
===The infinite growth imperative===<br />
One possibility is that some of the people in the system lose their money to others and go bankrupt – the others are now able to pay back their loans plus interest. That's one of the reasons why competition between companies but also between people tends to get tougher all the time. This obviously works against the spirit of community although it enhances efficiency.<br />
Another way of getting to extra money is that the central bank simply prints more, or lowers the prime interest rate, which has the same effect because then private banks will be able to borrow more money into existence. But if you have the same amount of goods and services traded and increase the amount of money in circulation, it won't take long and people will notice. The value of the money will decrease. A pound of bread may have cost 5$, now it costs 7$ – that's what's called inflation. To prevent this from happening on an exorbitant scale, the economy needs to grow with the money supply. The idea is that if more things are traded in an economy, more money can be created without devaluating the currency. This new money can then be used to pay back the interests after a while and the circle starts anew. That is the source of the growth imperative in our economies. <br />
But how can an economy always continue to grow? One way is to increase the demand for products: more products are sold and more money can be created to compensate. This worked very well during the industrial revolution when people actually gained in welfare when they were able to buy more things. But today, in the industrialized world it is very difficult to sell ever more products. A solution is to manufacture less durable products so people will have to trash them sooner and then have to buy new replacements quicker. You can see this everywhere. Companies that produce too high quality can't sell enough in the long run, so they drive themselves into bankruptcy. Another way for the economy to grow is to have companies take things that previously were free, turn them into a product and charge for them, like for example bottled water. Or Starbucks can charge double the price for a cup of coffee, which is justified by the added experience. For the economy to grow, there should be as much exchange of money as possible. Small favours or mutual care in a family or community are pressured to be replaced by paid work.<br />
The result is always the same: if the economy is growing, more money is needed to change hands. This money can be created by loans – it is virtually loaned into existence. But those loans have interest too, so eventually even more money is required to pay back the interest on those loans. And born is the vicious circle leading to an exponential increase in loans.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Stocks.jpg|thumb|400px|Virtual stocks.]]<br />
Interest obviously also helps making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Because the poor need to borrow money from the rich and have to pay it back plus interest. <br />
So this way of running an economy is not only unfair in the long run, but it has a built-in growth imperative which goes at the expense of the environment. Also, although efficiency is increasing, shorter working hours are nowhere to be seen, because people need to work more in order to earn more money to buy more stuff to keep the economy growing (because individuals are paid for the work done rather than for the work actually needed).<br />
The problems of this system manifest themselves most dramatically in<br />
*financial crises caused by speculative bubbles, currency volatility, or similar<br />
*the problem of supporting the growing percentage of retired people that don't produce money but still need to be cared for (which means in the current system: paid for)<br />
*increasing environmental impact (leading to pollution and climate change)<br />
<br />
While the current economy cries for more products to become commercialized in order to keep the money supply growing, free and open source culture strengthen the non-profit sector and continue to produce value without charging for it. While information doesn't need to be scarce because it is a non-rival good (when you share information you don't lose it), the physical resources of our planet are really scarce indeed (oil, rain-forests, etc). But paradoxically ''intellectual property rights'' try to make information artificially scarce while at the same time the economy needs to grow infinitely, depriving the physical world of its scarce resources in the process. It should be exactly the other way around!<br />
<br />
You won't be surprised to hear now that I have come to the conclusion that this can't go on forever. So what about solutions? There have been numerous proposals to improve the current system, some more radical than others. But none have been tested on a really large scale, which makes evaluating them very difficult. The truth is that the motivations, interactions and the resulting individual and group behaviour of the whole population of earth is so insanely difficult to predict that I don't think we have much of a chance to know whether a proposed economic system works as desired or not without trying it out on a large enough scale.<br />
<br />
===Demurrage===<br />
One way to tackle the problem of interest is to abandon it and replace it with ''demurrage'': a fee for holding money over a given amount of time. This concept was proposed (among others) by the German economist Silvio Gesell around 1900. The largest experiment putting this theory into praxis was when the Austrian town of Wörgl introduced its own currency with demurrage in 1932, when people were saving their money during the Great Depression instead of putting it into circulation again. In such credit crunches, central banks usually lower the prime rates and print more money to get the economy going again, but in times of great uncertainty, people tend to hoard this new money too and the measures have no effect. In Wörgl, people were required to regularly purchase stamps that were attached to the money in order to keep it valid. That way the function of money as a store of value was abolished and it functioned only as a medium of exchange and a unit of account. The experiment was a huge success: people had to spend their money in order to pay less demurrage which resulted in faster circulation of money and rapid growth in employment. Unfortunately, in 1933 the experiment was terminated by the Austrian National Bank on the grounds that it was a threat to the Bank's monopoly on printing money and soon unemployment was on the rise again.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Crowd wallstreet.jpg|thumb|Crowd gathering on Wall Street after the 1929 crash.]]<br />
Today, instead of requiring stamps on paper money, the demurrage can obviously be subtracted automatically from electronic bank accounts. With interest based currencies, you gain money when you hoard it, with demurrage you lose it. So you can't invest your saved wealth in money and expect it to grow. This leads to investments that have a high long term return, as opposed to the short term thinking and infinite growth imperative that dominates the current system. Suddenly, it's more worthwhile to invest in a forest and keep it intact to continue to harvest smaller amounts of wood over a very longer period of time, instead of chopping it all down right now and invest the earnings on the financial market which makes for a higher profit in the short term.<br />
<br />
===Community currencies===<br />
The national currencies issued by the central banks are far from the only currencies. Money which is not legal tender is often called ''scrip''. Frequent flyer miles or similar loyalty programs can also be thought of as currencies and there are many ''alternative'' or ''complementary currencies'' that are in use in combination with standard currencies. Some of them make use of demurrage, others don't. A subset of complementary currencies are ''local currencies'' which can be used only in a small area. This stimulates the local economy and strengthens the sense of community in a town or area. That's why they are also often called ''community currencies''.<br />
One of the first modern complementary currencies is the [http://www.ithacahours.org/ Ithaca Hour]. One Ithaca Hour is supposed to be worth as much as one hour of work done (or can be changed into 10 US-Dollars). They are only redeemable in the city of Ithaca (NY). Because Ithaca Hours don't have demurrage and somebody has to print them, the issuers of the money have to face the same challenges of monetary policy as all the central banks. Too much money in circulation will lead to inflation, too little to deflation. On the other hand, things are simplified by the fact that Ithaca Hours circulate only in a small area and new money is usually inserted into the system by interest-free loans to locals or grants to local non-profits.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Ithaca.JPG|thumb|300px|Shops in Ithaca.]]<br />
An entirely different approach is ''mutual credit''. Most of these systems are called Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). There is no physical money, instead the system is based on central bookkeeping, usually electronically and accessible through a normal web browser. Each participant has an account and when he pays another participant, the amount is simply subtracted from his account and added to the other's. This concept can also be thought of interest-free loans and there is no problem with having a little minus in your account. But if you only buy products and services through the system without giving anything back, your account will go deep into minus at the expense of the other participants. This is usually dealt with caps on negative balance or the participants might be able to look at the account balance of anybody before doing business with him. Also LETS are often local or limited to only a few hundred participants and a network of trust in a community holds people accountable. LETS don't need to worry about monetary policy because money is only created in the instance of the transaction – the system is thus self-regulating.<br />
<br />
A interesting project which is still in its infancy is [http://ripple.sourceforge.net/ Ripple], an effort to develop an open source peer-to-peer protocol to exchange money all over the world. At the core of Ripple lies the idea that within a network of trust between peers, transactions can be made without the need for a third party like a bank that charges for them. <br />
Another proposal is to use units of energy as currency. Coupled with ''smart grids'', radically distributed energy production might become a reality: people would sell energy, for example produced by solar panels on their rooftops. Maybe half of the price of products to purchase would have to be paid in energy units, the other half in a normal currency. The energy part of the price would be exactly the energy that is required to produce and distribute the product.<br />
<br />
There is a huge number of different community currencies. Many new networks choose to experiment with the system's mechanics or adapt it to local circumstances. Although many projects emphasize on local communities, there are also lots of networks that can make transfers all around the world and currencies that have either floating or fixed exchange rates to other community or national currencies. Community currencies need not be centered around geographic communities, there are also communities on the internet. For example virtual worlds like Second Life or World of Warcraft feature their own in-world currencies. They might be a suitable place to experiment with new exotic currencies on a large enough scale as there are often thousands of players in these worlds.<br />
<br />
===Conclusion===<br />
Obviously, no complementary currency has made the breakthrough into mainstream yet. But the ongoing financial crisis will undoubtedly make them more attractive. I sincerely hope that sooner rather than later someone comes up with a system that scales well and that favours long-term investments and the spirit of sharing and community. Complementary currencies will probably continue to exist alongside our current currencies for a long time. If they become mainstream, they will enable more people to make a living from free culture. And our children will be thankful to us if they still have a planet left to live on when they are our age.<br />
<br />
<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[3.1 The State of It All]]<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=About_Money&diff=29227About Money2009-03-08T15:20:44Z<p>MauroB: /* Demurrage */</p>
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<br />
[[Image:Money.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Money makes the world go round...]]<br />
<br />
When discussing free and open source software or free culture, one question always pops up: How do people make money from this? It surely can't be done professionally, in the sense that people can make a living from it?! The answer for software developers is that often customization for your client is a central part of your work and that you can build services like support around your software, or get paid by a big company like Google or IBM that heavily relies on free software. And obviously one can accept donations which works also for artists. They can also raise funds from charities or ask the state or museums to support their projects. Even today, most artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers can't make a living on their passion, in part because much money is already spent on the distribution (music labels or movie studios). Interesting examples of art are the Creative Commons licensed [http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/ comic Scott McCloud did for Google] to present Google Chrome or the very personal [http://foureyedmonsters.com/ Four Eyed Monsters] movie and video blog of Susan Buice and Arin Crumley who even put their feature length [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rRFFi_stY movie on YouTube]. But one keeps wondering if there wouldn't be better ways which would enable even more people to make a living from free software and free culture. <br />
<br />
===Micropayments===<br />
One thing that has been proposed for a long time, but has failed to realize as of yet are micropayments. The idea is to make it very easy and cheap to transact very small amounts of money over the internet. When somebody likes a song or a piece of software she can just hit a button on the website and the creator gets his one or two dollars. Such a simple interface and no transaction costs would make tiny donations like that a lot more attractive and hopefully they would add up to a larger pile of money.<br />
<br />
But maybe we need to change something more fundamental. Maybe, as we go from the industrialized information economy to the networked information economy, we do not only need to rethink the rules of ''intellectual property'', but also the rules of money and the economy. Think of all the flaws of the current system (as evidenced by the ongoing financial crisis). The current monetary system works rather against free software/free culture and the spirit of sharing and community. But they still thrive, because humans will always care about such things, and computers and the internet have greatly facilitated them. A proposal to encourage and facilitate them even more is Open Money. It is still rather a term than an actual concept, but let me now talk about some of the thoughts and ideas that surround it.<br />
<br />
===The current monetary system===<br />
[[Image:Fed.jpg|thumb|300px|The US Federal Reserve headquarters.]]<br />
First, let's have a brief look at how things work today. At the root of almost all money are the central banks of each state: the Federal Reserve (FED) for the US-Dollar, the European Central Bank (ECB) for the Euro and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) for the Yen, to name the three top currencies. They create all the money. For every dollar printed, there used to be a corresponding amount of gold stored in the saves of the central bank and the promise of the state to redeem dollars in gold. But for quite some time this hasn't been the case anymore. Most modern currencies are ''fiat currencies'', which means their value is based entirely on the believe and trust of the people that the currency is actually worth something. Money is a mutual agreement, nothing more. No doubt, it is a very useful agreement, otherwise we'd still have to trade cows for sheep which requires always a ''double-coincidence of wants'' (Person A has a cow and needs a sheep AND at the same time Person B has a sheep but needs a cow). But in the end, money is still nothing more than an agreement. That's why the central banks can create money virtually out of thin air. Although, if they go too far and create too much new money compared to the goods traded, the value of the currency will decrease.<br />
<br />
But the central banks don't put the money directly on the market. Instead, they lend it to private banks at a very low rate of interest – the prime rate (this is always the lowest interest rate in an economy). The private banks in turn lend the money to their customers or other banks at a higher interest rate than the prime, in order to make a profit. <br />
This arrangement has some peculiar consequences. Maybe you never thought about it, but how are all the people (and private banks) able to pay back all their loans plus interest? Where does all the extra money that is required for the interest come from?<br />
<br />
===The infinite growth imperative===<br />
One possibility is that some of the people in the system lose their money to others and go bankrupt – the others are now able to pay back their loans plus interest. That's one of the reasons why competition between companies but also between people tends to get tougher all the time. This obviously works against the spirit of community although it enhances efficiency.<br />
Another way of getting to extra money is that the central bank simply prints more, or lowers the prime interest rate, which has the same effect because then private banks will be able to borrow more money into existence. But if you have the same amount of goods and services traded and increase the amount of money in circulation, it won't take long and people will notice. The value of the money will decrease. A pound of bread may have cost 5$, now it costs 7$ – that's what's called inflation. To prevent this from happening on an exorbitant scale, the economy needs to grow with the money supply. The idea is that if more things are traded in an economy, more money can be created without devaluating the currency. This new money can then be used to pay back the interests after a while and the circle starts anew. That is the source of the growth imperative in our economies. <br />
But how can an economy always continue to grow? One way is to increase the demand for products: more products are sold and more money can be created to compensate. This worked very well during the industrial revolution when people actually gained in welfare when they were able to buy more things. But today, in the industrialized world it is very difficult to sell ever more products. A solution is to manufacture less durable products so people will have to trash them sooner and then have to buy new replacements quicker. You can see this everywhere. Companies that produce too high quality can't sell enough in the long run, so they drive themselves into bankruptcy. Another way for the economy to grow is to have companies take things that previously were free, turn them into a product and charge for them, like for example bottled water. Or Starbucks can charge double the price for a cup of coffee, which is justified by the added experience. For the economy to grow, there should be as much exchange of money as possible. Small favours or mutual care in a family or community are pressured to be replaced by paid work.<br />
The result is always the same: if the economy is growing, more money is needed to change hands. This money can be created by loans – it is virtually loaned into existence. But those loans have interest too, so eventually even more money is required to pay back the interest on those loans. And born is the vicious circle leading to an exponential increase in loans.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Stocks.jpg|thumb|400px|Virtual stocks.]]<br />
Interest obviously also helps making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Because the poor need to borrow money from the rich and have to pay it back plus interest. <br />
So this way of running an economy is not only unfair in the long run, but it has a built-in growth imperative which goes at the expense of the environment. Also, although efficiency is increasing, shorter working hours are nowhere to be seen, because people need to work more in order to earn more money to buy more stuff to keep the economy growing (because individuals are paid for the work done rather than for the work actually needed).<br />
The problems of this system manifest themselves most dramatically in<br />
*financial crises caused by speculative bubbles, currency volatility, or similar<br />
*the problem of supporting the growing percentage of retired people that don't produce money but still need to be cared for (which means in the current system: paid for)<br />
*increasing environmental impact (leading to pollution and climate change)<br />
<br />
While the current economy cries for more products to become commercialized in order to keep the money supply growing, free and open source culture strengthen the non-profit sector and continue to produce value without charging for it. While information doesn't need to be scarce because it is a non-rival good (when you share information you don't lose it), the physical resources of our planet are really scarce indeed (oil, rain-forests, etc). But paradoxically ''intellectual property rights'' try to make information artificially scarce while at the same time the economy needs to grow infinitely, depriving the physical world of its scarce resources in the process. It should be exactly the other way around!<br />
<br />
You won't be surprised to hear now that I have come to the conclusion that this can't go on forever. So what about solutions? There have been numerous proposals to improve the current system, some more radical than others. But none have been tested on a really large scale, which makes evaluating them very difficult. The truth is that the motivations, interactions and the resulting individual and group behaviour of the whole population of earth is so insanely difficult to predict that I don't think we have much of a chance to know whether a proposed economic system works as desired or not without trying it out on a large enough scale.<br />
<br />
===Demurrage===<br />
One way to tackle the problem of interest is to abandon it and replace it with ''demurrage'': a fee for holding money over a given amount of time. This concept was proposed (among others) by the German economist Silvio Gesell around 1900. The largest experiment putting this theory into praxis was when the Austrian town of Wörgl introduced its own currency with demurrage in 1932, when people were saving their money during the Great Depression instead of putting it into circulation again. In such credit crunches, central banks usually lower the prime rates and print more money to get the economy going again, but in times of great uncertainty, people tend to hoard this new money too and the measures have no effect. In Wörgl, people were required to regularly purchase stamps that were attached to the money in order to keep it valid. That way the function of money as a store of value was abolished and it functioned only as a medium of exchange and a unit of account. The experiment was a huge success: people had to spend their money in order to pay less demurrage which resulted in faster circulation of money and rapid growth in employment. Unfortunately, in 1933 the experiment was terminated by the Austrian National Bank on the grounds that it was a threat to the Bank's monopoly on printing money and soon unemployment was on the rise again.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Crowd wallstreet.jpg|thumb|Crowd gathering on Wall Street after the 1929 crash.]]<br />
Today, instead of requiring stamps on paper money, the demurrage can obviously be subtracted automatically from electronic bank accounts. With interest based currencies, you gain money when you hoard it, with demurrage you lose it. So you can't invest your saved wealth in money and expect it to grow. This leads to investments that have a high long term return, as opposed to the short term thinking and infinite growth imperative that dominates the current system. Suddenly, it's more worthwhile to invest in a forest and keep it intact to continue to harvest smaller amounts of wood over a very longer period of time, instead of chopping it all down right now and invest the earnings on the financial market which makes for a higher profit in the short term.<br />
<br />
===Community currencies===<br />
The national currencies issued by the central banks are far from the only currencies. Money which is not legal tender is often called ''scrip''. Frequent flyer miles or similar loyalty programs can also be thought of as currencies and there are many ''alternative'' or ''complementary currencies'' that are in use in combination with standard currencies. Some of them make use of demurrage, others don't. A subset of complementary currencies are ''local currencies'' which can be used only in a small area. This stimulates the local economy and strengthens the sense of community in a town or area. That's why they are also often called ''community currencies''.<br />
One of the first modern complementary currencies is the [http://www.ithacahours.org/ Ithaca Hour]. One Ithaca Hour is supposed to be worth as much as one hour of work done (or can be changed into 10 US-Dollars). They are only redeemable in the city of Ithaca (NY). Because Ithaca Hours don't have demurrage and somebody has to print them, the issuers of the money have to face the same challenges of monetary policy as all the central banks. Too much money in circulation will lead to inflation, too little to deflation. On the other hand, things are simplified by the fact that Ithaca Hours circulate only in a small area and new money is usually inserted into the system by interest-free loans to locals or grants to local non-profits.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Ithaca.JPG|thumb|300px|Shops in Ithaca.]]<br />
An entirely different approach is ''mutual credit''. Most of these systems are called Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). They don't need to worry about monetary policy because money is only created in the instance of the transaction – the system is thus self-regulating. There is no physical money, instead the system is based on central bookkeeping, usually electronically and accessible through a normal web browser. Each participant has an account and when he pays another participant, the amount is simply subtracted from his account and added to the other's. This concept can also be thought of interest-free loans and there is no problem with having a little minus in your account. But if you only buy products and services through the system without giving anything back, your account will go deep into minus at the expense of the other participants. This is usually dealt with caps on negative balance or the participants might be able to look at the account balance of anybody before doing business with him. Also LETS are often local or limited to only a few hundred participants and a network of trust in a community holds people accountable.<br />
<br />
A interesting project which is still in its infancy is [http://ripple.sourceforge.net/ Ripple], an effort to develop an open source peer-to-peer protocol to exchange money all over the world. At the core of Ripple lies the idea that within a network of trust between peers, transactions can be made without the need for a third party like a bank that charges for them. <br />
Another proposal is to use units of energy as currency. Coupled with ''smart grids'', radically distributed energy production might become a reality: people would sell energy, for example produced by solar panels on their rooftops. Maybe half of the price of products to purchase would have to be paid in energy units, the other half in a normal currency. The energy part of the price would be exactly the energy that is required to produce and distribute the product.<br />
<br />
There is a huge number of different community currencies. Many new networks choose to experiment with the system's mechanics or adapt it to local circumstances. Although many projects emphasize on local communities, there are also lots of networks that can make transfers all around the world and currencies that have either floating or fixed exchange rates to other community or national currencies. Community currencies need not be centered around geographic communities, there are also communities on the internet. For example virtual worlds like Second Life or World of Warcraft feature their own in-world currencies. They might be a suitable place to experiment with new exotic currencies on a large enough scale as there are often thousands of players in these worlds.<br />
<br />
===Conclusion===<br />
Obviously, no complementary currency has made the breakthrough into mainstream yet. But the ongoing financial crisis will undoubtedly make them more attractive. I sincerely hope that sooner rather than later someone comes up with a system that scales well and that favours long-term investments and the spirit of sharing and community. Complementary currencies will probably continue to exist alongside our current currencies for a long time. If they become mainstream, they will enable more people to make a living from free culture. And our children will be thankful to us if they still have a planet left to live on when they are our age.<br />
<br />
<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[3.1 The State of It All]]<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Table_of_Contents_(Overview)&diff=29050Table of Contents (Overview)2009-02-26T13:55:14Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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{{Box-Overview|A Revolution in the Making|title=Get an Overview|<br />
*[[A Revolution in the Making]]<br />
<br />
*[[1.1 The GNU Project and Free Software]]<br />
*[[1.2 GNU/Linux and Open Source]]<br />
<br />
*[[2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]]<br />
*[[2.2 Information Technology and 'Piracy']]<br />
*[[2.3 Economics of Information Production]]<br />
*[[2.4 Property and Commons]]<br />
*[[2.5 Individual and Public]]<br />
<br />
*[[3.1 The State of It All]]<br />
<br />
*[[Appendix: About Money]]<br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=About_Money&diff=28201About Money2009-02-03T23:05:20Z<p>MauroB: /* Demurrage */</p>
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<br />
|}<br />
<br/><br />
<br />
[[Image:Money.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Money makes the world go round...]]<br />
<br />
When discussing free and open source software or free culture, one question always pops up: How do people make money from this? It surely can't be done professionally, in the sense that people can make a living from it?! The answer for software developers is that often customization for your client is a central part of your work and that you can build services like support around your software, or get paid by a big company like Google or IBM that heavily relies on free software. And obviously one can accept donations which works also for artists. They can also raise funds from charities or ask the state or museums to support their projects. Even today, most artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers can't make a living on their passion, in part because much money is already spent on the distribution (music labels or movie studios). Interesting examples of art are the Creative Commons licensed [http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/ comic Scott McCloud did for Google] to present Google Chrome or the very personal [http://foureyedmonsters.com/ Four Eyed Monsters] movie and video blog of Susan Buice and Arin Crumley who even put their feature length [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rRFFi_stY movie on YouTube]. But one keeps wondering if there wouldn't be better ways which would enable even more people to make a living from free software and free culture. <br />
<br />
===Micropayments===<br />
One thing that has been proposed for a long time, but has failed to realize as of yet are micropayments. The idea is to make it very easy and cheap to transact very small amounts of money over the internet. When somebody likes a song or a piece of software she can just hit a button on the website and the creator gets his one or two dollars. Such a simple interface and no transaction costs would make tiny donations like that a lot more attractive and hopefully they would add up to a larger pile of money.<br />
<br />
But maybe we need to change something more fundamental. Maybe, as we go from the industrialized information economy to the networked information economy, we do not only need to rethink the rules of ''intellectual property'', but also the rules of money and the economy. Think of all the flaws of the current system (as evidenced by the ongoing financial crisis). The current monetary system works rather against free software/free culture and the spirit of sharing and community. But they still thrive, because humans will always care about such things, and computers and the internet have greatly facilitated them. A proposal to encourage and facilitate them even more is Open Money. It is still rather a term than an actual concept, but let me now talk about some of the thoughts and ideas that surround it.<br />
<br />
===The current monetary system===<br />
[[Image:Fed.jpg|thumb|300px|The US Federal Reserve headquarters.]]<br />
First, let's have a brief look at how things work today. At the root of almost all money are the central banks of each state: the Federal Reserve (FED) for the US-Dollar, the European Central Bank (ECB) for the Euro and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) for the Yen, to name the three top currencies. They create all the money. For every dollar printed, there used to be a corresponding amount of gold stored in the saves of the central bank and the promise of the state to redeem dollars in gold. But for quite some time this hasn't been the case anymore. Most modern currencies are ''fiat currencies'', which means their value is based entirely on the believe and trust of the people that the currency is actually worth something. Money is a mutual agreement, nothing more. No doubt, it is a very useful agreement, otherwise we'd still have to trade cows for sheep which requires always a ''double-coincidence of wants'' (Person A has a cow and needs a sheep AND at the same time Person B has a sheep but needs a cow). But in the end, money is still nothing more than an agreement. That's why the central banks can create money virtually out of thin air. Although, if they go too far and create too much new money compared to the goods traded, the value of the currency will decrease.<br />
<br />
But the central banks don't put the money directly on the market. Instead, they lend it to private banks at a very low rate of interest – the prime rate (this is always the lowest interest rate in an economy). The private banks in turn lend the money to their customers or other banks at a higher interest rate than the prime, in order to make a profit. <br />
This arrangement has some peculiar consequences. Maybe you never thought about it, but how are all the people (and private banks) able to pay back all their loans plus interest? Where does all the extra money that is required for the interest come from?<br />
<br />
===The infinite growth imperative===<br />
One possibility is that some of the people in the system lose their money to others and go bankrupt – the others are now able to pay back their loans plus interest. That's one of the reasons why competition between companies but also between people tends to get tougher all the time. This obviously works against the spirit of community although it enhances efficiency.<br />
Another way of getting to extra money is that the central bank simply prints more, or lowers the prime interest rate, which has the same effect because then private banks will be able to borrow more money into existence. But if you have the same amount of goods and services traded and increase the amount of money in circulation, it won't take long and people will notice. The value of the money will decrease. A pound of bread may have cost 5$, now it costs 7$ – that's what's called inflation. To prevent this from happening on an exorbitant scale, the economy needs to grow with the money supply. The idea is that if more things are traded in an economy, more money can be created without devaluating the currency. This new money can then be used to pay back the interests after a while and the circle starts anew. That is the source of the growth imperative in our economies. <br />
But how can an economy always continue to grow? One way is to increase the demand for products: more products are sold and more money can be created to compensate. This worked very well during the industrial revolution when people actually gained in welfare when they were able to buy more things. But today, in the industrialized world it is very difficult to sell ever more products. A solution is to manufacture less durable products so people will have to trash them sooner and then have to buy new replacements quicker. You can see this everywhere. Companies that produce too high quality can't sell enough in the long run, so they drive themselves into bankruptcy. Another way for the economy to grow is to have companies take things that previously were free, turn them into a product and charge for them, like for example bottled water. Or Starbucks can charge double the price for a cup of coffee, which is justified by the added experience. For the economy to grow, there should be as much exchange of money as possible. Small favours or mutual care in a family or community are pressured to be replaced by paid work.<br />
The result is always the same: if the economy is growing, more money is needed to change hands. This money can be created by loans – it is virtually loaned into existence. But those loans have interest too, so eventually even more money is required to pay back the interest on those loans. And born is the vicious circle leading to an exponential increase in loans.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Stocks.jpg|thumb|400px|Virtual stocks.]]<br />
Interest obviously also helps making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Because the poor need to borrow money from the rich and have to pay it back plus interest. <br />
So this way of running an economy is not only unfair in the long run, but it has a built-in growth imperative which goes at the expense of the environment. Also, although efficiency is increasing, shorter working hours are nowhere to be seen, because people need to work more in order to earn more money to buy more stuff to keep the economy growing (because individuals are paid for the work done rather than for the work actually needed).<br />
The problems of this system manifest themselves most dramatically in<br />
*financial crises caused by speculative bubbles, currency volatility, or similar<br />
*the problem of supporting the growing percentage of retired people that don't produce money but still need to be cared for (which means in the current system: paid for)<br />
*increasing environmental impact (leading to pollution and climate change)<br />
<br />
While the current economy cries for more products to become commercialized in order to keep the money supply growing, free and open source culture strengthen the non-profit sector and continue to produce value without charging for it. While information doesn't need to be scarce because it is a non-rival good (when you share information you don't lose it), the physical resources of our planet are really scarce indeed (oil, rain-forests, etc). But paradoxically ''intellectual property rights'' try to make information artificially scarce while at the same time the economy needs to grow infinitely, depriving the physical world of its scarce resources in the process. It should be exactly the other way around!<br />
<br />
You won't be surprised to hear now that I have come to the conclusion that this can't go on forever. So what about solutions? There have been numerous proposals to improve the current system, some more radical than others. But none have been tested on a really large scale, which makes evaluating them very difficult. The truth is that the motivations, interactions and the resulting individual and group behaviour of the whole population of earth is so insanely difficult to predict that I don't think we have much of a chance to know whether a proposed economic system works as desired or not without trying it out on a large enough scale.<br />
<br />
===Demurrage===<br />
One way to tackle the problem of interest is to abandon it and replace it with ''demurrage'': a fee for holding money over a given amount of time. This concept was proposed (among others) by the German economist Silvio Gesell around 1900. The largest experiment putting this theory into praxis was when the Austrian town of Wörgl introduced its own currency with demurrage in 1932, when people were saving their money during the Great Depression instead of putting it into circulation again. In such credit crunches, central banks usually lower the prime rates and print more money to get the economy going again, but in times of great uncertainty, people tend to hoard this new money too and the measures have no effect. In Wörgl, people were required to regularly purchase stamps that were attached to the money in order to keep it valid. That way the function of money as a store of value was abolished and it functioned only as a medium of exchange and a unit of account. The experiment was a huge success: people had to spend their money in order to pay less demurrage which resulted in faster circulation of money and rapid growth in employment. Unfortunately, in 1933 the experiment was terminated by the Austrian National Bank on the grounds that it was a threat to the Bank's monopoly on printing money and soon unemployment was on the rise again.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Crowd wallstreet.jpg|thumb|Crowd gathering on Wall Street after the 1929 crash.]]<br />
Today, instead of requiring stamps on paper money, the demurrage can obviously be subtracted automatically from electronic bank accounts. With interest based currencies, you gain money when you hoard it, with demurrage you lose it. So you can't invest your saved wealth in money and expect it to grow. This leads to investments that have a high long term return, as opposed to the short term thinking and infinite growth imperative that dominates the current system. Suddenly, it's more worthwhile to invest in a forest and keep it intact to continue to harvest smaller amounts of wood over a very longer period of time instead of chipping it all down right now to invest the money on the money market which makes for a higher profit in the short term.<br />
<br />
===Community currencies===<br />
The national currencies issued by the central banks are far from the only currencies. Money which is not legal tender is often called ''scrip''. Frequent flyer miles or similar loyalty programs can also be thought of as currencies and there are many ''alternative'' or ''complementary currencies'' that are in use in combination with standard currencies. Some of them make use of demurrage, others don't. A subset of complementary currencies are ''local currencies'' which can be used only in a small area. This stimulates the local economy and strengthens the sense of community in a town or area. That's why they are also often called ''community currencies''.<br />
One of the first modern complementary currencies is the [http://www.ithacahours.org/ Ithaca Hour]. One Ithaca Hour is supposed to be worth as much as one hour of work done (or can be changed into 10 US-Dollars). They are only redeemable in the city of Ithaca (NY). Because Ithaca Hours don't have demurrage and somebody has to print them, the issuers of the money have to face the same challenges of monetary policy as all the central banks. Too much money in circulation will lead to inflation, too little to deflation. On the other hand, things are simplified by the fact that Ithaca Hours circulate only in a small area and new money is usually inserted into the system by interest-free loans to locals or grants to local non-profits.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Ithaca.JPG|thumb|300px|Shops in Ithaca.]]<br />
An entirely different approach is ''mutual credit''. Most of these systems are called Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). They don't need to worry about monetary policy because money is only created in the instance of the transaction – the system is thus self-regulating. There is no physical money, instead the system is based on central bookkeeping, usually electronically and accessible through a normal web browser. Each participant has an account and when he pays another participant, the amount is simply subtracted from his account and added to the other's. This concept can also be thought of interest-free loans and there is no problem with having a little minus in your account. But if you only buy products and services through the system without giving anything back, your account will go deep into minus at the expense of the other participants. This is usually dealt with caps on negative balance or the participants might be able to look at the account balance of anybody before doing business with him. Also LETS are often local or limited to only a few hundred participants and a network of trust in a community holds people accountable.<br />
<br />
A interesting project which is still in its infancy is [http://ripple.sourceforge.net/ Ripple], an effort to develop an open source peer-to-peer protocol to exchange money all over the world. At the core of Ripple lies the idea that within a network of trust between peers, transactions can be made without the need for a third party like a bank that charges for them. <br />
Another proposal is to use units of energy as currency. Coupled with ''smart grids'', radically distributed energy production might become a reality: people would sell energy, for example produced by solar panels on their rooftops. Maybe half of the price of products to purchase would have to be paid in energy units, the other half in a normal currency. The energy part of the price would be exactly the energy that is required to produce and distribute the product.<br />
<br />
There is a huge number of different community currencies. Many new networks choose to experiment with the system's mechanics or adapt it to local circumstances. Although many projects emphasize on local communities, there are also lots of networks that can make transfers all around the world and currencies that have either floating or fixed exchange rates to other community or national currencies. Community currencies need not be centered around geographic communities, there are also communities on the internet. For example virtual worlds like Second Life or World of Warcraft feature their own in-world currencies. They might be a suitable place to experiment with new exotic currencies on a large enough scale as there are often thousands of players in these worlds.<br />
<br />
===Conclusion===<br />
Obviously, no complementary currency has made the breakthrough into mainstream yet. But the ongoing financial crisis will undoubtedly make them more attractive. I sincerely hope that sooner rather than later someone comes up with a system that scales well and that favours long-term investments and the spirit of sharing and community. Complementary currencies will probably continue to exist alongside our current currencies for a long time. If they become mainstream, they will enable more people to make a living from free culture. And our children will be thankful to us if they still have a planet left to live on when they are our age.<br />
<br />
<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[3.1 The State of It All]]<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=About_Money&diff=28200About Money2009-02-03T23:04:07Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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<br />
[[Image:Money.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Money makes the world go round...]]<br />
<br />
When discussing free and open source software or free culture, one question always pops up: How do people make money from this? It surely can't be done professionally, in the sense that people can make a living from it?! The answer for software developers is that often customization for your client is a central part of your work and that you can build services like support around your software, or get paid by a big company like Google or IBM that heavily relies on free software. And obviously one can accept donations which works also for artists. They can also raise funds from charities or ask the state or museums to support their projects. Even today, most artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers can't make a living on their passion, in part because much money is already spent on the distribution (music labels or movie studios). Interesting examples of art are the Creative Commons licensed [http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/ comic Scott McCloud did for Google] to present Google Chrome or the very personal [http://foureyedmonsters.com/ Four Eyed Monsters] movie and video blog of Susan Buice and Arin Crumley who even put their feature length [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rRFFi_stY movie on YouTube]. But one keeps wondering if there wouldn't be better ways which would enable even more people to make a living from free software and free culture. <br />
<br />
===Micropayments===<br />
One thing that has been proposed for a long time, but has failed to realize as of yet are micropayments. The idea is to make it very easy and cheap to transact very small amounts of money over the internet. When somebody likes a song or a piece of software she can just hit a button on the website and the creator gets his one or two dollars. Such a simple interface and no transaction costs would make tiny donations like that a lot more attractive and hopefully they would add up to a larger pile of money.<br />
<br />
But maybe we need to change something more fundamental. Maybe, as we go from the industrialized information economy to the networked information economy, we do not only need to rethink the rules of ''intellectual property'', but also the rules of money and the economy. Think of all the flaws of the current system (as evidenced by the ongoing financial crisis). The current monetary system works rather against free software/free culture and the spirit of sharing and community. But they still thrive, because humans will always care about such things, and computers and the internet have greatly facilitated them. A proposal to encourage and facilitate them even more is Open Money. It is still rather a term than an actual concept, but let me now talk about some of the thoughts and ideas that surround it.<br />
<br />
===The current monetary system===<br />
[[Image:Fed.jpg|thumb|300px|The US Federal Reserve headquarters.]]<br />
First, let's have a brief look at how things work today. At the root of almost all money are the central banks of each state: the Federal Reserve (FED) for the US-Dollar, the European Central Bank (ECB) for the Euro and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) for the Yen, to name the three top currencies. They create all the money. For every dollar printed, there used to be a corresponding amount of gold stored in the saves of the central bank and the promise of the state to redeem dollars in gold. But for quite some time this hasn't been the case anymore. Most modern currencies are ''fiat currencies'', which means their value is based entirely on the believe and trust of the people that the currency is actually worth something. Money is a mutual agreement, nothing more. No doubt, it is a very useful agreement, otherwise we'd still have to trade cows for sheep which requires always a ''double-coincidence of wants'' (Person A has a cow and needs a sheep AND at the same time Person B has a sheep but needs a cow). But in the end, money is still nothing more than an agreement. That's why the central banks can create money virtually out of thin air. Although, if they go too far and create too much new money compared to the goods traded, the value of the currency will decrease.<br />
<br />
But the central banks don't put the money directly on the market. Instead, they lend it to private banks at a very low rate of interest – the prime rate (this is always the lowest interest rate in an economy). The private banks in turn lend the money to their customers or other banks at a higher interest rate than the prime, in order to make a profit. <br />
This arrangement has some peculiar consequences. Maybe you never thought about it, but how are all the people (and private banks) able to pay back all their loans plus interest? Where does all the extra money that is required for the interest come from?<br />
<br />
===The infinite growth imperative===<br />
One possibility is that some of the people in the system lose their money to others and go bankrupt – the others are now able to pay back their loans plus interest. That's one of the reasons why competition between companies but also between people tends to get tougher all the time. This obviously works against the spirit of community although it enhances efficiency.<br />
Another way of getting to extra money is that the central bank simply prints more, or lowers the prime interest rate, which has the same effect because then private banks will be able to borrow more money into existence. But if you have the same amount of goods and services traded and increase the amount of money in circulation, it won't take long and people will notice. The value of the money will decrease. A pound of bread may have cost 5$, now it costs 7$ – that's what's called inflation. To prevent this from happening on an exorbitant scale, the economy needs to grow with the money supply. The idea is that if more things are traded in an economy, more money can be created without devaluating the currency. This new money can then be used to pay back the interests after a while and the circle starts anew. That is the source of the growth imperative in our economies. <br />
But how can an economy always continue to grow? One way is to increase the demand for products: more products are sold and more money can be created to compensate. This worked very well during the industrial revolution when people actually gained in welfare when they were able to buy more things. But today, in the industrialized world it is very difficult to sell ever more products. A solution is to manufacture less durable products so people will have to trash them sooner and then have to buy new replacements quicker. You can see this everywhere. Companies that produce too high quality can't sell enough in the long run, so they drive themselves into bankruptcy. Another way for the economy to grow is to have companies take things that previously were free, turn them into a product and charge for them, like for example bottled water. Or Starbucks can charge double the price for a cup of coffee, which is justified by the added experience. For the economy to grow, there should be as much exchange of money as possible. Small favours or mutual care in a family or community are pressured to be replaced by paid work.<br />
The result is always the same: if the economy is growing, more money is needed to change hands. This money can be created by loans – it is virtually loaned into existence. But those loans have interest too, so eventually even more money is required to pay back the interest on those loans. And born is the vicious circle leading to an exponential increase in loans.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Stocks.jpg|thumb|400px|Virtual stocks.]]<br />
Interest obviously also helps making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Because the poor need to borrow money from the rich and have to pay it back plus interest. <br />
So this way of running an economy is not only unfair in the long run, but it has a built-in growth imperative which goes at the expense of the environment. Also, although efficiency is increasing, shorter working hours are nowhere to be seen, because people need to work more in order to earn more money to buy more stuff to keep the economy growing (because individuals are paid for the work done rather than for the work actually needed).<br />
The problems of this system manifest themselves most dramatically in<br />
*financial crises caused by speculative bubbles, currency volatility, or similar<br />
*the problem of supporting the growing percentage of retired people that don't produce money but still need to be cared for (which means in the current system: paid for)<br />
*increasing environmental impact (leading to pollution and climate change)<br />
<br />
While the current economy cries for more products to become commercialized in order to keep the money supply growing, free and open source culture strengthen the non-profit sector and continue to produce value without charging for it. While information doesn't need to be scarce because it is a non-rival good (when you share information you don't lose it), the physical resources of our planet are really scarce indeed (oil, rain-forests, etc). But paradoxically ''intellectual property rights'' try to make information artificially scarce while at the same time the economy needs to grow infinitely, depriving the physical world of its scarce resources in the process. It should be exactly the other way around!<br />
<br />
You won't be surprised to hear now that I have come to the conclusion that this can't go on forever. So what about solutions? There have been numerous proposals to improve the current system, some more radical than others. But none have been tested on a really large scale, which makes evaluating them very difficult. The truth is that the motivations, interactions and the resulting individual and group behaviour of the whole population of earth is so insanely difficult to predict that I don't think we have much of a chance to know whether a proposed economic system works as desired or not without trying it out on a large enough scale.<br />
<br />
===Demurrage===<br />
One way to tackle the problem of interest is to abandon it and replace it with ''demurrage'': a fee for holding money over a given amount of time. This concept was proposed (among others) by the German economist Silvio Gesell around 1900. The largest experiment putting this theory into praxis was when the Austrian town of Wörgl introduced its own currency with demurrage in 1932, when people were saving their money during the Great Depression instead of putting it into circulation again. In such credit crunches, central banks usually lower the prime rates and print more money to get the economy going again, but in times of great uncertainty, people tend to hoard this new money too and the measures have no effect. In Wörgl, people were required to regularly purchase stamps that were attached to the money in order to keep it valid. That way the function of money as a store of value was abolished and it functioned only as a medium of exchange and a unit of account. The experiment was a huge success: people had to spend their money in order to pay less demurrage which resulted in faster circulation of money and rapid growth in employment. Unfortunately, in 1933 the experiment was terminated by the Austrian National Bank on the grounds that it was a threat to the Bank's monopoly on printing money and soon unemployment was on the rise again.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:Crowd wallstreet.jpg|thumb|Crowd gathering on Wall Street after the 1929 crash.]]<br />
Today, instead of requiring stamps on paper money, the demurrage can obviously be subtracted automatically from electronic bank accounts. With interest based currencies, you gain money when you hoard it, with demurrage you lose it. So you can't invest your saved wealth in money and expect it to grow. This leads to investments that have a high long term return, as opposed to the short term thinking and infinite growth imperative that dominates the current system. Suddenly, it's more worthwhile to invest in a forest and keep it intact to continue to harvest smaller amounts of wood over a very longer period of time instead of chipping it all down right now to invest the money on the money market which makes for a higher profit in the short term.<br />
<br />
===Community currencies===<br />
The national currencies issued by the central banks are far from the only currencies. Money which is not legal tender is often called ''scrip''. Frequent flyer miles or similar loyalty programs can also be thought of as currencies and there are many ''alternative'' or ''complementary currencies'' that are in use in combination with standard currencies. Some of them make use of demurrage, others don't. A subset of complementary currencies are ''local currencies'' which can be used only in a small area. This stimulates the local economy and strengthens the sense of community in a town or area. That's why they are also often called ''community currencies''.<br />
One of the first modern complementary currencies is the [http://www.ithacahours.org/ Ithaca Hour]. One Ithaca Hour is supposed to be worth as much as one hour of work done (or can be changed into 10 US-Dollars). They are only redeemable in the city of Ithaca (NY). Because Ithaca Hours don't have demurrage and somebody has to print them, the issuers of the money have to face the same challenges of monetary policy as all the central banks. Too much money in circulation will lead to inflation, too little to deflation. On the other hand, things are simplified by the fact that Ithaca Hours circulate only in a small area and new money is usually inserted into the system by interest-free loans to locals or grants to local non-profits.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Ithaca.JPG|thumb|300px|Shops in Ithaca.]]<br />
An entirely different approach is ''mutual credit''. Most of these systems are called Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). They don't need to worry about monetary policy because money is only created in the instance of the transaction – the system is thus self-regulating. There is no physical money, instead the system is based on central bookkeeping, usually electronically and accessible through a normal web browser. Each participant has an account and when he pays another participant, the amount is simply subtracted from his account and added to the other's. This concept can also be thought of interest-free loans and there is no problem with having a little minus in your account. But if you only buy products and services through the system without giving anything back, your account will go deep into minus at the expense of the other participants. This is usually dealt with caps on negative balance or the participants might be able to look at the account balance of anybody before doing business with him. Also LETS are often local or limited to only a few hundred participants and a network of trust in a community holds people accountable.<br />
<br />
A interesting project which is still in its infancy is [http://ripple.sourceforge.net/ Ripple], an effort to develop an open source peer-to-peer protocol to exchange money all over the world. At the core of Ripple lies the idea that within a network of trust between peers, transactions can be made without the need for a third party like a bank that charges for them. <br />
Another proposal is to use units of energy as currency. Coupled with ''smart grids'', radically distributed energy production might become a reality: people would sell energy, for example produced by solar panels on their rooftops. Maybe half of the price of products to purchase would have to be paid in energy units, the other half in a normal currency. The energy part of the price would be exactly the energy that is required to produce and distribute the product.<br />
<br />
There is a huge number of different community currencies. Many new networks choose to experiment with the system's mechanics or adapt it to local circumstances. Although many projects emphasize on local communities, there are also lots of networks that can make transfers all around the world and currencies that have either floating or fixed exchange rates to other community or national currencies. Community currencies need not be centered around geographic communities, there are also communities on the internet. For example virtual worlds like Second Life or World of Warcraft feature their own in-world currencies. They might be a suitable place to experiment with new exotic currencies on a large enough scale as there are often thousands of players in these worlds.<br />
<br />
===Conclusion===<br />
Obviously, no complementary currency has made the breakthrough into mainstream yet. But the ongoing financial crisis will undoubtedly make them more attractive. I sincerely hope that sooner rather than later someone comes up with a system that scales well and that favours long-term investments and the spirit of sharing and community. Complementary currencies will probably continue to exist alongside our current currencies for a long time. If they become mainstream, they will enable more people to make a living from free culture. And our children will be thankful to us if they still have a planet left to live on when they are our age.<br />
<br />
<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[3.1 The State of It All]]<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=File:Ithaca.JPG&diff=28199File:Ithaca.JPG2009-02-03T22:59:32Z<p>MauroB: Shops in Ithaca.
Author: Wikipedia User:Quinten
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Commons1.JPG
Permission: GNU FDL</p>
<hr />
<div>Shops in Ithaca.<br />
<br />
Author: Wikipedia User:Quinten<br />
<br />
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Commons1.JPG<br />
<br />
Permission: GNU FDL</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=About_Money&diff=28197About Money2009-02-03T22:52:42Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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[[Image:Money.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Money makes the world go round...]]<br />
<br />
When discussing free and open source software or free culture, one question always pops up: How do people make money from this? It surely can't be done professionally, in the sense that people can make a living from it?! The answer for software developers is that often customization for your client is a central part of your work and that you can build services like support around your software, or get paid by a big company like Google or IBM that heavily relies on free software. And obviously one can accept donations which works also for artists. They can also raise funds from charities or ask the state or museums to support their projects. Even today, most artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers can't make a living on their passion, in part because much money is already spent on the distribution (music labels or movie studios). Interesting examples of art are the Creative Commons licensed [http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/ comic Scott McCloud did for Google] to present Google Chrome or the very personal [http://foureyedmonsters.com/ Four Eyed Monsters] movie and video blog of Susan Buice and Arin Crumley who even put their feature length [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rRFFi_stY movie on YouTube]. But one keeps wondering if there wouldn't be better ways which would enable even more people to make a living from free software and free culture. <br />
<br />
===Micropayments===<br />
One thing that has been proposed for a long time, but has failed to realize as of yet are micropayments. The idea is to make it very easy and cheap to transact very small amounts of money over the internet. When somebody likes a song or a piece of software she can just hit a button on the website and the creator gets his one or two dollars. Such a simple interface and no transaction costs would make tiny donations like that a lot more attractive and hopefully they would add up to a larger pile of money.<br />
<br />
But maybe we need to change something more fundamental. Maybe, as we go from the industrialized information economy to the networked information economy, we do not only need to rethink the rules of 'intellectual property', but also the rules of money and the economy. Think of all the flaws of the current system (as evidenced by the ongoing financial crisis). The current monetary system works rather against free software/free culture and the spirit of sharing and community. But they still thrive, because humans will always care about such things, and computers and the internet have greatly facilitated them. A proposal to encourage and facilitate them even more is Open Money. It is still rather a term than an actual concept, but let me now talk about some of the thoughts and ideas that surround it.<br />
<br />
===The current monetary system===<br />
[[Image:Fed.jpg|thumb|300px|The US Federal Reserve headquarters.]]<br />
First, let's have a brief look at how things work today. At the root of almost all money are the central banks of each state: the Federal Reserve (FED) for the US-Dollar, the European Central Bank (ECB) for the Euro and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) for the Yen, to name the three top currencies. They create all the money. For every dollar printed, there used to be a corresponding amount of gold stored in the saves of the central bank and the promise of the state to redeem dollars in gold. But for quite some time this hasn't been the case anymore. Most modern currencies are 'fiat currencies', which means their value is based entirely on the believe and trust of the people that the currency is actually worth something. Money is a mutual agreement, nothing more. No doubt, it is a very useful agreement, otherwise we'd still have to trade cows for sheep which requires always a 'double-coincidence of wants' (Person A has a cow and needs a sheep AND at the same time Person B has a sheep but needs a cow). But in the end, money is still nothing more than an agreement. That's why the central banks can create money virtually out of thin air. Although, if they go too far and create too much new money compared to the goods traded, the value of the currency will decrease.<br />
<br />
But the central banks don't put the money directly on the market. Instead, they lend it to private banks at a very low rate of interest – the prime rate (this is always the lowest interest rate in an economy). The private banks in turn lend the money to their customers or other banks at a higher interest rate than the prime, in order to make a profit. <br />
This arrangement has some peculiar consequences. Maybe you never thought about it, but how are all the people (and private banks) able to pay back all their loans plus interest? Where does all the extra money that is required for the interest come from?<br />
<br />
===The infinite growth imperative===<br />
One possibility is that some of the people in the system lose their money to others and go bankrupt – the others are now able to pay back their loans plus interest. That's one of the reasons why competition between companies but also between people tends to get tougher all the time. This obviously works against the spirit of community although it enhances efficiency.<br />
Another way of getting to extra money is that the central bank simply prints more, or lowers the prime interest rate, which has the same effect because then private banks will be able to borrow more money into existence. But if you have the same amount of goods and services traded and increase the amount of money in circulation, it won't take long and people will notice. The value of the money will decrease. A pound of bread may have cost 5$, now it costs 7$ – that's what's called inflation. To prevent this from happening on an exorbitant scale, the economy needs to grow with the money supply. The idea is that if more things are traded in an economy, more money can be created without devaluating the currency. This new money can then be used to pay back the interests after a while and the circle starts anew. That is the source of the growth imperative in our economies. <br />
But how can an economy always continue to grow? One way is to increase the demand for products: more products are sold and more money can be created to compensate. This worked very well during the industrial revolution when people actually gained in welfare when they were able to buy more things. But today, in the industrialized world it is very difficult to sell ever more products. A solution is to manufacture less durable products so people will have to trash them sooner and then have to buy new replacements quicker. You can see this everywhere. Companies that produce too high quality can't sell enough in the long run, so they drive themselves into bankruptcy. Another way for the economy to grow is to have companies take things that previously were free, turn them into a product and charge for them, like for example bottled water. Or Starbucks can charge double the price for a cup of coffee, which is justified by the added experience. For the economy to grow, there should be as much exchange of money as possible. Small favours or mutual care in a family or community are pressured to be replaced by paid work.<br />
The result is always the same: if the economy is growing, more money is needed to change hands. This money can be created by loans – it is virtually loaned into existence. But those loans have interest too, so eventually even more money is required to pay back the interest on those loans. And born is the vicious circle leading to an exponential increase in loans.<br />
<br />
Interest obviously also helps making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Because the poor need to borrow money from the rich and have to pay it back plus interest. <br />
So this way of running an economy is not only unfair in the long run, but it has a built-in growth imperative which goes at the expense of the environment. Also, although efficiency is increasing, shorter working hours are nowhere to be seen, because people need to work more in order to earn more money to buy more stuff to keep the economy growing (because individuals are paid for the work done rather than for the work actually needed).<br />
The problems of this system manifest themselves most dramatically in<br />
*financial crises caused by speculative bubbles, currency volatility, or similar<br />
*the problem of supporting the growing percentage of retired people that don't produce money but still need to be cared for (which means in the current system: paid for)<br />
*increasing environmental impact (leading to pollution and climate change)<br />
<br />
While the current economy cries for more products to become commercialized in order to keep the money supply growing, free and open source culture strengthen the non-profit sector and continue to produce value without charging for it. While information doesn't need to be scarce because it is a non-rival good (when you share information you don't lose it), the physical resources of our planet are really scarce indeed (oil, rain-forests, etc). But paradoxically 'intellectual property rights' try to make information artificially scarce while at the same time the economy needs to grow infinitely, depriving the physical world of its scarce resources in the process. It should be exactly the other way around!<br />
<br />
You won't be surprised to hear now that I have come to the conclusion that this can't go on forever. So what about solutions? There have been numerous proposals to improve the current system, some more radical than others. But none have been tested on a really large scale, which makes evaluating them very difficult. The truth is that the motivations, interactions and the resulting individual and group behaviour of the whole population of earth is so insanely difficult to predict that I don't think we have much of a chance to know whether a proposed economic system works as desired or not without trying it out on a large enough scale.<br />
<br />
===Demurrage===<br />
[[Image:Crowd wallstreet.jpg|thumb|Crowd gathering on Wall Street after the 1929 crash.]]<br />
One way to tackle the problem of interest is to abandon it and replace it with 'demurrage': a fee for holding money over a given amount of time. This concept was proposed (among others) by the German economist Silvio Gesell around 1900. The largest experiment putting this theory into praxis was when the Austrian town of Wörgl introduced its own currency with demurrage in 1932, when people were saving their money during the Great Depression instead of putting it into circulation again. In such credit crunches, central banks usually lower the prime rates and print more money to get the economy going again, but in times of great uncertainty, people tend to hoard this new money too and the measures have no effect. In Wörgl, people were required to regularly purchase stamps that were attached to the money in order to keep it valid. That way the function of money as a store of value was abolished and it functioned only as a medium of exchange and a unit of account. The experiment was a huge success: people had to spend their money in order to pay less demurrage which resulted in faster circulation of money and rapid growth in employment. Unfortunately, in 1933 the experiment was terminated by the Austrian National Bank on the grounds that it was a threat to the Bank's monopoly on printing money and soon unemployment was on the rise again.<br />
<br />
Today, instead of requiring stamps on paper money, the demurrage can obviously be subtracted automatically from electronic bank accounts. With interest based currencies, you gain money when you hoard it, with demurrage you lose it. So you can't invest your saved wealth in money and expect it to grow. This leads to investments that have a high long term return, as opposed to the short term thinking and infinite growth imperative that dominates the current system. Suddenly, it's more worthwhile to invest in a forest and keep it intact to continue to harvest smaller amounts of wood over a very longer period of time instead of chipping it all down right now to invest the money on the money market which makes for a higher profit in the short term.<br />
<br />
===Community currencies===<br />
The national currencies issued by the central banks are far from the only currencies. Money which is not legal tender is often called 'scrip'. Frequent flyer miles or similar loyalty programs can also be thought of as currencies and there are many 'alternative' or 'complementary currencies' that are in use in combination with standard currencies. Some of them make use of demurrage, others don't. A subset of complementary currencies are 'local currencies' which can be used only in a small area. This stimulates the local economy and strengthens the sense of community in a town or area. That's why they are also often called 'community currencies'.<br />
One of the first modern complementary currencies is the [http://www.ithacahours.org/ Ithaca Hour]. One Ithaca Hour is supposed to be worth as much as one hour of work done (or can be changed into 10 US-Dollars). They are only redeemable in the city of Ithaca (NY). Because Ithaca Hours don't have demurrage and somebody has to print them, the issuers of the money have to face the same challenges of monetary policy as all the central banks. Too much money in circulation will lead to inflation, too little to deflation. On the other hand, things are simplified by the fact that Ithaca Hours circulate only in a small area and new money is usually inserted into the system by interest-free loans to locals or grants to local non-profits.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Stocks.jpg|thumb|400px|Virtual stocks.]]<br />
An entirely different approach is 'mutual credit'. Most of these systems are called Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). They don't need to worry about monetary policy because money is only created in the instance of the transaction – the system is thus self-regulating. There is no physical money, instead the system is based on central bookkeeping, usually electronically and accessible through a normal web browser. Each participant has an account and when he pays another participant, the amount is simply subtracted from his account and added to the other's. This concept can also be thought of interest-free loans and there is no problem with having a little minus in your account. But if you only buy products and services through the system without giving anything back, your account will go deep into minus at the expense of the other participants. This is usually dealt with caps on negative balance or the participants might be able to look at the account balance of anybody before doing business with him. Also LETS are often local or limited to only a few hundred participants and a network of trust in a community holds people accountable.<br />
<br />
A interesting project which is still in its infancy is [http://ripple.sourceforge.net/ Ripple], an effort to develop an open source peer-to-peer protocol to exchange money all over the world. At the core of Ripple lies the idea that within a network of trust between peers, transactions can be made without the need for a third party like a bank that charges for them. <br />
Another proposal is to use units of energy as currency. Coupled with 'smart grids', radically distributed energy production might become a reality: people would sell energy, for example produced by solar panels on their rooftops. Maybe half of the price of products to purchase would have to be paid in energy units, the other half in a normal currency. The energy part of the price would be exactly the energy that is required to produce and distribute the product.<br />
<br />
There is a huge number of different community currencies. Many new networks choose to experiment with the system's mechanics or adapt it to local circumstances. Although many projects emphasize on local communities, there are also lots of networks that can make transfers all around the world and currencies that have either floating or fixed exchange rates to other community or national currencies. Community currencies need not be centered around geographic communities, there are also communities on the internet. For example virtual worlds like Second Life or World of Warcraft feature their own in-world currencies. They might be a suitable place to experiment with new exotic currencies on a large enough scale as there are often thousands of players in these worlds.<br />
<br />
===Conclusion===<br />
Obviously, no complementary currency has made the breakthrough into mainstream yet. But the ongoing financial crisis will undoubtedly make them more attractive. I sincerely hope that sooner rather than later someone comes up with a system that scales well and that favours long-term investments and the spirit of sharing and community. Complementary currencies will probably continue to exist alongside our current currencies for a long time. If they become mainstream, they will enable more people to make a living from free culture. And our children will be thankful to us if they still have a planet left to live on when they are our age.<br />
<br />
<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[3.1 The State of It All]]<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=About_Money&diff=28196About Money2009-02-03T22:50:54Z<p>MauroB: /* Community currencies */</p>
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<br />
[[Image:Money.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Money makes the world go round...]]<br />
<br />
When discussing free and open source software or free culture, one question always pops up: How do people make money from this? It surely can't be done professionally, in the sense that people can make a living from it?! The answer for software developers is that often customization for your client is a central part of your work and that you can build services like support around your software, or get paid by a big company like Google or IBM that heavily relies on free software. And obviously one can accept donations which works also for artists. They can also raise funds from charities or ask the state or museums to support their projects. Even today, most artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers can't make a living on their passion, in part because much money is already spent on the distribution (music labels or movie studios). Interesting examples of art are the Creative Commons licensed [http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/ comic Scott McCloud did for Google] to present Google Chrome or the very personal [http://foureyedmonsters.com/ Four Eyed Monsters] movie and video blog of Susan Buice and Arin Crumley who even put their feature length [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rRFFi_stY movie on YouTube]. But one keeps wondering if there wouldn't be better ways which would enable even more people to make a living from free software and free culture. <br />
<br />
===Micropayments===<br />
One thing that has been proposed for a long time, but has failed to realize as of yet are micropayments. The idea is to make it very easy and cheap to transact very small amounts of money over the internet. When somebody likes a song or a piece of software she can just hit a button on the website and the creator gets his one or two dollars. Such a simple interface and no transaction costs would make tiny donations like that a lot more attractive and hopefully they would add up to a larger pile of money.<br />
<br />
But maybe we need to change something more fundamental. Maybe, as we go from the industrialized information economy to the networked information economy, we do not only need to rethink the rules of 'intellectual property', but also the rules of money and the economy. Think of all the flaws of the current system (as evidenced by the ongoing financial crisis). The current monetary system works rather against free software/free culture and the spirit of sharing and community. But they still thrive, because humans will always care about such things, and computers and the internet have greatly facilitated them. A proposal to encourage and facilitate them even more is Open Money. It is still rather a term than an actual concept, but let me now talk about some of the thoughts and ideas that surround it.<br />
<br />
===The current monetary system===<br />
[[Image:Fed.jpg|thumb|300px|The US Federal Reserve headquarters.]]<br />
First, let's have a brief look at how things work today. At the root of almost all money are the central banks of each state: the Federal Reserve (FED) for the US-Dollar, the European Central Bank (ECB) for the Euro and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) for the Yen, to name the three top currencies. They create all the money. For every dollar printed, there used to be a corresponding amount of gold stored in the saves of the central bank and the promise of the state to redeem dollars in gold. But for quite some time this hasn't been the case anymore. Most modern currencies are 'fiat currencies', which means their value is based entirely on the believe and trust of the people that the currency is actually worth something. Money is a mutual agreement, nothing more. No doubt, it is a very useful agreement, otherwise we'd still have to trade cows for sheep which requires always a 'double-coincidence of wants' (Person A has a cow and needs a sheep AND at the same time Person B has a sheep but needs a cow). But in the end, money is still nothing more than an agreement. That's why the central banks can create money virtually out of thin air. Although, if they go too far and create too much new money compared to the goods traded, the value of the currency will decrease.<br />
<br />
But the central banks don't put the money directly on the market. Instead, they lend it to private banks at a very low rate of interest – the prime rate (this is always the lowest interest rate in an economy). The private banks in turn lend the money to their customers or other banks at a higher interest rate than the prime, in order to make a profit. <br />
This arrangement has some peculiar consequences. Maybe you never thought about it, but how are all the people (and private banks) able to pay back all their loans plus interest? Where does all the extra money that is required for the interest come from?<br />
<br />
===The infinite growth imperative===<br />
One possibility is that some of the people in the system lose their money to others and go bankrupt – the others are now able to pay back their loans plus interest. That's one of the reasons why competition between companies but also between people tends to get tougher all the time. This obviously works against the spirit of community although it enhances efficiency.<br />
Another way of getting to extra money is that the central bank simply prints more, or lowers the prime interest rate, which has the same effect because then private banks will be able to borrow more money into existence. But if you have the same amount of goods and services traded and increase the amount of money in circulation, it won't take long and people will notice. The value of the money will decrease. A pound of bread may have cost 5$, now it costs 7$ – that's what's called inflation. To prevent this from happening on an exorbitant scale, the economy needs to grow with the money supply. The idea is that if more things are traded in an economy, more money can be created without devaluating the currency. This new money can then be used to pay back the interests after a while and the circle starts anew. That is the source of the growth imperative in our economies. <br />
But how can an economy always continue to grow? One way is to increase the demand for products: more products are sold and more money can be created to compensate. This worked very well during the industrial revolution when people actually gained in welfare when they were able to buy more things. But today, in the industrialized world it is very difficult to sell ever more products. A solution is to manufacture less durable products so people will have to trash them sooner and then have to buy new replacements quicker. You can see this everywhere. Companies that produce too high quality can't sell enough in the long run, so they drive themselves into bankruptcy. Another way for the economy to grow is to have companies take things that previously were free, turn them into a product and charge for them, like for example bottled water. Or Starbucks can charge double the price for a cup of coffee, which is justified by the added experience. For the economy to grow, there should be as much exchange of money as possible. Small favours or mutual care in a family or community are pressured to be replaced by paid work.<br />
The result is always the same: if the economy is growing, more money is needed to change hands. This money can be created by loans – it is virtually loaned into existence. But those loans have interest too, so eventually even more money is required to pay back the interest on those loans. And born is the vicious circle leading to an exponential increase in loans.<br />
<br />
Interest obviously also helps making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Because the poor need to borrow money from the rich and have to pay it back plus interest. <br />
So this way of running an economy is not only unfair in the long run, but it has a built-in growth imperative which goes at the expense of the environment. Also, although efficiency is increasing, shorter working hours are nowhere to be seen, because people need to work more in order to earn more money to buy more stuff to keep the economy growing (because individuals are paid for the work done rather than for the work actually needed).<br />
The problems of this system manifest themselves most dramatically in<br />
*financial crises caused by speculative bubbles, currency volatility, or similar<br />
*the problem of supporting the growing percentage of retired people that don't produce money but still need to be cared for (which means in the current system: paid for)<br />
*increasing environmental impact (leading to pollution and climate change)<br />
<br />
While the current economy cries for more products to become commercialized in order to keep the money supply growing, free and open source culture strengthen the non-profit sector and continue to produce value without charging for it. While information doesn't need to be scarce because it is a non-rival good (when you share information you don't lose it), the physical resources of our planet are really scarce indeed (oil, rain-forests, etc). But paradoxically 'intellectual property rights' try to make information artificially scarce while at the same time the economy needs to grow infinitely, depriving the physical world of its scarce resources in the process. It should be exactly the other way around!<br />
<br />
You won't be surprised to hear now that I have come to the conclusion that this can't go on forever. So what about solutions? There have been numerous proposals to improve the current system, some more radical than others. But none have been tested on a really large scale, which makes evaluating them very difficult. The truth is that the motivations, interactions and the resulting individual and group behaviour of the whole population of earth is so insanely difficult to predict that I don't think we have much of a chance to know whether a proposed economic system works as desired or not without trying it out on a large enough scale.<br />
<br />
===Demurrage===<br />
One way to tackle the problem of interest is to abandon it and replace it with 'demurrage': a fee for holding money over a given amount of time. This concept was proposed (among others) by the German economist Silvio Gesell around 1900. The largest experiment putting this theory into praxis was when the Austrian town of Wörgl introduced its own currency with demurrage in 1932, when people were saving their money during the Great Depression instead of putting it into circulation again. In such credit crunches, central banks usually lower the prime rates and print more money to get the economy going again, but in times of great uncertainty, people tend to hoard this new money too and the measures have no effect. In Wörgl, people were required to regularly purchase stamps that were attached to the money in order to keep it valid. That way the function of money as a store of value was abolished and it functioned only as a medium of exchange and a unit of account. The experiment was a huge success: people had to spend their money in order to pay less demurrage which resulted in faster circulation of money and rapid growth in employment. Unfortunately, in 1933 the experiment was terminated by the Austrian National Bank on the grounds that it was a threat to the Bank's monopoly on printing money and soon unemployment was on the rise again.<br />
<br />
Today, instead of requiring stamps on paper money, the demurrage can obviously be subtracted automatically from electronic bank accounts. With interest based currencies, you gain money when you hoard it, with demurrage you lose it. So you can't invest your saved wealth in money and expect it to grow. This leads to investments that have a high long term return, as opposed to the short term thinking and infinite growth imperative that dominates the current system. Suddenly, it's more worthwhile to invest in a forest and keep it intact to continue to harvest smaller amounts of wood over a very longer period of time instead of chipping it all down right now to invest the money on the money market which makes for a higher profit in the short term.<br />
<br />
===Community currencies===<br />
[[Image:Stocks.jpg|thumb|400px|Virtual stocks.]]<br />
The national currencies issued by the central banks are far from the only currencies. Money which is not legal tender is often called 'scrip'. Frequent flyer miles or similar loyalty programs can also be thought of as currencies and there are many 'alternative' or 'complementary currencies' that are in use in combination with standard currencies. Some of them make use of demurrage, others don't. A subset of complementary currencies are 'local currencies' which can be used only in a small area. This stimulates the local economy and strengthens the sense of community in a town or area. That's why they are also often called 'community currencies'.<br />
One of the first modern complementary currencies is the [http://www.ithacahours.org/ Ithaca Hour]. One Ithaca Hour is supposed to be worth as much as one hour of work done (or can be changed into 10 US-Dollars). They are only redeemable in the city of Ithaca (NY). Because Ithaca Hours don't have demurrage and somebody has to print them, the issuers of the money have to face the same challenges of monetary policy as all the central banks. Too much money in circulation will lead to inflation, too little to deflation. On the other hand, things are simplified by the fact that Ithaca Hours circulate only in a small area and new money is usually inserted into the system by interest-free loans to locals or grants to local non-profits.<br />
<br />
An entirely different approach is 'mutual credit'. Most of these systems are called Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). They don't need to worry about monetary policy because money is only created in the instance of the transaction – the system is thus self-regulating. There is no physical money, instead the system is based on central bookkeeping, usually electronically and accessible through a normal web browser. Each participant has an account and when he pays another participant, the amount is simply subtracted from his account and added to the other's. This concept can also be thought of interest-free loans and there is no problem with having a little minus in your account. But if you only buy products and services through the system without giving anything back, your account will go deep into minus at the expense of the other participants. This is usually dealt with caps on negative balance or the participants might be able to look at the account balance of anybody before doing business with him. Also LETS are often local or limited to only a few hundred participants and a network of trust in a community holds people accountable.<br />
<br />
A interesting project which is still in its infancy is [http://ripple.sourceforge.net/ Ripple], an effort to develop an open source peer-to-peer protocol to exchange money all over the world. At the core of Ripple lies the idea that within a network of trust between peers, transactions can be made without the need for a third party like a bank that charges for them. <br />
Another proposal is to use units of energy as currency. Coupled with 'smart grids', radically distributed energy production might become a reality: people would sell energy, for example produced by solar panels on their rooftops. Maybe half of the price of products to purchase would have to be paid in energy units, the other half in a normal currency. The energy part of the price would be exactly the energy that is required to produce and distribute the product.<br />
<br />
There is a huge number of different community currencies. Many new networks choose to experiment with the system's mechanics or adapt it to local circumstances. Although many projects emphasize on local communities, there are also lots of networks that can make transfers all around the world and currencies that have either floating or fixed exchange rates to other community or national currencies. Community currencies need not be centered around geographic communities, there are also communities on the internet. For example virtual worlds like Second Life or World of Warcraft feature their own in-world currencies. They might be a suitable place to experiment with new exotic currencies on a large enough scale as there are often thousands of players in these worlds.<br />
<br />
===Conclusion===<br />
Obviously, no complementary currency has made the breakthrough into mainstream yet. But the ongoing financial crisis will undoubtedly make them more attractive. I sincerely hope that sooner rather than later someone comes up with a system that scales well and that favours long-term investments and the spirit of sharing and community. Complementary currencies will probably continue to exist alongside our current currencies for a long time. If they become mainstream, they will enable more people to make a living from free culture. And our children will be thankful to us if they still have a planet left to live on when they are our age.<br />
<br />
<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[3.1 The State of It All]]<br />
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<br />
[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=File:Crowd_wallstreet.jpg&diff=28195File:Crowd wallstreet.jpg2009-02-03T22:46:20Z<p>MauroB: A solemn crowd gathers outside the Stock Exchange after the crash. 1929.
Author: US government
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crowd_outside_nyse.jpg
Permission: public domain</p>
<hr />
<div>A solemn crowd gathers outside the Stock Exchange after the crash. 1929.<br />
<br />
Author: US government<br />
<br />
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crowd_outside_nyse.jpg<br />
<br />
Permission: public domain</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=File:Stocks.jpg&diff=28194File:Stocks.jpg2009-02-03T22:43:58Z<p>MauroB: ticker monitor
Author: Wikipedia User:klip game
Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:E-ticker.jpg
Permission: public domain</p>
<hr />
<div>ticker monitor<br />
<br />
Author: Wikipedia User:klip game<br />
<br />
Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:E-ticker.jpg<br />
<br />
Permission: public domain</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=About_Money&diff=28192About Money2009-02-03T22:32:01Z<p>MauroB: /* The current monetary system */</p>
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[[Image:Money.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Money makes the world go round...]]<br />
<br />
When discussing free and open source software or free culture, one question always pops up: How do people make money from this? It surely can't be done professionally, in the sense that people can make a living from it?! The answer for software developers is that often customization for your client is a central part of your work and that you can build services like support around your software, or get paid by a big company like Google or IBM that heavily relies on free software. And obviously one can accept donations which works also for artists. They can also raise funds from charities or ask the state or museums to support their projects. Even today, most artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers can't make a living on their passion, in part because much money is already spent on the distribution (music labels or movie studios). Interesting examples of art are the Creative Commons licensed [http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/ comic Scott McCloud did for Google] to present Google Chrome or the very personal [http://foureyedmonsters.com/ Four Eyed Monsters] movie and video blog of Susan Buice and Arin Crumley who even put their feature length [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rRFFi_stY movie on YouTube]. But one keeps wondering if there wouldn't be better ways which would enable even more people to make a living from free software and free culture. <br />
<br />
===Micropayments===<br />
One thing that has been proposed for a long time, but has failed to realize as of yet are micropayments. The idea is to make it very easy and cheap to transact very small amounts of money over the internet. When somebody likes a song or a piece of software she can just hit a button on the website and the creator gets his one or two dollars. Such a simple interface and no transaction costs would make tiny donations like that a lot more attractive and hopefully they would add up to a larger pile of money.<br />
<br />
But maybe we need to change something more fundamental. Maybe, as we go from the industrialized information economy to the networked information economy, we do not only need to rethink the rules of 'intellectual property', but also the rules of money and the economy. Think of all the flaws of the current system (as evidenced by the ongoing financial crisis). The current monetary system works rather against free software/free culture and the spirit of sharing and community. But they still thrive, because humans will always care about such things, and computers and the internet have greatly facilitated them. A proposal to encourage and facilitate them even more is Open Money. It is still rather a term than an actual concept, but let me now talk about some of the thoughts and ideas that surround it.<br />
<br />
===The current monetary system===<br />
[[Image:Fed.jpg|thumb|300px|The US Federal Reserve headquarters.]]<br />
First, let's have a brief look at how things work today. At the root of almost all money are the central banks of each state: the Federal Reserve (FED) for the US-Dollar, the European Central Bank (ECB) for the Euro and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) for the Yen, to name the three top currencies. They create all the money. For every dollar printed, there used to be a corresponding amount of gold stored in the saves of the central bank and the promise of the state to redeem dollars in gold. But for quite some time this hasn't been the case anymore. Most modern currencies are 'fiat currencies', which means their value is based entirely on the believe and trust of the people that the currency is actually worth something. Money is a mutual agreement, nothing more. No doubt, it is a very useful agreement, otherwise we'd still have to trade cows for sheep which requires always a 'double-coincidence of wants' (Person A has a cow and needs a sheep AND at the same time Person B has a sheep but needs a cow). But in the end, money is still nothing more than an agreement. That's why the central banks can create money virtually out of thin air. Although, if they go too far and create too much new money compared to the goods traded, the value of the currency will decrease.<br />
<br />
But the central banks don't put the money directly on the market. Instead, they lend it to private banks at a very low rate of interest – the prime rate (this is always the lowest interest rate in an economy). The private banks in turn lend the money to their customers or other banks at a higher interest rate than the prime, in order to make a profit. <br />
This arrangement has some peculiar consequences. Maybe you never thought about it, but how are all the people (and private banks) able to pay back all their loans plus interest? Where does all the extra money that is required for the interest come from?<br />
<br />
===The infinite growth imperative===<br />
One possibility is that some of the people in the system lose their money to others and go bankrupt – the others are now able to pay back their loans plus interest. That's one of the reasons why competition between companies but also between people tends to get tougher all the time. This obviously works against the spirit of community although it enhances efficiency.<br />
Another way of getting to extra money is that the central bank simply prints more, or lowers the prime interest rate, which has the same effect because then private banks will be able to borrow more money into existence. But if you have the same amount of goods and services traded and increase the amount of money in circulation, it won't take long and people will notice. The value of the money will decrease. A pound of bread may have cost 5$, now it costs 7$ – that's what's called inflation. To prevent this from happening on an exorbitant scale, the economy needs to grow with the money supply. The idea is that if more things are traded in an economy, more money can be created without devaluating the currency. This new money can then be used to pay back the interests after a while and the circle starts anew. That is the source of the growth imperative in our economies. <br />
But how can an economy always continue to grow? One way is to increase the demand for products: more products are sold and more money can be created to compensate. This worked very well during the industrial revolution when people actually gained in welfare when they were able to buy more things. But today, in the industrialized world it is very difficult to sell ever more products. A solution is to manufacture less durable products so people will have to trash them sooner and then have to buy new replacements quicker. You can see this everywhere. Companies that produce too high quality can't sell enough in the long run, so they drive themselves into bankruptcy. Another way for the economy to grow is to have companies take things that previously were free, turn them into a product and charge for them, like for example bottled water. Or Starbucks can charge double the price for a cup of coffee, which is justified by the added experience. For the economy to grow, there should be as much exchange of money as possible. Small favours or mutual care in a family or community are pressured to be replaced by paid work.<br />
The result is always the same: if the economy is growing, more money is needed to change hands. This money can be created by loans – it is virtually loaned into existence. But those loans have interest too, so eventually even more money is required to pay back the interest on those loans. And born is the vicious circle leading to an exponential increase in loans.<br />
<br />
Interest obviously also helps making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Because the poor need to borrow money from the rich and have to pay it back plus interest. <br />
So this way of running an economy is not only unfair in the long run, but it has a built-in growth imperative which goes at the expense of the environment. Also, although efficiency is increasing, shorter working hours are nowhere to be seen, because people need to work more in order to earn more money to buy more stuff to keep the economy growing (because individuals are paid for the work done rather than for the work actually needed).<br />
The problems of this system manifest themselves most dramatically in<br />
*financial crises caused by speculative bubbles, currency volatility, or similar<br />
*the problem of supporting the growing percentage of retired people that don't produce money but still need to be cared for (which means in the current system: paid for)<br />
*increasing environmental impact (leading to pollution and climate change)<br />
<br />
While the current economy cries for more products to become commercialized in order to keep the money supply growing, free and open source culture strengthen the non-profit sector and continue to produce value without charging for it. While information doesn't need to be scarce because it is a non-rival good (when you share information you don't lose it), the physical resources of our planet are really scarce indeed (oil, rain-forests, etc). But paradoxically 'intellectual property rights' try to make information artificially scarce while at the same time the economy needs to grow infinitely, depriving the physical world of its scarce resources in the process. It should be exactly the other way around!<br />
<br />
You won't be surprised to hear now that I have come to the conclusion that this can't go on forever. So what about solutions? There have been numerous proposals to improve the current system, some more radical than others. But none have been tested on a really large scale, which makes evaluating them very difficult. The truth is that the motivations, interactions and the resulting individual and group behaviour of the whole population of earth is so insanely difficult to predict that I don't think we have much of a chance to know whether a proposed economic system works as desired or not without trying it out on a large enough scale.<br />
<br />
===Demurrage===<br />
One way to tackle the problem of interest is to abandon it and replace it with 'demurrage': a fee for holding money over a given amount of time. This concept was proposed (among others) by the German economist Silvio Gesell around 1900. The largest experiment putting this theory into praxis was when the Austrian town of Wörgl introduced its own currency with demurrage in 1932, when people were saving their money during the Great Depression instead of putting it into circulation again. In such credit crunches, central banks usually lower the prime rates and print more money to get the economy going again, but in times of great uncertainty, people tend to hoard this new money too and the measures have no effect. In Wörgl, people were required to regularly purchase stamps that were attached to the money in order to keep it valid. That way the function of money as a store of value was abolished and it functioned only as a medium of exchange and a unit of account. The experiment was a huge success: people had to spend their money in order to pay less demurrage which resulted in faster circulation of money and rapid growth in employment. Unfortunately, in 1933 the experiment was terminated by the Austrian National Bank on the grounds that it was a threat to the Bank's monopoly on printing money and soon unemployment was on the rise again.<br />
<br />
Today, instead of requiring stamps on paper money, the demurrage can obviously be subtracted automatically from electronic bank accounts. With interest based currencies, you gain money when you hoard it, with demurrage you lose it. So you can't invest your saved wealth in money and expect it to grow. This leads to investments that have a high long term return, as opposed to the short term thinking and infinite growth imperative that dominates the current system. Suddenly, it's more worthwhile to invest in a forest and keep it intact to continue to harvest smaller amounts of wood over a very longer period of time instead of chipping it all down right now to invest the money on the money market which makes for a higher profit in the short term.<br />
<br />
===Community currencies===<br />
The national currencies issued by the central banks are far from the only currencies. Money which is not legal tender is often called 'scrip'. Frequent flyer miles or similar loyalty programs can also be thought of as currencies and there are many 'alternative' or 'complementary currencies' that are in use in combination with standard currencies. Some of them make use of demurrage, others don't. A subset of complementary currencies are 'local currencies' which can be used only in a small area. This stimulates the local economy and strengthens the sense of community in a town or area. That's why they are also often called 'community currencies'.<br />
One of the first modern complementary currencies is the [http://www.ithacahours.org/ Ithaca Hour]. One Ithaca Hour is supposed to be worth as much as one hour of work done (or can be changed into 10 US-Dollars). They are only redeemable in the city of Ithaca (NY). Because Ithaca Hours don't have demurrage and somebody has to print them, the issuers of the money have to face the same challenges of monetary policy as all the central banks. Too much money in circulation will lead to inflation, too little to deflation. On the other hand, things are simplified by the fact that Ithaca Hours circulate only in a small area and new money is usually inserted into the system by interest-free loans to locals or grants to local non-profits.<br />
<br />
An entirely different approach is 'mutual credit'. Most of these systems are called Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). They don't need to worry about monetary policy because money is only created in the instance of the transaction – the system is thus self-regulating. There is no physical money, instead the system is based on central bookkeeping, usually electronically and accessible through a normal web browser. Each participant has an account and when he pays another participant, the amount is simply subtracted from his account and added to the other's. This concept can also be thought of interest-free loans and there is no problem with having a little minus in your account. But if you only buy products and services through the system without giving anything back, your account will go deep into minus at the expense of the other participants. This is usually dealt with caps on negative balance or the participants might be able to look at the account balance of anybody before doing business with him. Also LETS are often local or limited to only a few hundred participants and a network of trust in a community holds people accountable.<br />
<br />
A interesting project which is still in its infancy is [http://ripple.sourceforge.net/ Ripple], an effort to develop an open source peer-to-peer protocol to exchange money all over the world. At the core of Ripple lies the idea that within a network of trust between peers, transactions can be made without the need for a third party like a bank that charges for them. <br />
Another proposal is to use units of energy as currency. Coupled with 'smart grids', radically distributed energy production might become a reality: people would sell energy, for example produced by solar panels on their rooftops. Maybe half of the price of products to purchase would have to be paid in energy units, the other half in a normal currency. The energy part of the price would be exactly the energy that is required to produce and distribute the product.<br />
<br />
There is a huge number of different community currencies. Many new networks choose to experiment with the system's mechanics or adapt it to local circumstances. Although many projects emphasize on local communities, there are also lots of networks that can make transfers all around the world and currencies that have either floating or fixed exchange rates to other community or national currencies. Community currencies need not be centered around geographic communities, there are also communities on the internet. For example virtual worlds like Second Life or World of Warcraft feature their own in-world currencies. They might be a suitable place to experiment with new exotic currencies on a large enough scale as there are often thousands of players in these worlds.<br />
<br />
===Conclusion===<br />
Obviously, no complementary currency has made the breakthrough into mainstream yet. But the ongoing financial crisis will undoubtedly make them more attractive. I sincerely hope that sooner rather than later someone comes up with a system that scales well and that favours long-term investments and the spirit of sharing and community. Complementary currencies will probably continue to exist alongside our current currencies for a long time. If they become mainstream, they will enable more people to make a living from free culture. And our children will be thankful to us if they still have a planet left to live on when they are our age.<br />
<br />
<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[3.1 The State of It All]]<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=File:Fed.jpg&diff=28190File:Fed.jpg2009-02-03T22:30:17Z<p>MauroB: The US Federal Reserve Headquarters.
Author: Dan Smith
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Federal_Reserve.jpg
Permission: Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License</p>
<hr />
<div>The US Federal Reserve Headquarters.<br />
<br />
Author: Dan Smith<br />
<br />
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Federal_Reserve.jpg<br />
<br />
Permission: Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=About_Money&diff=28189About Money2009-02-03T21:34:02Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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<br />
[[Image:Money.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Money makes the world go round...]]<br />
<br />
When discussing free and open source software or free culture, one question always pops up: How do people make money from this? It surely can't be done professionally, in the sense that people can make a living from it?! The answer for software developers is that often customization for your client is a central part of your work and that you can build services like support around your software, or get paid by a big company like Google or IBM that heavily relies on free software. And obviously one can accept donations which works also for artists. They can also raise funds from charities or ask the state or museums to support their projects. Even today, most artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers can't make a living on their passion, in part because much money is already spent on the distribution (music labels or movie studios). Interesting examples of art are the Creative Commons licensed [http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/ comic Scott McCloud did for Google] to present Google Chrome or the very personal [http://foureyedmonsters.com/ Four Eyed Monsters] movie and video blog of Susan Buice and Arin Crumley who even put their feature length [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rRFFi_stY movie on YouTube]. But one keeps wondering if there wouldn't be better ways which would enable even more people to make a living from free software and free culture. <br />
<br />
===Micropayments===<br />
One thing that has been proposed for a long time, but has failed to realize as of yet are micropayments. The idea is to make it very easy and cheap to transact very small amounts of money over the internet. When somebody likes a song or a piece of software she can just hit a button on the website and the creator gets his one or two dollars. Such a simple interface and no transaction costs would make tiny donations like that a lot more attractive and hopefully they would add up to a larger pile of money.<br />
<br />
But maybe we need to change something more fundamental. Maybe, as we go from the industrialized information economy to the networked information economy, we do not only need to rethink the rules of 'intellectual property', but also the rules of money and the economy. Think of all the flaws of the current system (as evidenced by the ongoing financial crisis). The current monetary system works rather against free software/free culture and the spirit of sharing and community. But they still thrive, because humans will always care about such things, and computers and the internet have greatly facilitated them. A proposal to encourage and facilitate them even more is Open Money. It is still rather a term than an actual concept, but let me now talk about some of the thoughts and ideas that surround it.<br />
<br />
===The current monetary system===<br />
First, let's have a brief look at how things work today. At the root of almost all money are the central banks of each state: the Federal Reserve (FED) for the US-Dollar, the European Central Bank (ECB) for the Euro and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) for the Yen, to name the three top currencies. They create all the money. For every dollar printed, there used to be a corresponding amount of gold stored in the saves of the central bank and the promise of the state to redeem dollars in gold. But for quite some time this hasn't been the case anymore. Most modern currencies are 'fiat currencies', which means their value is based entirely on the believe and trust of the people that the currency is actually worth something. Money is a mutual agreement, nothing more. No doubt, it is a very useful agreement, otherwise we'd still have to trade cows for sheep which requires always a 'double-coincidence of wants' (Person A has a cow and needs a sheep AND at the same time Person B has a sheep but needs a cow). But in the end, money is still nothing more than an agreement. That's why the central banks can create money virtually out of thin air. Although, if they go too far and create too much new money compared to the goods traded, the value of the currency will decrease.<br />
<br />
But the central banks don't put the money directly on the market. Instead, they lend it to private banks at a very low rate of interest – the prime rate (this is always the lowest interest rate in an economy). The private banks in turn lend the money to their customers or other banks at a higher interest rate than the prime, in order to make a profit. <br />
This arrangement has some peculiar consequences. Maybe you never thought about it, but how are all the people (and private banks) able to pay back all their loans plus interest? Where does all the extra money that is required for the interest come from? <br />
<br />
===The infinite growth imperative===<br />
One possibility is that some of the people in the system lose their money to others and go bankrupt – the others are now able to pay back their loans plus interest. That's one of the reasons why competition between companies but also between people tends to get tougher all the time. This obviously works against the spirit of community although it enhances efficiency.<br />
Another way of getting to extra money is that the central bank simply prints more, or lowers the prime interest rate, which has the same effect because then private banks will be able to borrow more money into existence. But if you have the same amount of goods and services traded and increase the amount of money in circulation, it won't take long and people will notice. The value of the money will decrease. A pound of bread may have cost 5$, now it costs 7$ – that's what's called inflation. To prevent this from happening on an exorbitant scale, the economy needs to grow with the money supply. The idea is that if more things are traded in an economy, more money can be created without devaluating the currency. This new money can then be used to pay back the interests after a while and the circle starts anew. That is the source of the growth imperative in our economies. <br />
But how can an economy always continue to grow? One way is to increase the demand for products: more products are sold and more money can be created to compensate. This worked very well during the industrial revolution when people actually gained in welfare when they were able to buy more things. But today, in the industrialized world it is very difficult to sell ever more products. A solution is to manufacture less durable products so people will have to trash them sooner and then have to buy new replacements quicker. You can see this everywhere. Companies that produce too high quality can't sell enough in the long run, so they drive themselves into bankruptcy. Another way for the economy to grow is to have companies take things that previously were free, turn them into a product and charge for them, like for example bottled water. Or Starbucks can charge double the price for a cup of coffee, which is justified by the added experience. For the economy to grow, there should be as much exchange of money as possible. Small favours or mutual care in a family or community are pressured to be replaced by paid work.<br />
The result is always the same: if the economy is growing, more money is needed to change hands. This money can be created by loans – it is virtually loaned into existence. But those loans have interest too, so eventually even more money is required to pay back the interest on those loans. And born is the vicious circle leading to an exponential increase in loans.<br />
<br />
Interest obviously also helps making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Because the poor need to borrow money from the rich and have to pay it back plus interest. <br />
So this way of running an economy is not only unfair in the long run, but it has a built-in growth imperative which goes at the expense of the environment. Also, although efficiency is increasing, shorter working hours are nowhere to be seen, because people need to work more in order to earn more money to buy more stuff to keep the economy growing (because individuals are paid for the work done rather than for the work actually needed).<br />
The problems of this system manifest themselves most dramatically in<br />
*financial crises caused by speculative bubbles, currency volatility, or similar<br />
*the problem of supporting the growing percentage of retired people that don't produce money but still need to be cared for (which means in the current system: paid for)<br />
*increasing environmental impact (leading to pollution and climate change)<br />
<br />
While the current economy cries for more products to become commercialized in order to keep the money supply growing, free and open source culture strengthen the non-profit sector and continue to produce value without charging for it. While information doesn't need to be scarce because it is a non-rival good (when you share information you don't lose it), the physical resources of our planet are really scarce indeed (oil, rain-forests, etc). But paradoxically 'intellectual property rights' try to make information artificially scarce while at the same time the economy needs to grow infinitely, depriving the physical world of its scarce resources in the process. It should be exactly the other way around!<br />
<br />
You won't be surprised to hear now that I have come to the conclusion that this can't go on forever. So what about solutions? There have been numerous proposals to improve the current system, some more radical than others. But none have been tested on a really large scale, which makes evaluating them very difficult. The truth is that the motivations, interactions and the resulting individual and group behaviour of the whole population of earth is so insanely difficult to predict that I don't think we have much of a chance to know whether a proposed economic system works as desired or not without trying it out on a large enough scale.<br />
<br />
===Demurrage===<br />
One way to tackle the problem of interest is to abandon it and replace it with 'demurrage': a fee for holding money over a given amount of time. This concept was proposed (among others) by the German economist Silvio Gesell around 1900. The largest experiment putting this theory into praxis was when the Austrian town of Wörgl introduced its own currency with demurrage in 1932, when people were saving their money during the Great Depression instead of putting it into circulation again. In such credit crunches, central banks usually lower the prime rates and print more money to get the economy going again, but in times of great uncertainty, people tend to hoard this new money too and the measures have no effect. In Wörgl, people were required to regularly purchase stamps that were attached to the money in order to keep it valid. That way the function of money as a store of value was abolished and it functioned only as a medium of exchange and a unit of account. The experiment was a huge success: people had to spend their money in order to pay less demurrage which resulted in faster circulation of money and rapid growth in employment. Unfortunately, in 1933 the experiment was terminated by the Austrian National Bank on the grounds that it was a threat to the Bank's monopoly on printing money and soon unemployment was on the rise again.<br />
<br />
Today, instead of requiring stamps on paper money, the demurrage can obviously be subtracted automatically from electronic bank accounts. With interest based currencies, you gain money when you hoard it, with demurrage you lose it. So you can't invest your saved wealth in money and expect it to grow. This leads to investments that have a high long term return, as opposed to the short term thinking and infinite growth imperative that dominates the current system. Suddenly, it's more worthwhile to invest in a forest and keep it intact to continue to harvest smaller amounts of wood over a very longer period of time instead of chipping it all down right now to invest the money on the money market which makes for a higher profit in the short term.<br />
<br />
===Community currencies===<br />
The national currencies issued by the central banks are far from the only currencies. Money which is not legal tender is often called 'scrip'. Frequent flyer miles or similar loyalty programs can also be thought of as currencies and there are many 'alternative' or 'complementary currencies' that are in use in combination with standard currencies. Some of them make use of demurrage, others don't. A subset of complementary currencies are 'local currencies' which can be used only in a small area. This stimulates the local economy and strengthens the sense of community in a town or area. That's why they are also often called 'community currencies'.<br />
One of the first modern complementary currencies is the [http://www.ithacahours.org/ Ithaca Hour]. One Ithaca Hour is supposed to be worth as much as one hour of work done (or can be changed into 10 US-Dollars). They are only redeemable in the city of Ithaca (NY). Because Ithaca Hours don't have demurrage and somebody has to print them, the issuers of the money have to face the same challenges of monetary policy as all the central banks. Too much money in circulation will lead to inflation, too little to deflation. On the other hand, things are simplified by the fact that Ithaca Hours circulate only in a small area and new money is usually inserted into the system by interest-free loans to locals or grants to local non-profits.<br />
<br />
An entirely different approach is 'mutual credit'. Most of these systems are called Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). They don't need to worry about monetary policy because money is only created in the instance of the transaction – the system is thus self-regulating. There is no physical money, instead the system is based on central bookkeeping, usually electronically and accessible through a normal web browser. Each participant has an account and when he pays another participant, the amount is simply subtracted from his account and added to the other's. This concept can also be thought of interest-free loans and there is no problem with having a little minus in your account. But if you only buy products and services through the system without giving anything back, your account will go deep into minus at the expense of the other participants. This is usually dealt with caps on negative balance or the participants might be able to look at the account balance of anybody before doing business with him. Also LETS are often local or limited to only a few hundred participants and a network of trust in a community holds people accountable.<br />
<br />
A interesting project which is still in its infancy is [http://ripple.sourceforge.net/ Ripple], an effort to develop an open source peer-to-peer protocol to exchange money all over the world. At the core of Ripple lies the idea that within a network of trust between peers, transactions can be made without the need for a third party like a bank that charges for them. <br />
Another proposal is to use units of energy as currency. Coupled with 'smart grids', radically distributed energy production might become a reality: people would sell energy, for example produced by solar panels on their rooftops. Maybe half of the price of products to purchase would have to be paid in energy units, the other half in a normal currency. The energy part of the price would be exactly the energy that is required to produce and distribute the product.<br />
<br />
There is a huge number of different community currencies. Many new networks choose to experiment with the system's mechanics or adapt it to local circumstances. Although many projects emphasize on local communities, there are also lots of networks that can make transfers all around the world and currencies that have either floating or fixed exchange rates to other community or national currencies. Community currencies need not be centered around geographic communities, there are also communities on the internet. For example virtual worlds like Second Life or World of Warcraft feature their own in-world currencies. They might be a suitable place to experiment with new exotic currencies on a large enough scale as there are often thousands of players in these worlds.<br />
<br />
===Conclusion===<br />
Obviously, no complementary currency has made the breakthrough into mainstream yet. But the ongoing financial crisis will undoubtedly make them more attractive. I sincerely hope that sooner rather than later someone comes up with a system that scales well and that favours long-term investments and the spirit of sharing and community. Complementary currencies will probably continue to exist alongside our current currencies for a long time. If they become mainstream, they will enable more people to make a living from free culture. And our children will be thankful to us if they still have a planet left to live on when they are our age.<br />
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&larr; [[3.1 The State of It All]]<br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=File:Money.jpg&diff=28188File:Money.jpg2009-02-03T21:33:26Z<p>MauroB: Brazilian money.
Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Money_(reais).jpg
Author: Felipe Micaroni Lalli
Permission: this image is under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License</p>
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<div>Brazilian money.<br />
<br />
Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Money_(reais).jpg<br />
<br />
Author: Felipe Micaroni Lalli<br />
<br />
Permission: this image is under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=A_Revolution_in_the_Making&diff=28187A Revolution in the Making2009-02-03T21:28:16Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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<div>{{Template:Navigate-First-Overview|1.1 The GNU Project and Free Software}}<br />
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[[Image:Integrated circuit.jpg|thumb|250px|right|A macro-shot of an integrated circuit - where all the computing power comes from.]]<br />
===Technological Premises...===<br />
Devices like home computers and mobile phones continue to receive huge increases in computing power every year, following Moore's Law which predicts that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double every two years. People are thus holding the power to manipulate ever more data ever faster in their hands. Today, an ordinary personal computer is a general-purpose tool for such diverse tasks as simple word processing and Internet browsing, but also for designing detailed plans of houses or electronic circuits, or editing feature-length motion pictures - the possibilities are only limited by the software you run and your ability to learn how to use it. The free availability of powerful free and open source software with good documentation is thus very important.<br />
<br />
The origins of the internet lie in a project of the United States Department of Defense which connected several universities. Today, the internet is a worldwide network and is itself the sum of smaller computer networks which are each operated by various companies such as service providers. They are interconnected through the ''lingua franca'' of computer networks: the TCP/IP-protocol. In its infancy mainly used for email and file transfer, the Internet took really off with the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989. Now it was possible to create formatted pages, interlink them with hyperlinks and instantly search them with search engines. The Internet thus very much resembles road networks. It is a publicly accessible infrastructure, provided by society as a whole, although the various parts are in different private and commercial hands. Nobody has the ultimate control over the Internet and its financing is largely independent of its function.<br />
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[[Image:Internet_map.jpg|thumb|250px|right|A visualization of the various routes through a part of the Internet.]]<br />
<br />
===...for a Revolution in the Making===<br />
*A computer in every home. <br />
*Every computer connected through a global network to every other computer. <br />
What sounds so simple and has become almost ubiquitous in the more developed countries, is actually the setup for a revolution. These technologies enable individuals to do more for and by themselves, alone, or in loose collaboration with others.<ref>Benkler, Yochai; [http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom], 2006, p. 9</ref> How else could we explain the emergence of a situation where teenagers, sharing music over the Internet, are superior to the distribution channels of the recording industry? A situation where an online encyclopedia which every internet user can edit has become a serious competitor to the Encyclopedia Britannica in less than four years? A world in which nine out of ten computer users obtain the software to operate their machines from one single company, and in which at the same time a scene of enthusiast develop an alternative operating system which performs superior, and make it freely available to anybody?<ref>Spiegel, André; [http://die-befreiung-der-information.de/buch.html Die Befreiung der Information: GNU, Linux und die Folgen], 2006 (German), p. 7</ref><br />
<br />
People all over the world try to use the new technologies to organize all human knowledge in a way which is both more efficient and more just. This development is transforming our society in fundamental ways. The very structures of how we communicated and how our economies worked for almost two centuries are changing.<ref>Benkler, p. 1</ref> Some established industries are becoming largely irrelevant and are being superseded by these new mechanisms which generally favour nonmarket production and individuals rather than a strong corporate world.<ref>Benkler, p. 3</ref> The industry is fighting these emerging mechanisms now and tries to use law and technology against them.<ref>Lawrence Lessig, [http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/ Free Culture : How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity], 2004</ref> If they succeed in overpowering this ''digital revolution'' and use technology to control individuals rather than empower them, the revolution's many positive effects will be undone and transformed into their exact opposite. So a new kind of civil rights movement has arisen to defend the ''digital rights'' of individuals - rights that they often don't even know exist and that have backgrounds they yet have to be familiarised with.<ref>Spiegel, p. 8</ref><br />
<br />
===This Text===<br />
The case of software represents the most advanced example for application of these networked production mechanisms. Many later ideas in other domains have built upon the principles and philosophies developed by the free and open source software pioneers. That's why the story of the free software movement, the emergence of open source and the developments of GNU and Linux are described separately, in the first part of this text.<br />
<br />
The second part consist of a short history of copyright, its implications on culture and the change of its scope with the emergence of digital technology. Networked information technology enables an entirely new economic model, making use of commons owned information and collaborating individuals, rather than large industries relying on exclusive rights, making information scarce against its nonrival nature, to produce many copies of the same homogenous information like the mass media did.<br />
Further-on, the implications of these developments on individuals and society as a whole are discussed.<br />
<br />
The short third part lists what is needed for this networked information society to thrive and concludes with the statement that we are facing a choice today of whether to allow these mechanisms to flourish or squash them in favour of the old model of information production.<br />
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&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&rarr; [[1.1 The GNU Project and Free Software]]<br />
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==References==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=1.1_The_GNU_Project_and_Free_Software&diff=281861.1 The GNU Project and Free Software2009-02-03T21:27:00Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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[[Image:City_lights.jpg|thumb|500px|right|If you start thinking about it, a rather huge part of our daily lifes is controlled by digital technology. Wouldn't it be nice if the information running these devices was more transparent to everyone?]]<br />
[[Image:Earth_night.png|thumb|500px|right|And wouldn't it be nice if not only everyone in the already lightened coutries, but everybody in the whole world could take advantage of this information?]]<br />
A computer is a machine for manipulating data according to a list of instructions. For example, a digital watch is also a computer. As most technical devices get more complex all the time, computers are becoming ever more important. They have long since started taking over jobs that were previously handled by humans or mechanical devices (e.g. typewriter). As such they greatly influence our daily life. However, for most people they remain a black box, the operation of which they don't understand. This is okay, as in our highly specialised society not everybody has to know (nor is able to know) how everything exactly works. But everybody who is interested in something should be able to find out how it works - the possibility of every individual to learn is a foundation pillar of liberal societies. <br />
<br />
Computers contain a lot of hidden information that usually isn't revealed by just looking at them. For example, while everybody easily managed to understand, reconstruct and improve the workings of a Conestoga wagon and it was still possible for every do-it-yourselfer to fix a broken VW Beetle, modern cars are filled up with computers. Most companies keep the workings of those computers secret to prevent possible spying of the competition and thus lock out everyone but their own developers.<ref>[http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/free_matter_economy_2 Towards a free matter economy (Part 2): The passing of the shade tree mechanic], Terry Hancock at the Free Software Magazine</ref><br />
<br />
As an ever larger part of technology is dominated by such closed computer systems, ever more mechanisms influencing our everyday life are held secret. So the question of open or closed computer systems isn't one that affects only techies, but should concern everyone living in our modern society. This comes at a time when individuals are actually empowered by inexpensive technology to make greater use of information - if it is available. The most powerful informational tool available to broad masses is the personal computer. Today's personal computers are general-purpose computers, which means that they can do lots of different things, and most importantly can always be reprogrammed to fulfill other tasks that they weren't originally constructed to do. While it wouldn't make sense that everyone programmed their own personal computer, it is important that they can choose what software to run on it and that the workings of this software are publicly available. That way the user keeps in charge of the computer and the public can play watchdog over what the software does, which are only two of the many advantages of what is called free and open source software. However, today still far from all software running on most computers is free and open source.<br />
<br />
In this part of the text, the story of the free and open source software movements and its principles are described. Many later ideas in other domains of information production, which will be described later-on, have built upon the principles and philosophies developed by these pioneers and they thus continue to greatly influence the whole ''digital revolution''.<ref>[http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/opensource.html Open Source Everywhere], Thomas Goetz at Wired magazine</ref><br />
<br />
[[Image:PDP-10.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The first PDP-10 model, a mainframe computer also adopted by MIT.]]<br />
===Software sharing users groups===<br />
Before the 1970s, when there weren't any home computers yet, mainframe computers dominated the market. They filled often entire rooms and could only be purchased by universities or big companies. At that time, software was seen mainly as an add-on to make them useful. [[Wikipedia:Users' group|Users groups]] like SHARE and DECUS were formed in which people that worked with the same, or at least similar, computers could meet each other and exchange experiences and their often hard-won knowledge. The software which kept the computers running got improved and often completely new versions were written, independently of the vendor's programming efforts. This software was then shared in the users groups and the users could improve it together, so that everyone could profit and get the most out of his computer. So, at the beginning of the computer era, most software was what we would consider ''free software'' today. It wasn't called that way, because the term didn't exist yet, but that is what it actually was.<br />
<br />
===Richard Stallman===<br />
[[Image:RMS young.jpeg|thumb|300px|right|An early photo of Richard Stallman.]]<br />
<br />
Richard Matthew Stallman (nickname RMS) was born in New York in 1953. Still studying, he started working at the AI Lab (Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) at MIT as a programmer in 1971. There, he became part of the hacker community which had formed around the PDP-10, one of the large computers of the era. This software sharing community was building an own operating system, only for the PDP-10, which they called ITS ([[Wikipedia:Incompatible Timesharing System]]). <br />
<br />
The use of the term ''hacker'' to describe someone who breaks into somebody else's computer was popularized by the mass media after the 70s. Originally the term was just used to describe someone who has a great deal of knowledge or skill in a certain field, or who finds innovative solutions to technical problems. Most computer hackers refuse to recognize the meaning of a security-breaker (who is then often referred to as a ''cracker'') and continue to proudly call themselves hackers. <br />
<br />
===Proprietary Software===<br />
With the invention of the microprocessor computer hardware got smaller and cheaper and in the late 1970s the first home computers were arriving, and with them the possibility to sell software to broader masses. A paradigm shift in the software developing world was taking place. Software sharing users groups and hobbyist came under increasing pressure as demonstrated by an 'Open Letter to Hobbyists' which Bill Gates, cofounder of Microsoft, wrote in 1976 and in which he argued that the hobbyists were stealing the software he wrote. Software was less seen as something which was shared between hackers and improved upon together, but increasingly as the property of the person or the company that wrote it. This was the advent of what is called '''proprietary software'''.<br />
<br />
In the early 1980s, the AI Lab hacker community at MIT, of which Richard Stallman was part, began to fragment. A spinoff company named Symbolics, Inc. was founded and hired most of the AI staff hackers away. They were offered a much higher salary but had to write software which became property of the company and were forced to sign NDAs, non-disclosure agreements which prevent employees from talking to people outside the company about the software they are developing. The depopulation of the MIT hacker community was followed by the discontinuation of the PDP-10, the computer which they had solely written their own operating system for. 15 years of work were rendered useless.<br />
<br />
===The GNU Project===<br />
With the death of his community, Richard Stallman faced a choice: either to work for the proprietary software industry and write code secretly, to leave the software business for good, or to try to do something useful which he could reconcile with his moral conscience. He chose the last one and started writing the most fundamental pieces of software one needs to run a computer from scratch: the operating system. And most importantly, it would be free for anyone to copy, modify and redistribute.<br />
<br />
{{Technology Box|Operating system|<br />
A computer operating system (OS) is a collection of software which performs the most basic tasks of a computer, acting as a platform for higher-level software which wants to use the computer's hardware resources (such as processor power, memory and disk space). An OS provides also a whole lot of different system services that the programs running on top of it can make use of. In most modern operating systems tools such as a text editor, a compiler, programming libraries and a graphical user interface, are included.<br />
<br />
Today, the most commonly used operating systems are Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and some other Unix-like operating systems.<br />
}}<br />
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<br />
[[Image:GNU_logo.png|thumb|170px|left|The logo of the GNU Project, displaying its mascot which is of course a [[Wikipedia:Wildebeest|gnu]].]]<br />
[[Image:FSF_logo.png|thumb|300px|right|The logo of the Free Software Foundation.]]<br />
<br />
Stallman named his operating system GNU (pronounced ''guh-noo''), a recursive acronym for 'GNU's Not Unix', which was chosen because it was going to be similar in design to Unix, a then (and now) popular, but proprietary operating system.<br />
<br />
In 1984, he had started the GNU Project and started promoting the idea of what he called '''Free Software'''. In the English language, the word ''free'' has two different meanings. In this case, ''free'' is not referring to price, but to freedom. To illustrate the concept, Stallman coined the saying ''“Free as in ‘freedom’, not as in ‘free beer’”.'' As more hackers started helping him, he published the GNU Manifesto in which he formulated the goals and philosophical principles of the project and founded 1985 the '''Free Software Foundation''' to support the free software movement and the GNU Project.<br />
<br />
===Free Software===<br />
Free software, as defined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation (FSF), is software which the user can run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve upon, and redistribute. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for you, the users of the software, which all must be granted:<ref>Free Software Foundation, [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html The Free Software Definition], 1996-2006</ref><br />
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*The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).<br />
*The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1).<br />
*The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).<br />
*The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3).<br />
<br />
This doesn't mean that you aren't allowed to ''sell'' copies (remember, it's about freedom, not price). On the contrary, selling CD-ROMs was and sometimes still is a major source of income for free software developers. ''Free software'' doesn't mean ''non-commercial''. But as everybody else also has the right to spread copies at no charge (freedom 2), this has become increasingly difficult with the rise of the internet. Money is rather made by selling support or offering services concerning the software.<br />
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{{Technology Box|Source code|<br />
<br />
A computer program (e.g. a word processor as ''Word'', a web browser as ''Firefox'', or even a whole operating system like ''Windows XP'') is written in a [[Wikipedia:programming language]]. For the example program ''Hello World'', written in the programming language [[Wikipedia:C (programming language)|C]], which simply prints the sentence "Hello World!" on the screen when executed, this look as followed: <br />
<br />
<code><br />
int main(){ <br />
printf(??Hello World!??); <br />
return 0; <br />
}<br />
</code><br />
<br />
This text is called the source code of the program. It's easily readable by humans and with some knowledge of the programming language you can understand what the program does, how it does it and, if necessary, you can change the program.<br />
<br />
But the computer doesn't know what to do with the source code, the application can't yet be executed. That's because the computer does only understand machine language, which is written entirely in zeros and ones. To translate the program from the source code into machine language, there is a tool called the [[Wikipedia:compiler]]. A clip of the ''Hello World'' program above would then look like the following: <br />
<br />
<code><br />
1100011110111010100101001001001010101110<br />
0110101010011000001111001011010101111101<br />
0100111111111110010110110000000010100100<br />
</code><br />
<br />
The program in this form, which the computer is able to execute, is called a binary. Now you can see why, even for a skilled programmer, it's difficult to figure out what the program can be used for or how it works, not to mention trying to change or improve the application.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
Access to the source code of the software is a precondition for freedoms number 1 and 3 (see above), because without availability of the source code it is almost impossible to modify the program in a useful way and exercise those freedoms. That's why most proprietary software is distributed in binary and source code is a jealously guarded secret.<br />
<br />
By guaranteeing these four freedoms to its users, free software has several advantages over non-free, proprietary software: The user is never dependent on a particular person or company. As technology or the needs of the user evolve and he wants to add specific features (like e.g. support for a rare language) or get the software running on a newer generation of computers, he isn't at the mercy of the supplier, but can check out the source code and make the necessary changes himself. And even if he isn't able to do that, he can always ask or pay somebody else to do that for him. There are other advantages of free software, like the fact that you can check the source code to see whether the program is spying on you and sending information over the internet back to its originator (and even if you aren't able to check it yourself, sure somebody else has done so and if he or she had found something suspicious, spread the word). And because the workings of free software are open, everybody can participate in its development. This leads to a whole new model of development (later-on described in further detail in [[2.4 Property and Commons|chapter 2.4]]). Free software is being mostly built by hundreds of highly skilled volunteers which are coordinating over the internet, but also by employees of companies like Red Hat, Novell or IBM. This way, free software usually evolves faster and bugs (errors in the software) are detected much quicker than in the proprietary software world.<ref>Raymond, Eric S.; [http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ The Cathedral and the Bazaar], 1997</ref> That way security holes are also detected much faster and this mechanism outweighs the tiny benefit gained by closed-source software in security because of its secrecy by far.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Security through obscurity]]</ref><br />
<br />
===Copyleft===<br />
[[Image:Copyleft.png|thumb|197px|right|The copyleft symbol. It is the copyright symbol turned over.]]<br />
<br />
If a program is free software, that doesn't necessarily mean that it will be free software for everyone of its users. If someone receives a free program, can't he then make a copy or a modified version of it and redistribute it under proprietary terms, not allowing the users that receive the program from him to exercise the same freedoms he was granted and profit from his improvements? To prevent this, Stallman invented something called ''copyleft''. <br />
In the legal system of almost every country, copyright law exists, which reserves the right to copy a ''work'' to its originator. In the past, copyright covered only books, nowadays it covers virtually every kind of information; like drawings, movies and even software. It is usually meant to prevent others from reusing published works. (More on that later in Chapter [[2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]].) But the copyright holder can grant other people licenses which permit them to use or copy his work under conditions determined by that license. Now copyleft, a play on the word ''copyright'', uses copyright law, but flips it over. Instead of leaving all the rights to the originator of the work, copyleft grants everybody a license to study, use, modify, and also redistribute the work, but under the condition that if they modify the work, their derived versions of the work must be redistributed under the same license. This ensures that everybody who receives a copy, receives the same rights and freedoms as everyone before him.<br />
<br />
===The GPL===<br />
For software, the most commonly used copyleft license is the GNU General Public License, or GPL for short. It was written by Richard Stallman who released the first version in 1989 and is now maintained by the Free Software Foundation. However, there exist also other licenses for free software.<ref>The Free Software Foundation maintains a [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html list of free and non-free licenses].</ref> Some of them are compatible to the GPL (which means you can share code between GPLed software and software covered by said license), others aren't. There are also free software licenses which don't use copyleft (e.g. the [[Wikipedia:BSD licenses]]). It can be argued that these licenses grant greater freedom to a single user (because if he wants to redistribute his modified version, he isn't forced to do that under the same terms), however, this comes at the expense that not all users of the software will have those same freedoms (as described above).<br />
<br />
In 2000, the FSF released another license which is designed especially for software manuals, documentation and textbooks: the ''GNU Free Documentation License'' or GFDL for short. It is the counterpart to the GPL and gives readers the same rights to copy, redistribute and modify a work, and it is also a copyleft license. Today it is used for many kinds of texts and all the text of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, is licensed under the GFDL.<br />
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&larr; [[A Revolution in the Making]] | [[1.2 GNU/Linux and Open Source]] &rarr;<br />
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==References==<br />
<references/><br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=1.2_GNU/Linux_and_Open_Source&diff=281851.2 GNU/Linux and Open Source2009-02-03T21:25:38Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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===Linux and GNU/Linux===<br />
Back in the 80s, Richard Stallman and the GNU Project were still busy developing an operating system which should be entirely free software. Two important components were an editor called GNU Emacs and tools to compile source code to executable binaries, the GCC (GNU Compiler Collection). The availability of free developing tools was very important to gain more participants. <br />
By 1990 the GNU Project had either developed or found everything which made up an operating system, except one component: the kernel. <br />
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{{Technology Box|Kernel|<br />
[[Image:Kernel.png|200px|right]]<br />
A Kernel is the central component of an operating system, but usually not the largest. It is responsible for the communication between hardware and upper-level software and thus makes the hardware, like CPU and memory, available to all other software running on the computer.<br />
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<br />
[[Image:Linus Torvalds.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Linus Torvalds]]<br />
[[Image:Tux.png|thumb|150px|right|The penguin Tux, the official mascot of the Linux kernel.]]<br />
<br />
In 1991, Linus Torvalds (born 1969 in Finland), started work on the Linux kernel and released it in 1992 under the GPL. Users started to pair it with other free software they found. They combined the almost complete GNU system with the Linux kernel and got, without knowing it, the first completely free operating system. Most of them called it simply ''Linux'' as they didn't know about the goal of the GNU project and were starting from the Linux kernel. The media and most people still call the whole system only ''Linux'', although Richard Stallman urges everybody to call it ''GNU/Linux'', as he sees it as a GNU system, based on Linux. While ''Linux'' is the shorter, and also the more common name for the whole operating system, it is important not to forget that without the GNU project's struggle for a free operating system, for the sake of freedom, we wouldn't have one today. Users of the system should know its history and value the freedom it gives them. There are still lots of traps for free software, and freedom will be valued most when it's already lost. As Linus Torvalds and the name ''Linux'' don't emphasize very much on this issue, I personally prefer to call the whole system ''GNU/Linux'', but it's up to every single person to make his choice. Of course, everybody agrees that the sole kernel is just called ''Linux'' (for more information, have a look at [[Wikipedia:GNU/Linux naming controversy]]).<br />
<br />
The very open and collaborative software development style used by Linus Torvalds with the Linux kernel, relying on early and frequent releases of still unfinished software, was soon broadly adopted in the free and open source community as its advantages resulting in faster evolving projects became clear.<ref>Raymond, Eric S.; [http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s04.html Release Early, Release Often], ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar'', 1997</ref> In fact, this is the first example of a large scale peer production. More on that later on in [[2.4 Property and Commons#Peer Production|Chapter 2.4]].<br />
<br />
===Open Source===<br />
As the GNU/Linux operating system and the very effective development method of free software was gaining more momentum, also businesses were beginning to show interest. In 1998, Netscape released most of the source code of its internet browser ''Netscape Communicator''. The browser was until then proprietary but still popular, although it was loosing ground to Microsoft's ''Internet Explorer'' that ships with its ''Windows'' operating system, both being proprietary, too. The liberation of the ''Netscape Communicator'' kicked off the Mozilla project that lead eventually to the popular Firefox browser. At a strategy meeting of several people interested in free software it was decided to use this chance to convince more businesses of the superiority of an open development process. In their opinion, the ideological and sometimes confrontational attitude which had been associated with free software needed a change. Emphasizing on the pragmatic advantages, they created a new marketing term for free software which wasn't bothered by the ambiguity of the English word ''free''. They came up with '''open source''', as the source code needs to be open to the public. Richard Stallman and other opponents of the term note that it can easily be misunderstood or even misused and still prefer the term ''free software''. If, for example, you can look at the source code of a program, but aren't allowed to change or redistribute it, the software has an open source, but is neither free software nor open source software. <br />
<br />
[[Image:OSI_logo.png|thumb|144px|left|Open Source Initiative (OSI) Logo]]<br />
<br />
Still in 1998, Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond founded the Open Source Initiative (OSI), a non-profit organization to further promote the idea, especially to the corporate world. The OSI has also published its own [http://opensource.org/osi3.0/node/4 Open Source Definition]. Most of what is qualified as open source software is also free software as defined by the Free Software Foundation. Thus the terms can usually be used interchangeably. So, although the free software movement and the open source movement have different philosophies (one emphasizing freedom, the other a superior development methodology leading to technologically better software), they agree on the practical recommendations and work together on many projects.<br />
<br />
To avoid having to choose one term over the other, people suggested different names like "'''Software Libre'''" (libre as in liberty), "Free and Open Source Software" ('''FOSS''') or "Free/Libre/Open-Source Software" ('''FLOSS'''). However, there are also similar terms describing non-free software which can be confusing: ''Freeware'' is proprietary software, given away at no cost. ''Shareware'' is proprietary software which is distributed free of charge for trial purposes, however it is limited until the user pays its full price.<br />
<br />
In the 90s, new companies like Red Hat were founded whose sole business is to develop free and open source software and provide support for it, mainly targeting enterprises. In the 2000s, technology giants like IBM and Novell were beginning to massively invest in GNU/Linux, also providing legal defense.<br />
<br />
===GNU/Linux distributions===<br />
[[Image:command_line.png|thumb|200px|right|A screenshot of a computer running a Command Line Interface, every hacker's best friend.]]<br />
[[Image:GUI.png|thumb|200px|right|Most computer users today use a graphical user interface (GUI). Here a screenshot of KDE.]]<br />
<br />
While the Open Source Initiative was persuading the corporate world and ''open source'' achieved much press coverage, the free and open source ecosystem and GNU/Linux were further evolving. <br />
In 1996, Matthias Ettrich launched the KDE desktop environment, providing GNU/Linux with a graphical user interface. Because KDE was based on the proprietary Qt toolkit, the Free Software Foundation paid Miguel de Icaza to create GNOME and therewith a completely free alternative which didn't depend on underlying proprietary software. Fortunately, the Qt toolkit was released as free software in 1998, and now, KDE as well as GNOME are widely used. Both are based on the X11 windowing system.<br />
After Netscape had released the source of its internet browser, Sun Microsystems freed its StarOffice suite in 2000, and the resulting OpenOffice.org project remains the most feature-filled free alternative to the proprietary Microsoft Office suite. Replacing ''Word'', ''Excel'' & Co, it does not only run under GNU/Linux but also under Windows and other operating systems. By now, there are thousands of smaller and larger free and open source software projects and for nearly every proprietary program there exists a free alternative. ([[Wikipedia:List of open source software packages]])<br />
<br />
As everybody is free to change and redistribute all free and open source software, it is easy to fork projects, if for example disagreements between developers arise. Sometimes this is favourable, as the projects evolve in different directions and provide solutions to different problems, or different solutions to the same problem, leading to more choice. But sometimes it is also a waste of development resources as it's often laborious to reintegrate changes from one forked version into another. Also, it's not always easy for users new to the Linux world to choose the software which fits their needs best.<br />
<br />
Soon after the Linux kernel was paired with parts of the GNU system, people started to bundle also other pieces of software together to form a complete operating system, including diverse userlevel applications. This made it a lot easier to install and start off with GNU/Linux. Such a bundle is usually called a Linux distribution, or just a '''distro'''. Today there exist over three hundred distros in active development. Some, like "Ubuntu Linux", are considered more user-friendly, others, like "Gentoo", are more the geek-thing. There's a list of [http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major The Top Ten Distributions] over at DistroWatch.com. There are also ''LiveDistros'', which are GNU/Linux distributions on a CD-ROM, ready to run without having to install and alter the computer's harddrive. Live CDs are considered a good way to try out an operating system without the slightest risk. A popular LiveDistro is [http://knopper.net/knoppix/ Knoppix]. It is derived from the community-driven Debian GNU/Linux which in turn is known for its adherence to the free software philosophy. <br />
<br />
===Present day===<br />
[[Image:RMS 2005.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Richard Stallman in the year 2005.]]<br />
Today, the Linux kernel is used in anything, from small embedded devices such as cell phones, to huge supercomputers, often paired with many components of the GNU system and other free and open source software. Because of its reliability and security, GNU/Linux is a very popular choice on the server market, adoption increasing.<ref>[http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS)? Look at the Numbers!]</ref> Especially for web-servers, the LAMP solution stack is broadly used. It consists of '''L'''inux (referring to the operating system), the '''A'''pache web server, the '''M'''ySQL database management system, and the '''P'''HP programming language, all being free software. On desktop computers and laptops adoption has been weaker, but still increasing.<br />
<br />
Linus Torvalds continues to direct the development of the Linux kernel. Richard Stallman heads the Free Software Foundation that now concentrates on legal and structural issues which concern the free software movement and community.<br />
<br />
<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[1.1 The GNU Project and Free Software]] | [[2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]] &rarr;<br />
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<br />
==References==<br />
<references/><br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=2.1_Copyright_and_Mass_Media&diff=281842.1 Copyright and Mass Media2009-02-03T21:22:21Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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<div>{{Template:Navigate-Overview|1.2 GNU/Linux and Open Source|2.2 Information Technology and 'Piracy'}}<br />
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<br />
So far, the historical development of free and open source software and the ideas that lie behind it were summarized. These philosophies and production mechanisms were later applied in many domains of information production other than software, and the rest of this text shows how this culture of sharing rather than hoarding information could be of benefit to all of us.<br />
<br />
===The Origin of Copyright===<br />
[[Image:Copyright.png|thumb|197px|left|The copyright symbol.]]<br />
<br />
Before the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1445 it was very laborious to copy books. It was mostly done by monks who simply copied them by hand. But thanks to Gutenberg, suddenly relatively cheap reproduction of text in big quantities was possible, which gradually weakened the information monopoly of the catholic church. Martin Luther was able to spread his disputations and the bible text in dialect instead of latin and started the protestant reformation. With the advance of the printing press and broader literacy, there also emerged the possibility to earn some money through writing books for the first time. Particularly in northern Europe early capitalistic enterprises started selling book copies, usually while giving the authors a fair share. But soon competing publishers reprinted those texts without compensating the original authors. The first actual copyright law is considered to be the british ''Statute of Anne'' of 1710 which was intended to protect authors and their publishers from foreign book printers. It granted the copyright holders the exclusive right to print their books, however only for a limited term. Copyright expired fourteen years after a book was published: the text passed in the so-called '''public domain''' and was free for everybody to reprint. The british parliament chose to limit the duration of the monopoly on printing it granted to the originator in order to ensure that this monopoly wasn't exploited. Critical information or controversial texts couldn't forever be prevented from circulating in this way, but the market on which cultural works were sold was free. Additionally, when printers chose to register a book for copyright, they had to provide copies to nine british libraries.<br />
<br />
As time passed and new technologies were invented, copyright law was automatically adapted to include not only books and maps, but successively also paintings, photographs, sound recordings, films, and so on. The ''Berne Convention'' of 1886 represents the first agreement of multiple sovereign states to recognize each others copyrights. At that time, under the pressure of publishers and content-holders, as they were to be called, copyright had already mutated to extend its terms to 50 years after the death of the author and the signing nations were prohibited from requiring registration: as soon as someone writes something on a sticky, it is automatically covered by copyright. Additionally not only the actual work was covered now, but it was also forbidden to create '''derivative works''', that are works which include major aspects of a previously created, copyrighted work, like for example translation or the adaption of a story to another form (e.g. create a film or a children's book based on a novel).<br />
<br />
[[Image:Hollywoodland.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Hollywood started as 'Pirates'.]]<br />
===Early 'Pirates'===<br />
It hasn't always been the same folks who have profited from exclusive rights like copyright and patents. In the infancy of cinema, Thomas Edison owned some important patents on the movie-making process and he was keen on enforcing them. Filmmakers that used his techniques without his permission were heavily hindered, but this impediment was overturned easily as independent filmmakers simply fled to the West Coast of America. California was then remote enough to escape the law and by the time enough marshals were present, Edison's patents had already expired, as at that time they were granted for only seventeen years. This is how a new creative industry was born: Hollywood.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Steamboat-willie.jpg|thumb|200px|right|''Steamboat Willie'' starring Mickey Mouse.]]<br />
In 1928, Walt Disney released the short film ''Steamboat Willie''. It was the first sound cartoon to attract widespread attention and it made the Mickey Mouse character famous. Disney had successfully adapted this technique to cartoons, while the first feature-length motion picture with synchronized sound (''The Jazz Singer'') had been released only one year earlier. Also the plot was not entirely original but rather a parody of the feature-length silent film ''Steamboat Bill Jr.'', which was released earlier in the same year. This movie in turn was inspired by a song named ''Steamboat Bill'', and in both ''Steamboat Bill Jr.'' and Disney's ''Steamboat Willie'' the song is used. This borrowing and the forth and back of ideas and stories brought us Mickey Mouse and a whole lot more of what we consider to be part of our culture today. These practices were nothing uncommon then, and so nobody stopped Walt Disney from taking the grim fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and turning them into the wonderfully animated children's films that we all have come to love. This was still possible in a time where the average term of copyright was about thirty years and the majority of creative work wasn't even copyrighted as a rich public domain existed.<ref>Lessig, Lawrence; [http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/ Free Culture], 2004, p. 24</ref> Past culture was free to build and innovate upon.<br />
<br />
===Mass Media===<br />
Since then however, copyright law has become stricter and stricter. The innovators from then have become an industry. The technologies of the 20th century and their application led to the advent of the mass media: television, radio, music recordings, cinema, newspapers, books and magazines that are meant to reach a very large audience and because they are very expensive to operate, they promote a one-to-many broadcast model. Not everybody can have his own television network. The major source of income for the mass media, if they are not heavily state-financed, is advertisement. As the mass media follow the economics of industrial production (i.e. producing large amounts of the same good) they have increasingly come to adapt the '''principle of the lowest common denominator''': they produce content which keeps an audience as large as possible watching and consuming. The audience doesn't necessarily have to be excited, but they have to be kept in front of the screen in order to watch the advertisement. To minimize the risk of broadcasting material that doesn't attract a large audience, new content is produced based on concepts which are known to work while innovation and radically new approaches are seldom allowed.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Hollywood-Sign.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Hollywood has become an industry.]]<br />
The same industrial economies have also led to an increasing '''concentration of media ownership'''. The Big Four record labels (Sony BMG, EMI, Universal and Warner) have a worldwide market share of over 80%. The Big Six film studios (Sony, News Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, Time Warner, Viacom and General Electric) hold a market share of over 90%. Through most of the US television history, The Big Three Television Networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) broadcasted up to 99% of the content watched. Lateron, Fox and The CW gained also a considerable share. Similar structures can be found in the radio business. An example: In 1997, Clear Channel Communications Inc. owned 173 radio stations, in 2004 it were over 1200 stations.<br />
Not only do rather few companies hold rather big market shares, but these companies, which control the various mass media, are in turn owned by even fewer media conglomerates. The nine current media conglomerates are Disney, CBS, Time Warner, News Corp, Bertelsmann AG, Viacom, General Electric, Lagardère Group and Vivendi SA. These companies together own more than 90% of the media market. For a visualization of the many mergers and buyouts in the mass media business which have led to the current conglomerates, have a look at this [http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/03/and_then_there_were_eight.pdf chart].<br />
<br />
This concentration of media ownership has significant effects on what gets produced and what information is presented to the public. In this absence of competition, the media conglomerates oblige rather their major advertisers and the government than the general public, to maximize revenue and keep their dominant position. Thus the television studios have a policy to avoid "controversial" ads. Unfortunately, they have decided that all government-sponsored ads are uncontroversial and the ones disagreeing with the positions of the government are controversial. And as the overwhelming part of the mass media are controlled by these few companies, nobody is in a position to let the public know of alternative opinions or promote stories which the major studios would rather like to ignore.<br />
<br />
===Realities of Copyright===<br />
Throughout the 20th century the mass media had a huge influence on the general public. Apart from less known artists or local newspapers, their products were what was available and thus determined what was to be seen and heard. Their products form a major part of our culture today. <br />
Of course all these works were covered by copyright. Nobody else was and is permitted to make any use beyond simple consumption of the material without asking them for permission. They can then decide to grant the applicant a license which gives him specified rights, like for example using a scene in a remix clip of several classic motion pictures. <br />
<br />
In reality, the first major obstacle is usually to find all the actual copyright holders. Since registration isn't necessary anymore but everything created is automatically covered, no lists exist to look up who holds which copyrights, and often they have been transfered from the original creators to some production company to some other company and so forth. Even if you manage to find all the people involved, in a movie this is every artist from the director to all the actors, stuntmen and musicians, then you still have to contact every single one of them and arrange a deal to get their permission to use the material and pay them royalties. Some of them will be glad to help you, others might refuse to grant you permission or demand a price you are unable to pay. All in all, this is a very, very time-comsuming and expensive process which you are only able to undertake if you are backed-up or employed by a company with rather large resources available.<br />
<br />
To ease this problem, a doctrine exists in most countries which provides exceptions to copyright law and permits limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holder for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research.<ref>Cornell University Law School, [http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000107----000-.html TITLE 17, CHAPTER 1, § 107, U.S. Code Collection]</ref> In the United States this doctrine is called '''fair use''', in Great Britain and other members of the Commonwealth of Nations '''fair dealing'''. However, in practice it is often difficult to determine if an actual use is ''fair use'' and it is also considered to depend upon how large a part of the work is used, whether the use is commercial or nonprofit, and the effect of the use on the market value of the copyrighted work. So if you actually decide to use, let's say 30 seconds of the film ''Gone with the Wind'' in your documentary, without asking the studio for permission, relying on fair use, it is likely that you get into trouble. The last thing you and your producer want before the scheduled release of your documentary is licensing issues. And as fair use is rather vaguely defined, there exists a big chance that the Hollywood studio will try to squeeze as much money out of your already tight budget as possible, or otherwise take you to court if you try to argue for your fair use rights. Then it comes down to who has better lawyers and deeper pockets, you or the media conglomerate. Because even if you win, you still have to pay your attorney's fees or you could try to countersue them for recovery. Anyway, it would end up in a long and complicated legal battle which is neither easy nor cheap for you to survive.<ref>A good example of this problem is described in Lawrence Lessig's [http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/ Free Culture], 2004, p. 95; Chapter Seven: Recorders. Have also a look at [[Wikipedia:Spamigation]]</ref> Fair use was meant to qualify copyright and render important parts of our culture open as a base for further creativity and innovation, but the law continues to fail in practice. This law rather shapes who is able to do business and who is not.<br />
<br />
===Expansion of Copyright===<br />
[[Image:Capitol.jpg|thumb|600px|right|The movie and recording industries are a strong lobbying group in the U.S. Congress.]]<br />
<br />
Fortunately, copyright is granted only for a limited period of time and after that the works pass into the public domain. Then, everybody is free to copy and share them with their friends, alter them or create new works based on these old ones, retelling the stories, adapting them to a new time or to a new medium. Obviously, the mass media companies, which hold the copyright for all of their past and recent productions, would rather like to keep their exclusive copyright forever. <br />
<br />
The legal base for all U.S. Copyright and also patent law is a clause in the Constitution which allows Congress to ''promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.'' Copyright thus isn't required by the Constitution but only allowed for a limited term. In the British ''Statute of Anne'' of 1710 as well as in the first copyright law of the United States 80 years later, this term was 14 years. In the U.S., the authors could opt to extend this period after that for another 14 years. However, most didn't, as the vast majority of works have an actual commercial life of just a couple of years. Except for a tiny minority which become classics, books go out of print, movies and music get forgotten and it's not profitable enough to produce new spools or records anymore. Nonetheless, copyright terms have greatly increased since then. In 1831, the initial term was extended to 28 years. In 1909 also the renewal term was set to 28 years. The maximum was thus 56 years. But then the expansions took really off. Starting in 1962, Congress has extended copyright terms eleven times in 40 years. In 1976 all existing copyrights were increased by nineteen years. And in 1998, with the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Congress extended the term of existing and future copyrights by another twenty years. <br />
<br />
Today copyright in the United States persists for 70 years after the author's death, and for "corporate works" it's 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever is shortest. If you compare these terms with the original ones - 14 years after registration - one has to wonder what benefit it could be to society or the author to keep his works copyrighted 70 years after his death. Copyright is meant to be granted for a limited term, and for a limited term only. But if the current politics continue, the actual limit will be pushed into eternity. ''Steamboat Willie'' has been close to entering the public domain several times, and because of that, the 1998 Copyright Extension Act has also been dubbed "Mickey Mouse Protection Act". It is widely recognized that the expansion of copyright law is a product of extensive lobbying of the movie and record industries. In fact, the Big Six film studios have founded an organization to promote their interests, the MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America). It's equivalent in the recording industry is the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). <br />
Thus Big Business prevents products of our culture from becoming freely available and keeps us from making it our own again. Today, Disney denies us to build upon their work in the same way they were allowed to build on the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm.<br />
<br />
These extensions of copyright in duration and scope haven't only taken place in the United States. The European Union and others have introduced the term of 70 years past death of the author, too. Politicians in the more economically developed nations have come to adopt ever stricter copyright laws in the firm believe that stronger protection is better and in order to protect their established industries. These nations are pushing the same policies as well through international organizations, like the World Trade Organization with it's TRIPS agreement or the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), to get their perceptions of "good copyright law" enforced all over the world. This internationalization is then in turn used to justify the ever increasing terms, calling it "harmonization".<br />
<br />
The proponents of broad exclusive rights argue that they encourage innovation. I'm going to question this claim in [[2.3 Economics of Information Production|Chapter 2.3]]. However, in the next chapter, I'd first like to introduce another very important component of the issue: Technology. If the developments in information technology are taken into account, another aspect of the problem reveals itself.<br />
<br />
<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[1.2 GNU/Linux and Open Source]] | [[2.2 Information Technology and 'Piracy']] &rarr;<br />
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==References==<br />
<references/><br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=2.2_Information_Technology_and_%27Piracy%27&diff=281812.2 Information Technology and 'Piracy'2009-02-03T21:18:52Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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[[Image:Being_mobile.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Computers continue to get smaller, cheaper and more powerful, and wireless Internet is already available at many places.]]<br />
===Information Technology===<br />
As shortly described in the introductory chapter [[A Revolution in the Making]], computers have since the 1970s become ever faster, smaller and cheaper. This led to the availability of personal computers in most homes in the more economically developed countries. By 1995, the public started to realize the potential of the Internet. Through the more recent introduction of broadband Internet, most home computers are constantly connected to the Internet at several times greater speeds than only a few years ago. Individuals have received the power to not only manipulate huge amounts of data ever faster, but also to share the data they produce with others over the Internet. Now it is possible for everyone to manipulate, for example, hours of homemade video and enhance it with some special effects. On the other hand, it has also become easy to mix and manipulate the works of others and share them with all the world, as demonstrated on sites like [http://www.thetrailermash.com/ The Trailer Mash]: Here lots of people present new creative works they created - remixes of official movie trailers, rearranged to tell other stories. Use past culture to create something new. What only some lucky entrepreneurs like Walt Disney could do in the beginning of the 20th century, everybody can do today. Unfortunately, at the moment this is mostly illegal because of lengthy and restrictive copyright law. You can neither copy nor modify any work without the originator's explicit permission. It isn't like those derivative works were hurting sales of official movies or that nobody would listen to classical Mozart anymore (himself long dead) because his music was used and newly interpreted by a DJ. Nonetheless, copyright law has not been altered to let everyone make use of the new technologies, but rather tightened to prevent people from doing so. Under the pretext of protecting established artists' revenues, new artists are prevented from rising. But the truth behind all this is that the record industry fears for it's existence - rightly so. <br />
<br />
[[Image:Server-based-network.png|thumb|200px|Computer network with a central, expensive to operate server from which the clients are downloading.]]<br />
[[Image:P2P-network.png|thumb|200px|Peer-to-peer network - every node is a client and a server, both downloading and uploading.]]<br />
===File Sharing===<br />
Today, some inexpensive home computers and the Internet are superior to the distribution channels of the record industry with its CD manufacturing plants and many shops. Digital technology enables infinite copying of music and movies without any loss of quality.<br />
Shawn Fanning, a then 17 years old student, released Napster in 1999. It was the first peer-to-peer file-sharing system to gain widespread popularity for sharing music. In peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, the data isn't stored on a central server and accessed by clients (which is the case with web pages), but many peers, usually ordinary home computers, share their data with one another. Soon this technology was adopted and improved; after Napster was sued by the record industry and ultimately shut down, new networks emerged which were even more decentralized. Every user downloading is at the same time making available that very same information he/she just downloaded to other participants. The most popular networks as of today are ''eDonkey2000'' (with client-programs as eMule or MLDonkey), ''FastTrack'' (with clients as Kazaa or Grokster) and ''Gnutella'' (with clients as LimeWire or Gnucleus). While these networks are searchable through a client program, in the BitTorrent P2P network, data is found through websites like The Pirate Bay, where a small ''.torrent-file'' is downloaded and then opened in a BitTorrent client such as Azureus or BitTornado, where the actual download takes place. Most of this software is free and open source software ([[1.1 The GNU Project and Free Software]]), but some is also proprietary.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Tape.gif|thumb|200px|left|The record industry has always been cautious about new technology. Here a 1980s campaign logo against home taping cassettes featuring a death's-head.]]<br />
These services are heavily used. Millions of users all over the world share thousands of titles and even rare songs they wouldn't find in stores. The major music labels don't like that and have come up with the term of 'Piracy', equating people that share music with one another with bandits that attack other people's ships. The record industry argues that every downloaded song accounts for a loss in CD sales which ultimately hurts artists. However, it should be kept clearly in mind that not every song downloaded would have been bought. Also through sharing samples, people are exposed to new music and might come to buy CDs they otherwise would never have known of. And downloading old material that isn't available in stores anymore sure doesn't hurt artists. It is also a fact that under the current model of music distribution, the average artists gets something between 5 and 14 percent of the CD sales revenue. The rest trickles away in the business that is the record industry.<br />
<br />
[[Image:ThePirateBay.jpg|thumb|200px|right|The logo of the BitTorrent site ''The Pirate Bay'', mocking the term 'Piracy' when meant to describe copyright infringement.]]<br />
But now a new distribution model becomes feasible. Lots of ordinary people, connected through the Internet, outperform the record industry and make it essentially obsolete in a time where high quality recording equipment to supplement home computers becomes ever cheaper. It simply isn't necessary to buy physical records anymore. Especially for unknown artists, the Internet represents a very attractive marketing ground; with services like [http://www.last.fm/ last.fm] or [http://www.pandora.com Pandora], it has become very easy to discover new music. Artists who release their music earn money by performing and going on tour (like artists did before recording technology existed). Also alternative payments systems have been proposed: mechanisms like an easy way to donate small amounts of money to musicians over the Internet, or to let every person downloading pay a small monthly fee which is distributed to the artists based on their popularity. This could for example be done by bundling a voluntary fee with the broadband bill (Broadband, unlimited legal downloading included!).<ref>[http://www.eff.org/share/collective_lic_wp.php A Better Way Forward: Voluntary Collective Licensing of Music File Sharing], Electronic Frontier Foundation</ref> With these distribution and compensation methods, artists would most certainly be far better off than now, but the major labels aren't willing to adopt yet. Instead they are fighting windmills, with all means available to them.<br />
<br />
===Lawsuits===<br />
As there is no single instance responsible for the operation of peer-to-peer file sharing networks, there is nobody in particular the music industry can sue. That's why the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) turned to randomly suing people for copyright infringement that have allegedly participated in file sharing, in hope of deterrence. To find people in file sharing networks, they rely on tracing computer's IP addresses. But it is often very difficult to find out who a specific IP belongs to and impossible to tell with certainty. That's why the RIAA has already sued a 66-year-old grandmother for downloading gangster rap<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3140160.stm Grandmother piracy lawsuit dropped], BBC News</ref>, but also families without a computer<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060424-6662.html RIAA sues computer-less family], Ars Technica</ref> and even dead people<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050204-4587.html "I sue dead people..."], Ars Technica</ref> were addressed. The RIAA's tactics are to intimidate defendants and force them into settlements outside court under the threat that they are facing high legal fees. But recently, victims of such random lawsuits have begun fighting back and countersued the RIAA for malicious prosecution.<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070625-exonerated-defendant-sues-riaa-for-malicious-prosecution.html Exonerated defendant sues RIAA for malicious prosecution], Ars Technica</ref>. But it continues to be an uphill-battle and non-profit organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which fight for ''digital rights'' and provide individuals with legal defense, have only limited resources compared to the large legal departments of the major record labels. To preserve its last-century business model, the record industry has actually turned to sue its own customers, something that's only possible because they hold a monopoly on about 90% of the music produced.<br />
<br />
===Copyright in a Digital World===<br />
As video files are larger, downloading movies or TV series isn't as common as sharing music yet, but it is only a matter of time until Hollywood will find itself in the same situation as the record industry is now. Social practices like going to the movies will remain popular in addition to watching films at home. Movies will eventually be produced at lower budgets than what is common in Hollywood today, but there will probably be more ''smaller'' films, oriented towards more specific audiences, than the homogenous monster productions we are seeing today. ([[2.1_Copyright_and_Mass_Media#Mass_Media|2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]])<br />
<br />
Copyright law was always meant to regulate copying. However, in the past this was something only competing businesses like publishers could do. But today, everyone can copy a file by a simple mouse-click. Thus the scope of this law has changed dramatically over time: from regulating anticompetitive business practices to restricting consumers. Keeping up these same rules in a digital world does nothing but render a large portion of citizens criminals - for no obvious reason. Additionally, lots of creative works, which wouldn't have been possible without inexpensive computers and the Internet, are prevented from being published legally.<br />
<br />
Today's copyright law just doesn't make sense when applied to digital technology. For example, it could even be argued that looking at a website is copyright infringement, as in order to display a webpage on the screen, the computer has to download it and make a local copy from the data stored on the server. As this is an unauthorized copy, this is actually illegal.<br />
<br />
===DRM===<br />
But while technology can enable people, it can also be used against them. Under the pretext of fighting 'piracy', the major entertainment companies have come up with ever stronger copy protections, all of them having something in common - they have been cracked very quickly.<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/drmhacks.ars Hacking Digital Rights Management], Ars Technica</ref><br />
<br />
[[Image:DRM_Is_Killing_Music.png|thumb|200px|left|A parody of the image above. This one campaigning against DRM.]]<br />
In the 80s, Hollywood was crying that home video recording would kill the film production. It didn't, although you usually could easily copy VHS video tapes. On DVDs, copy prevention was already present from day 1. Now the industry is pushing a new format to hold HD video (high definition, resulting in a sharper picture) that is meant to replace DVDs: BluRay Discs. It implements new and stronger copy preventions which force the consumer to buy not only new players, but also new displays (so that Hollywood can even control the signal between the player and the display).<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070121-8665.html HDCP: beta testing DRM on the public?], Ars Technica; [http://bluraysucks.com/ Why you should boycott Blu-ray and HD-DVD], Blu-Ray Sucks</ref> Equipment has to be certified to be able to playback BluRay discs (as already the case with DVDs). Free software and open source solutions are thus excluded from the system right from the start - in order to play DVDs on a GNU/Linux computer the copy prevention has to be cracked, which is done very quickly nowadays. However, also the new technologies, implemented in BluRay discs have already been cracked by numerous methods, even before the discs get to consumers homes.<br />
<br />
In the music market, the standard audio CD provides digital music of satisfactory quality to most listeners. CDs have been around for a long time, and stem from a time where copy prevention wasn't common yet. There have been several attempts to implement copy preventions later-on, resulting in audio CDs that some players couldn't play, which led to consumer frustration. With the rise of Apple's iTunes Store, the music industry has slowly started to realize the possibilities of distributing music through the Internet. Now people can buy songs and download them right away. The prices are comparable to CDs. Although virtually all distribution costs go away for the labels, artists don't receive higher payments for the songs sold on the iTunes Store.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Ipod.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The iPod made carrying your whole music collection in your pocket mainstream. Although its monopoly on playing DRM-crippled media from Apple's own iTunes Store on the Internet is criticized, the iPod is no doubt one of the devices spurring the digital revolution.]]<br />
Music doesn’t just reside on a CD anymore: it is sold through the internet and transferred to portable music players like the iPod; the music industry cannot prevent their customers from copying it; as a result, they developed technologies to limit access to music. For these new technologies, the umbrella term '''DRM''' is used. Originally standing for ''Digital Rights Management'', opponents such as the Free Software Foundation named it ''Digital Restrictions Management''. With DRM, the data, for example music or video, is digitally encrypted and can only be played back by specific devices or software. 'Unauthorized copies' can be prevented or content can even be set to expire after a specific time period. Songs purchased on Apple's market leading iTunes Store for example bear the following (compared to others still relatively lax) restrictions: While the track can be copied on up to five different computers, playback is only possible with Apple's iTunes software and on no other portable music player than Apple's iPod. Music isn't bought anymore, it is rather just rented for limited use. <br />
The proof that it is also possible to sell sustainably DRM-free music over the Internet, which can then be played back by any device (including the iPod), was delivered by stores like [http://www.emusic.com emusic] which has currently 250,000 subscribers. However, the major record labels refuse to sell their songs without DRM, leading ''emusic'' and the likes to specialize in independent music.<br />
<br />
As history has shown us, it is impossible to come up with a copy prevention or DRM system that is unbreakable. As long as the music and movie industries try to restrict access to the media they sell, they'll be caught up in a cat-and-mouse game. Whenever a new DRM scheme sees the light of the day, eventually it will be cracked by the many skilled people collaborating over the Internet, and DRM-free copies will be available on the peer-to-peer networks. However, it might one day become ''difficult enough'' for a ''large enough'' part of the population to set the media they paid for free. Consumers might just accept that they have only limited control over their legally bought music collection. And that's the actual goal of the entertainment industry. Not bringing 'piracy' down, because they know that's impossible, but controlling consumers to maximize revenue.<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070115-8616.html Privately, Hollywood admits DRM isn't about piracy], Ars Technica</ref> Then, because you can't copy it and put it on an other device, the entertainment industry will be able to sell you the same song or video several times: once for your computer, maybe a second time for your portable music or video player, then for playback in your living room, and one more time as a ringtone for your cell phone.<br />
<br />
To ensure that it's ''difficult enough'' for most consumers, and first of all illegal, to crack the DRM on their media, additional laws were written. In the USA, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was enacted in 1998, in the European Union the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD) of 2001, which is similar to the DMCA in many ways. Now it is illegal to circumvent DRM or other access control technologies, even when copying the content was permitted under simple copyright law, for example under fair use (about fair use: [[2.1_Copyright_and_Mass_Media#Realities_of_Copyright|2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]]). Under the DMCA, even the production or spread of circumvention technologies was criminalized. <br />
<br />
[[Image:OneSmallStep.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Still frame of Neil Armstrong, stepping out onto the moon - a historical document. But much of our current cultural production is owned by few, and the public is prevented from accessing it freely.]]<br />
<br />
===Implications===<br />
With DRM and laws to criminalize circumvention of DRM in place, our culture gets locked down even more. It has become technically increasingly difficult (and simply illegal) to use many of our cultural products, like pop music or election campaign footage, to create something new. We live increasingly in a ''permission culture'', where new creators have to ask the powerful or creators from the past for permission, rather than in a ''free culture'' that would uphold the individual freedom to create. At the same time, while digital technology would allow us to build a library accessible to everyone larger than the Library of Alexandria, we run the risk of forgetting history as past culture is locked down by law and DRM. While you theoretically still could sometimes make legal use of such material under the terms of fair use, and fight for your right to do so in court, this is no longer possible if law is interpreted by your computer rather than a judge. If the footage of the landing on the moon had been broadcasted with DRM in place, you couldn't reuse one second of the clip, regardless if legal under fair use or not - because your DRM-crippled computer prevented you from doing so.<br />
<br />
===Concluding...===<br />
Wrapped up, the changes we have seen recently in law, technology and in the concentration of the media market, lead to a devastating conclusion: ''"There has never been a time in history when more of our 'culture' was as 'owned' as it is now. And yet there has never been a time when the concentration of power to control the uses of culture has been as unquestioningly accepted as it is now."'' <ref>Lessig, Lawrence; [http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/ Free Culture], 2004, p. 28</ref><br />
<br />
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&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]] | [[2.3 Economics of Information Production]] &rarr;<br />
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<br />
==References==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=2.3_Economics_of_Information_Production&diff=281802.3 Economics of Information Production2009-02-03T21:17:09Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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<div>{{Template:Navigate-Overview|2.2 Information Technology and 'Piracy'|2.4 Property and Commons}}<br />
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[[Image:Circuit_board.jpg|thumb|400px|right|The value of this piece of silicon doesn't lie in the material but in the information on how it is organized.]]<br />
===Industrial and Networked Information Economy===<br />
For the last 150 years the economies of the more advanced nations have been mainly industrial economies. The Industrial Revolution has led to the cheap mass manufacturing of physical goods where producing 100 or 100'000 copies of a product costs nearly the same. As in the 20th century information was also mainly distributed through media with high up-front costs, like broadcasting or physical records and prints, and information production wasn't quite cheap, the industrial information economy produces content for an audience as large as possible to gain more profit per-copy.<ref>Benkler, Yochai; [http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom], 2006, p. 32</ref> This led to the rise of the mass media and the commercialization and concentration of information production. ([[2.1_Copyright_and_Mass_Media#Mass_Media|2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]])<br />
<br />
However, with the advent of the personal computer and the internet, the capital necessary to produce and distribute information is now widely available to millions of people. These are the prerequisites for the emergence of the networked information economy.<ref>Benkler, p. 3</ref> These changes come at a time when especially technical products grow ever more complex and more of the value of a material product is contained in the information it carries, rather than its material substance.<ref>[http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/free_matter_economy Towards a free matter economy (Part 1): Information as matter, matter as information], Terry Hancock at the Free Software Magazine</ref> Thus the focus of economies in industrialized nations is shifting from manufacturing goods to information production, as cheap labour is available in emerging markets like China, and the issue only gains in importance. <br />
<br />
==='Intellectual Property'===<br />
In most countries, there exist a lot of different laws today concerning entitlements attached to certain names, written and recorded media, and inventions. The most important are ''copyright'' which is meant to regulate copying, ''patents'' that are meant to prevent others from practicing an invention, and ''trademarks'' which make sure a distinctive sign or indicator that is used to identify an organization's product as its own, is not used by other businesses. The controversial umbrella term ''intellectual property'' is often used to lump all these different laws together. In recent years, we have observed calls to ever stronger ''intellectual property rights'' arguing that they encouraged innovation. Jack Valenti, long-time president of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and one of the most influential pro-copyright lobbyists in the world, formulated what he considered 'the fundamental issue' simple:<br />
<cite>Creative property owners must be accorded the same rights and protection resident in all other property owners in the nation.<ref>Quoted from Lessig, Lawrence; [http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/ Free Culture], 2004, p. 117</ref></cite><br />
<br />
[[Image:Note.jpg|thumb|150px|left|A song is...]]<br />
[[Image:Chair.jpg|thumb|150px|left|...not a chair.]]<br />
This claim is intuitively plausible, because it's simple. But it ignores one significant fact which the misleading term ''intellectual property'' already implies: Intellectual works are not analogous to physical property. A song is not the same thing as a chair. What we call ''intellectual works'', or ''ideas'' is ultimately information. For example knowledge written down in a book, or virtually anything that can be digitally represented as a series of zeros and ones - be it text, sound, video or virtual 3D objects - is information. And information is a nonrival good. That means that it can be used by one person without preventing others from using it simultaneously. If I sit on a chair, nobody else can (comfortably) sit on the same chair at the same time. But if I watch television, this doesn't prevent anybody else from watching television too. What is more, with digital technology huge amounts of information can be copied without consuming anything but a tiny bit of electricity. That's the difference between stealing a chair from my neighbour and downloading a song from another computer. My neighbour can't make use of the chair anymore, because it isn't there anymore, whereas the song was copied and resides now on both computers - joy shared is joy doubled.<br />
<br />
The other distinct quality of information is that existing information itself is a prerequisite to produce new information. It is difficult to invent a bicycle if the basic invention of the wheel is not known. That's why the simple logic currently held by most governments doesn't deliver. It says that ever more exclusive rights like copyright and patents will lead to more innovation, because innovators have greater incentive to innovate as they can then make exclusive use of their invention. But many potential inventors are locked out from innovating because they can't pay for yesterday's information. <br />
<br />
When information is given away for free, this is to the best of society's overall welfare because that way many more people can profit from it. As information is nonrival, this doesn't hurt anybody if there is enough incentive to produce information in the first place.<br />
<br />
===Patents===<br />
In today's complex products, much information needed to understand or improve them is designated 'property' of various entities. For example a DVD player contains about a dozen devices that are patented by different companies. A single microchip can contain over 5,000 different patents.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Tragedy of the anticommons]], 29. July 2007</ref> As of 2005, there are over 1.5 million patents in force only in the United States.<ref>[http://www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/statistics/patents/inforce/index.html Patents in Force], WIPO</ref> Thus, further innovation in many industries is only possible with access to a large number of patents. It can be very expensive to get certain patents licensed from their owner which has the consequence that certain new inventions that rely on patented information are never produced. And because it is expendable to identify the needed patents and license all of them one by one, many companies use cross-licensing agreements which basically say that each company has full access to the other's patent portfolio. <br />
This locks out small innovators and leads to a concentration of information property. Thus law relying heavily on exclusive information property rights shapes business practices, favouring exclusive-rights-based strategies of closed companies rather than nonproprietary ones where a large community forms around a pool of commons-owned information as for example in free software projects. <br />
<br />
In order for an issued patent on an invention to be granted it has to meet certain criteria: <ref>[[Wikipedia:Patentability]]</ref><br />
* The invention or discovery of a new and useful process must lie within ''patentable subject matter'', for example scientific theories, mathematical methods or aesthetic creations are not patentable.<br />
* The invention must be ''novel'',<br />
* It must be non-obvious (in United States patent law) or involve an inventive step (in European patent law),<br />
* and be useful (U.S.) or be susceptible of industrial application (Europe).<br />
When a patent is filed, the patent office has to consider whether it is valid under these criteria and can then grant the patent. It is then in force for usually 20 years from the filing date, provided the patentee pays the renewal fees, generally due each year.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Software_patents.JPG|thumb|200px|left|Growth of issued Software patents in the United States.]]<br />
Patents are meant to encourage innovation. In some industries this aim may be achieved with patents, in others this is highly questionable. Especially software patents are under heavy fire at the moment. While they are allowed in the United States, in the European Union it is held that software isn't patentable as such. In the rapidly developing field of software development, many techniques that have been granted a patent by the patent office are all too obvious to most developers and while writing software they always have to fear that they infringe on some patent that they didn't even know existed and then get sued.<ref>[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fighting-software-patents.html Fighting Software Patents - Singly and Together], Richard Stallman</ref> It is virtually impossible to develop software without hitting a patent sooner or later. Software companies are thus forced to acquire a large patent portfolio of their own in order to countersue a competing company that might chose to sue them for infringement, something that isn't possible for small developers. Additionally, patents on file formats hinder implementation of these formats in other programs and thus prevent interoperability, forcing consumers to use only one program and many free and open source software projects that operate at practically no budget can't pay for patent licensing.<br />
Also patents in other industries, especially patents on human genes, are highly disputed and in medicine they often prevent cheap generic drugs that might be badly needed by the poor of the world.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Newspapers.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Newspapers are an example of information production business that doesn't rely on the protections of intellectual property. If competition were to copy an article it was an old hat when printed the next day.]]<br />
Most firm managers don't see patents as the most important way to capture the benefits of their research and developments and most innovation doesn't come from businesses relying on exclusive rights, but from nonmarket sources (both state and private) and market actors whose business models do not depend on the protections of intellectual property.<ref>Benkler, p. 40-41</ref><br />
<br />
===Exclusive Rights in a Digital World===<br />
The three primary inputs needed for information production are existing information, mechanical means of production and distribution, and human communicative capacity.<ref>Benkler, p. 52</ref> With computers and the internet, the costs of the second category are now radically low. While exclusive rights do encourage information production on a limited scale as the expected benefit is greater, they do primarily stifle information production as the up-front cost of obtaining the information necessary to further innovate is higher. <br />
If existing information wasn't locked down by 'intellectual property law', with computers and the internet being the only resource left narrowing informational and cultural production would be human communicative and creative capacity. But as it is now, laws are hindering the potential of the networked information economy. <br />
In the next chapter, the workings of the networked information economy are being looked at.<br />
<br />
<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[2.2 Information Technology and 'Piracy']] | [[2.4 Property and Commons]] &rarr;<br />
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<br />
==References==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=2.4_Property_and_Commons&diff=281782.4 Property and Commons2009-02-03T21:15:24Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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<div>{{Template:Navigate-Overview|2.3 Economics of Information Production|2.5 Individual and Public}}<br />
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[[Image:Steel_furnace.jpg|thumb|350px|right|Production of physical goods is mostly handled by the market...]]<br />
===Nonmarket Production===<br />
Nonmarket production plays a bigger role in our economy than often realized. Whether it's a parent looking after the children the whole day or people just voluntarily helping each other, a lot of things get done without money ever changing hands. It has also always been true that nonmarket mechanisms were much more important in the production of information than physical goods. There are no voluntary steel manufacturers and we don't just pick up a new car for free because someone feels like producing one. Nonetheless, we rely on a large volume of information everyday that is produced on a voluntary basis. Non-governmental organizations and private foundations are dedicated to solving pressing issues the market doesn't care about and governments don't have resources at hand to solve. In everyday life we obtain counsel and information from colleagues about what film to watch or what road to drive and virtually all of our basic research is funded by governments or nonprofit institutions. With computers and the internet readily available to millions of people, the means of producing and distributing information are now widely held throughout the population. Thus nonmarket behaviour is becoming central to how our information and culture is produced.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Flyers.jpg|thumb|250px|right|...while information also gets often produced on a voluntary basis.]]<br />
As working hours are going down in the economically more developed countries, more spare time is available for voluntary activity. Through information and communication technology, these resources can be used more effectively as people have better access to existing information and have a medium through which they can express themselves, communicate and collaborate with others.<br />
<br />
The highest motivation for work is usually thought to be money. However, we are motivated by a wide range of things. We look for social rewards like acknowledgments or higher social standing in our communities. We have intrinsic motivations like pleasure or personal satisfaction when we feel we have achieved something. Even small payments may undermine intrinsic motivations as we might prefer to work for free for a good cause rather than do the same work for a monetary reward.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Motivation crowding theory]]</ref><br />
<br />
===Peer Production===<br />
Resources can be handled either as property or as a commons. Most physical objects and also land are usually considered property while for example the roads network, water or public services are shared within a community and are thus commons. When information is treated as property it is made scarce against its nonrival nature. Proprietary information introduces transaction costs which ultimately hinders overall information production as shown in the [[2.3 Economics of Information Production|previous chapter]]. Through the internet, a new model of production has evolved which relies heavily on the sharing of information as a commons. It also works radically decentralized. Everyone can drop by, participate and contribute in the domains that interest them personally the most — as opposed to centralized production, where some boss somewhere decides what gets done by whom. This decentralized collaborative production method in which the resources are organized as a commons is called '''commons-based peer production'''.<ref>Term coined by Yochai Benkler. Benkler, Yochai; [http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom], 2006, p. 60; [[Wikipedia:Commons-based peer production]]</ref><br />
<br />
Until now, the most advanced example of large-scale peer production is the development of free and open source software. ([[1.1 The GNU Project and Free Software]] and [[1.2 GNU/Linux and Open Source]]) Hundreds of volunteers are collaborating over the internet, using such diverse tools as email, mailing lists and chat. But, first of all, specialised revision control software helps to organize all the code and keeps track of the many changes it is undergoing. To date, the result of these collaborative acts is thousands of software packages that compete with and often outperform the established software industry's products. As software is a finished product that consists solely of information, it is only natural that commons-based peer productions work very well here.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Wikipedia-logo.png|thumb|left|The logo of the English Wikipedia.]]<br />
This production strategy was also adopted outside the domain of software. Wikipedia, a multilingual encyclopedia which everybody can edit with only a simple web browser, started in 2001 and continues to grow at a huge pace, hosting over 7 million articles today. Although often criticized to be untrustworthy, vandalism is usually reverted very quickly<ref>[http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/papers/history_flow.pdf Studying Cooperation and Conflict between Authors with History Flow Visualizations]</ref> and the fact that Wikipedia is one of the top ten most-visited websites worldwide proves that it is a very valuable resource.<ref>Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation that is now operating Wikipedia and its sister projects emphasize on the importance of free knowledge and free software.[http://blog.jimmywales.com/index.php/archives/2004/10/21/free-knowledge-requires-free-software-and-free-file-formats/]</ref> Other peer productions include the news site Slashdot, NASA clickworkers (where volunteers can map martian craters on satellite imagery) or Project Gutenberg (where old texts long in the public domain are scanned and then proofread for errors by many participants, the result being an ever growing library of digitized books freely available over the internet as plain text).<br />
<br />
[[Image:Clickworkers.jpg|thumb|right|NASA Clickworkers: Each dot is where a participant clicked on the rim of a crater, resulting in a digital map.]]<br />
In all these different peer productions, the whole project needs to be broken down in smaller parts that individuals can work on in the limited time they have. So, naturally, some projects work better as peer productions than others. The work on Wikipedia with its many independent encyclopedic articles is easier to distribute among many participants than, let's say, the writing of a book which needs to have a consistent style and structure. However, if parameters are clearly stated from the start and everybody is willing to write one small chapter, a task like writing a book can also be accomplished. As the concept of peer productions is still very young, new organizational methods are being discovered and technical tools built every day to help coordinate work and realize projects never thought possible before.<br />
<br />
While some projects need to be centrally controlled and will never work very efficiently as peer productions, commons-based peer productions do have some significant advantages. When the workers themselves choose what to do, they identify much more with their tasks and can spontaneously help out without needing to ask anybody for permission or signing a new employment contract first. This can, however, also easily lead to individuals misjudging their own abilities: an important part of every peer production is thus quality control by other participants. What is the case with the ever increasing amount of information to be found on the internet is also the case for single peer productions: The accreditation and the mapping for relevance and quality are as important as the actual production of the information. But also this work can also be peer produced. Many sites have implemented features for voting the comments or contributions of others up or down. Filters which hide low-rated comments initially are very useful. While the Google search engine ranks sites which are often linked-to from other sites higher in their search results,<ref>More information about the Google search algorithm: [[Wikipedia:PageRank]]</ref> Wikipedia relies primarily on social mechanisms and favours discussion as a means to reach consensus. <br />
<br />
Commons-based peer productions are here to stay. Humans have always shared and collaborated with one another. Of course, not everything is always shared, but when widespread technology facilitates sharing, sharing will happen more often. Information and communication technologies have enabled projects where lots of people can work together although they are spread all around the globe. Peer productions don't draw labour away from the market; instead, they use resources unused by the market and thus form a competition to market production in some domains. Firms can also profit from these mechanisms when working together with nonmarket forces. The border between producers on one side, and consumers and users on the other side, blurs. Increasingly, consumers come to produce what they want themselves, collaborating with like-minded people or companies. New business models and more 'interactive products' are needed in this networked information economy. Relics and business models out of the industrial information economy need to be overcome.<br />
<br />
===Free Content===<br />
Commons-owned information that can be accessed and (re)used by everyone is more valuable to the economy and society as a whole than proprietary information. Thus, commons-based peer productions with their non-proprietary outputs should be welcomed twice. However, there are also peer productions that output proprietary information which can't be reused for further information production as its use is restricted by 'intellectual property' law. YouTube is an example for this, the videos hosted on this user-powered site can't be downloaded again, but are held on the central server where they are meant to reside, flushing ever more advertising revenue into the company's cash-boxes. While there's no doubt that some very interesting and often entertaining content is to be found on YouTube, the works are trapped there and can't be creatively reused.<br />
<br />
On the other side, non-proprietary information production enables a free culture ([[2.2 Information Technology and 'Piracy'|Chapter 2.2]]). '''Free content''' (as in freedom) is any work having no significant legal restriction relative to people's freedom to use, redistribute, and produce modified versions of and works derived from the content.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Free content]]; [http://freedomdefined.org/Definition Definition of Free Cultural Works]</ref> To achieve this, default copyright has to be overridden and the owner of the work has to license it to the public and permit everyone to copy, change and redistribute it. <br />
<br />
[[Image:CreativeCommons.png|thumb|317px|right|Creative Commons logo.]]<br />
This strategy was first used by the free software community, and later the emerging free culture movement took those ideals and extended them from the software field to the whole culture. ([[1.1 The GNU Project and Free Software#Copyleft|Chapter 1.1]]) The most commonly used software license is as said the GNU GPL. For text, especially functional works such as textbooks, the GNU FDL (GFDL) was developed and all of Wikipedia's text is licensed under it. Both are copyleft licenses, meaning they allow redistribution of derivative works under the condition that this happens under the same license, preventing the content from becoming non-free. Also commercial redistribution is permitted. <br />
<br />
To provide potential authors with a greater set of choices, the non-profit organization '''Creative Commons''' created six licenses of their own, meant for text as well as music, images and video. Now, creators can choose a license and allow copying of their works for noncommercial use only, or changes may be prohibited. The original author, however, always has to be attributed when a work is copied. For artistic works, the Free Art License can also be used.<br />
<br />
{|border="1" style="text-align:center"<br />
|-<br />
! colspan="2"|License<br />
! Attribution required?<br>[[Image:Cc-by.png]]<br />
! Commercial use allowed?<br>[[Image:Cc-nc.png]]<br />
! Derivative works allowed?<br>[[Image:Cc-nd.png]]<br />
! Copyleft (Share-Alike)<br>[[Image:Cc-sa.png]]<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"|[http://www.gnu.org/ GNU]<br />
| GPL (software)<br />
| no<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
|-<br />
| GFDL (text)<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="6"|[http://creativecommons.org/ Creative Commons]<br />
| Attribution (by)<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| no<br />
|-<br />
| Attribution-NonCommercial (by-nc)<br />
| yes<br />
| no<br />
| yes<br />
| no<br />
|-<br />
| Attribution-NoDerivs (by-nd)<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| no<br />
| no<br />
|-<br />
| Attribution-ShareAlike (by-sa)<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
|-<br />
| Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (by-nc-nd)<br />
| yes<br />
| no<br />
| no<br />
| no<br />
|-<br />
| Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (by-nc-sa)<br />
| yes<br />
| no<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
|-<br />
| [http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/ Copyleft Attitude]<br />
| Free Art License<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
| yes<br />
|-<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
This flood of different licenses has, however, led to some confusion and even incompatibility. For example, a work licensed under the GNU FDL license cannot be joined with a work under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license as both licenses require any modified version of a work to be under the exact same license again.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Lessig.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig promoting free culture.]]<br />
Everybody agrees that even the most restrictive of the Creative Commons licenses, the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, is better than complete default copyright. However, only two of the various Creative Commons licenses qualify as free content licenses: the Attribution and the Attribution-ShareAlike license.<ref>[http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses Definition of Free Cultural Works: Licenses]</ref> The others impose too severe restrictions on the reuse of the work. On the other hand, works of personal opinion probably shouldn't be altered. In such cases, a bloated license isn't even necessary and it might be sufficient to add a phrase like this: ''Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted worldwide without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.''<br />
<br />
===Sharing Hardware===<br />
Not only does information, knowledge and culture get peer produced, but also material resources are shared. That's the way peer-to-peer file-sharing networks work ([[2.2 Information Technology and 'Piracy'#File_Sharing|Chapter 2.2]]), users sharing the storage space on their computers and their internet bandwidth with one another, thus distributing the hardware costs typically needed to spread such massive amounts of data. But also the computational power of many home computers inter-connected over the internet outperforms the most powerful server farms in existence. Every computer owner connected to the internet can download a free [http://boinc.berkeley.edu/ program] that runs in the background all the time and calculates data when the computer is idle. These distributed computing projects range from analyzing radio telescope data in Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI@home) to calculating molecular dynamics simulations that can eventually be used in fighting diseases (Folding@home). Again, the power to perform such high-capacity calculations is achieved through voluntarily pooling resources. The participants don't receive any payment but they are listed on the project's websites in order of their contribution and do it for a goal greater than themselves.<br />
<br />
This sharing of hardware only makes sense because technology developed to make it possible for cheap, high-performance hardware to be widely distributed among the population. If really fast network connections were significantly cheaper than fast computational hardware, computers might have been centralized in order to be used economically. We would then have thin clients (a monitor, keyboard and mouse) connected to a remotely located server. If this were the case, then there wouldn't be any excess computer capacities to be used by distributed computing projects.<br />
<br />
<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[2.3 Economics of Information Production]] | [[2.5 Individual and Public]] &rarr;<br />
<br />
<br />
==References==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=3.1_The_State_of_It_All&diff=281773.1 The State of It All2009-02-03T21:14:28Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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<div>{{Template:Navigate-Overview|2.5 Individual and Public|Appendix: About Money}}<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:Earth.jpg|thumb|400px|right|A bit of farsightedness is sometimes needed.]]<br />
<br />
Now we have seen the many advantages the networked information economy has over the industrialized information economy in both economics as well as potential in providing for a society more free and more just. However, the necessary developments in technology won't lead automatically to the utilization of the enabled potentials. Whether this is the case or not depends on a number of factors, most significantly on the social practices in a given society (will people share and collaborate under these circumstances?) and the political actions taken by legislature (are those practices legal and are they favoured or hindered?). <br />
<br />
In fact, we are seeing strong opposition to the concepts of the networked information society, originating either from poor understanding and the firm believe in exclusive rights on information, or from fear for last-century business models. This has led to strong lobbying and tilted the institutional ecology of the digital environment in favour of the industrial instead of the networked information economy. The current extremism held by most legislatives is resulting in ever stronger 'intellectual property' laws and established industries, like Hollywood and the recording industry which hold a huge part of our culture of the 20th century, are hoarding information and try to prevent people from sharing. We are at a critical time and the decisions we are facing today will greatly influence the availability of basic resources for information production and exchange now and in the future. <br />
<br />
For the networked information society to work, two things are needed to supplement human creativity: existing information and tools to create and share more information. <br />
<br />
===Tools===<br />
The tools necessary are firstly general-purpose computers over which the users have full control and can make whatever use of they want, and secondly a neutral network over which people can freely exchange whatever information they want. At the moment, both of these are available in form of personal computers and the internet. However, there are a number of threats to this. <br />
<br />
[[Image:TComputing.jpg|thumb|300px|left|Frame out of the animated short film [http://lafkon.net/tc/ ''trusted computing''].]]<br />
The general-purpose computer is in danger by a technology dubbed ''Trusted Computing'' which more accurately is called ''Treacherous Computing''. It is a technology implemented in both hardware and software that would give the responsible companies full control over your computer.<ref>[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html Can You Trust Your Computer?], Richard Stallman</ref> As those companies don't trust you, they build a combination of hard- and software they can trust (hence the term), relying on a TPM-chip in the computer that makes it uniquely identifiable. A nearly unbreakable DRM system is imaginable where data like music or personal information could be encrypted in a way that only the exact same combination of software (like iTunes) and hardware (your computer) would be able to decrypt it again. Copying of DRM-ed music would be rendered impossible and your computer could even refuse to allow not-certified software to be run. The only way to be sure what your computer is exactly doing is to run free and open source software whose workings are laid open and even this might be prevented with ''Trusted Computing'' on hardware-level.<br />
Also mobile phones that are operator-controlled deny the user access to the full capabilities of the phone.<br />
<br />
At the moment, a rich ecosystem of free and open source software guarantees that everybody has the tools to use his computer for lots of different purposes. The internet is built on open standards that non-profit organizations like the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) or the Internet Engineering Task Force are developing. But proprietary software and especially proprietary file formats are counteracting the networked information society. Whereas open standards can be used and implemented by anyone without need for licensing, data saved in proprietary file formats can only be thoroughly retrieved with the same or a licensed program because only the vendor knows how the data is stored exactly. This leads to vendor lock-in and prevents interoperability. Microsoft has used its monopoly extensively and tries to lock consumers for example into its proprietary Word program or by implementing internet standards incorrectly, pressing website developers to create websites that would display wrongly in other browsers than Microsoft's market dominating Internet Explorer.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Criticism of Microsoft#Market power]], [[Wikipedia:European Union v. Microsoft]], [[Wikipedia:United States v. Microsoft]], [[Wikipedia:Halloween documents]]</ref><br />
<br />
On the network side, a neutral network is needed where all information flowing is treated equally. The biggest threat to this are currently ISPs (Internet Service Providers) that might want to control the last mile, the network connection from a communications provider to the customer (you). They might choose to prioritize some data packages or block certain services (like peer-to-peer file-sharing systems or the website of a competitor) entirely. Internet censorship is already widely practiced in countries like China. Initiatives against this threat are municipal broadband and the development of open wireless networks. The technology is there to build devices like computers and mobile phones that have wireless ad-hoc networking capabilities. Then every device would forward data from other devices, carrying each others data flows and self-configuring into a high-speed wireless network. This way consumers could build their own last mile. Unfortunately, telecommunications service providers might not want this to happen but keep a monopoly on the last mile and refuse to sell such devices or even boycott manufacturers that produce such equipment.<br />
<br />
[[Image:PirateParty.jpg|thumb|300px|left|A rally of the Pirate Party.]]<br />
<br />
===Existing Information===<br />
For a networked culture to thrive, access to existing information is crucial. Sadly we are seeing policy makers in favour of exclusive rights and copyright terms for example are just going up and up. On the other hand, there exists an increased sharing practice on the internet and people all over the world start to realize the importance of the issues outlined in this text. The initiatives of free culture and open source are building alternative systems to the exclusive rights based one. At the same time, there are also efforts in persuading politicians on reforms and in Sweden the first political [http://www.piratpartiet.se/international Pirate Party] was founded, promoting intellectual property reforms and strengthening of the right to privacy.<br />
<br />
[[Image:PLoS.jpg|thumb|196px|Public Library of Science logo.]]<br />
In the domain of scientific publication, researchers and scholars used to submit their papers exclusively to acknowledged journals such as ''Nature'' or ''Science'' in order to gain reputation promoting their career. Usually they then have to pay for submission and have to reassign the copyright of the text to the journal, the text then gets peer reviewed by other experts of the field. This way the research is locked in and to get again access to the information and ongoing research of others, universities have to pay incredibly high subscription fees for the journals which especially institutes in the developing world simply can't afford. Taking the internet into the picture, the concept of '''open access''' has emerged.<ref>[http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm Open Access Overview], Peter Suber</ref> The information is published on the internet and released as free content ([[2.4 Property and Commons#Free Content|chapter 2.4]]) so everybody has unrestricted access and can profit from existing research. At the moment there are two slightly differing models of open access (OA): <br />
'''OA self-archiving''' where authors still publish their work in traditional journals but additionally are allowed to make it freely accessible on the internet, sometimes with a delay or only the not peer reviewed version, and '''OA publishing''' where authors submit their work to open access journals where it is freely and immediately accessible.<ref>[http://www.doaj.org/ Directory of Open Access Journals]</ref><br />
As most of our basic research is taxpayer-funded it is only honest that the outcome should be publicly accessible and some government institutions are starting to mandate open access publishing of the research they finance. <br />
Different open access publishers have different financing models. Non-profits like the Public Library of Science ([http://www.plos.org/ PLoS]) apply peer review and demand a submission fee of the authors, while for example the also non-profit [http://arxiv.org arXiv] is a highly automated archive and its contents are not peer reviewed but publication is free in turn. The arXiv is already broadly accepted in the fields of mathematics and physics and most of the research in these fields is published there. There are also for-profit open access publishers like the [http://www.biomedcentral.com/ BioMed Central] that publish the papers also as free content and have diverse revenue streams.<br />
<br />
[[Image:BiOS.gif|thumb|196px|BiOS logo. Also in the field of agriculture and medicine open approaches are explored.]]<br />
In the fields of agricultural biotechnology and medicine, which are especially important for the people in economically less developed countries, most information is still handled as property. Research for example on different crops resulting in higher yields in agriculture and increasingly research in genetically modified plants is property held by a few companies or even universities and scientist in poorer countries have no chance to further innovate or adapt these technologies more precisely to their local climate. HIV/AIDS drugs are sold at very high prices that millions of people in the poorer parts of the world simply can't pay for and die because the companies holding the patents prevent competitors from producing cheap generics. On the other hand, teenagers in the industrialized world get ever finer acne products while there is still no malaria vaccine - not because nobody would need it, but because nobody could pay for it. Nonprofit research and the pooling of information and research results as a commons would lead to more innovation and access to core technologies would enable people in the economically less developed countries to help themselves. <br />
In agriculture, initiatives like [http://www.bios.net/daisy/bios/1373.html BiOS] (Biological Innovation for Open Society/Biological Open Source) of the international non-profit institute CAMBIA or the formation of the [http://www.cgiar.org/ CGIAR] (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) are a start while in the health sector and in the development of drugs and medicine still only Big Pharma business is dominating and only the [http://www.oneworldhealth.org/ Institute for OneWorld Health] is worth mentioning.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Fab@Home.png|thumb|300px|right|An assembled fabber of the [http://www.fabathome.org/ Fab@Home project].]]<br />
While the core of these mechanisms of collaboration and sharing is information, the value of many physical products lies increasingly in the information they contain rather than the material. A drug may be just one small pill, a computer just a bunch of silicon, but nonetheless the information that lies behind the production of these objects is immense and makes them powerful. The free/open design movement, which is still in its infancy, aims to collaborate on the design of physical objects which is facilitated for example by the modeling of virtual 3D objects on the computer and other CAD software.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Open design]]</ref> Also the design of computer hardware itself is starting to be peer produced.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Open source hardware]]</ref> If 3D printers or fabbers (digital fabricators) that can make 3D objects described by digital data become one day as cheap as ordinary paper printers, the digital revolution brought about by home computers might step into the realm of physical objects.<ref>[http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.09/fablab.html The Dream Factory], Clive Thompson at Wired magazine</ref><br />
<br />
Another important area where the networked information society might come to play a major role is in coining virtual money. Future currencies need not necessarily be created and administred by states. [http://www.mindjack.com/feature/futuremoney.html A brief text available here.]<br />
<br />
===Concluding===<br />
The claim presented in this text is not that technology will magically lead to a better world, but rather that technology does influence a given society. Depending on what use people make of these available technologies, they have different effects on a society. Computers and the internet provide for new models of information production which are, if realized, beneficial to individual freedom in liberal societies. However, these technologies could also be used to control the individual rather than empower it. DRM and Treacherous Computing as well as various efforts threatening privacy such as government-spying are dangers not to be understated. <br />
<br />
If people choose to rely on proprietary information instead on sharing or if legislatures render sharing illegal or hinder peer-produced innovation for example by means of exclusive rights, the networking information society is weakened. Whether technology will be allowed to unfold its possibilities and the networked information society will become a widespread reality or whether these possibilities are turned down depends largely on the actions and decisions we are facing now. Today, we live in a critical time of technological and social change. We as a society now have the choice of using these technologies to a greater benefit or letting this moment of opportunity pass.<br />
<br />
<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[2.5 Individual and Public]] | [[Appendix: About Money]] &rarr;<br />
<br />
<br />
==References==<br />
<references/><br />
[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=About_Money&diff=28176About Money2009-02-03T21:13:47Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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<div>{{Template:Navigate-Last-Overview|3.1 The State of It All}}<br />
<br />
When discussing free and open source software or free culture, one question always pops up: How do people make money from this? It surely can't be done professionally, in the sense that people can make a living from it?! The answer for software developers is that often customization for your client is a central part of your work and that you can build services like support around your software, or get paid by a big company like Google or IBM that heavily relies on free software. And obviously one can accept donations which works also for artists. They can also raise funds from charities or ask the state or museums to support their projects. Even today, most artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers can't make a living on their passion, in part because much money is already spent on the distribution (music labels or movie studios). Interesting examples of art are the Creative Commons licensed [http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/ comic Scott McCloud did for Google] to present Google Chrome or the very personal [http://foureyedmonsters.com/ Four Eyed Monsters] movie and video blog of Susan Buice and Arin Crumley who even put their feature length [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rRFFi_stY movie on YouTube]. But one keeps wondering if there wouldn't be better ways which would enable even more people to make a living from free software and free culture. <br />
<br />
===Micropayments===<br />
One thing that has been proposed for a long time, but has failed to realize as of yet are micropayments. The idea is to make it very easy and cheap to transact very small amounts of money over the internet. When somebody likes a song or a piece of software she can just hit a button on the website and the creator gets his one or two dollars. Such a simple interface and no transaction costs would make tiny donations like that a lot more attractive and hopefully they would add up to a larger pile of money.<br />
<br />
But maybe we need to change something more fundamental. Maybe, as we go from the industrialized information economy to the networked information economy, we do not only need to rethink the rules of 'intellectual property', but also the rules of money and the economy. Think of all the flaws of the current system (as evidenced by the ongoing financial crisis). The current monetary system works rather against free software/free culture and the spirit of sharing and community. But they still thrive, because humans will always care about such things, and computers and the internet have greatly facilitated them. A proposal to encourage and facilitate them even more is Open Money. It is still rather a term than an actual concept, but let me now talk about some of the thoughts and ideas that surround it.<br />
<br />
===The current monetary system===<br />
First, let's have a brief look at how things work today. At the root of almost all money are the central banks of each state: the Federal Reserve (FED) for the US-Dollar, the European Central Bank (ECB) for the Euro and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) for the Yen, to name the three top currencies. They create all the money. For every dollar printed, there used to be a corresponding amount of gold stored in the saves of the central bank and the promise of the state to redeem dollars in gold. But for quite some time this hasn't been the case anymore. Most modern currencies are 'fiat currencies', which means their value is based entirely on the believe and trust of the people that the currency is actually worth something. Money is a mutual agreement, nothing more. No doubt, it is a very useful agreement, otherwise we'd still have to trade cows for sheep which requires always a 'double-coincidence of wants' (Person A has a cow and needs a sheep AND at the same time Person B has a sheep but needs a cow). But in the end, money is still nothing more than an agreement. That's why the central banks can create money virtually out of thin air. Although, if they go too far and create too much new money compared to the goods traded, the value of the currency will decrease.<br />
<br />
But the central banks don't put the money directly on the market. Instead, they lend it to private banks at a very low rate of interest – the prime rate (this is always the lowest interest rate in an economy). The private banks in turn lend the money to their customers or other banks at a higher interest rate than the prime, in order to make a profit. <br />
This arrangement has some peculiar consequences. Maybe you never thought about it, but how are all the people (and private banks) able to pay back all their loans plus interest? Where does all the extra money that is required for the interest come from? <br />
<br />
===The infinite growth imperative===<br />
One possibility is that some of the people in the system lose their money to others and go bankrupt – the others are now able to pay back their loans plus interest. That's one of the reasons why competition between companies but also between people tends to get tougher all the time. This obviously works against the spirit of community although it enhances efficiency.<br />
Another way of getting to extra money is that the central bank simply prints more, or lowers the prime interest rate, which has the same effect because then private banks will be able to borrow more money into existence. But if you have the same amount of goods and services traded and increase the amount of money in circulation, it won't take long and people will notice. The value of the money will decrease. A pound of bread may have cost 5$, now it costs 7$ – that's what's called inflation. To prevent this from happening on an exorbitant scale, the economy needs to grow with the money supply. The idea is that if more things are traded in an economy, more money can be created without devaluating the currency. This new money can then be used to pay back the interests after a while and the circle starts anew. That is the source of the growth imperative in our economies. <br />
But how can an economy always continue to grow? One way is to increase the demand for products: more products are sold and more money can be created to compensate. This worked very well during the industrial revolution when people actually gained in welfare when they were able to buy more things. But today, in the industrialized world it is very difficult to sell ever more products. A solution is to manufacture less durable products so people will have to trash them sooner and then have to buy new replacements quicker. You can see this everywhere. Companies that produce too high quality can't sell enough in the long run, so they drive themselves into bankruptcy. Another way for the economy to grow is to have companies take things that previously were free, turn them into a product and charge for them, like for example bottled water. Or Starbucks can charge double the price for a cup of coffee, which is justified by the added experience. For the economy to grow, there should be as much exchange of money as possible. Small favours or mutual care in a family or community are pressured to be replaced by paid work.<br />
The result is always the same: if the economy is growing, more money is needed to change hands. This money can be created by loans – it is virtually loaned into existence. But those loans have interest too, so eventually even more money is required to pay back the interest on those loans. And born is the vicious circle leading to an exponential increase in loans.<br />
<br />
Interest obviously also helps making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Because the poor need to borrow money from the rich and have to pay it back plus interest. <br />
So this way of running an economy is not only unfair in the long run, but it has a built-in growth imperative which goes at the expense of the environment. Also, although efficiency is increasing, shorter working hours are nowhere to be seen, because people need to work more in order to earn more money to buy more stuff to keep the economy growing (because individuals are paid for the work done rather than for the work actually needed).<br />
The problems of this system manifest themselves most dramatically in<br />
*financial crises caused by speculative bubbles, currency volatility, or similar<br />
*the problem of supporting the growing percentage of retired people that don't produce money but still need to be cared for (which means in the current system: paid for)<br />
*increasing environmental impact (leading to pollution and climate change)<br />
<br />
While the current economy cries for more products to become commercialized in order to keep the money supply growing, free and open source culture strengthen the non-profit sector and continue to produce value without charging for it. While information doesn't need to be scarce because it is a non-rival good (when you share information you don't lose it), the physical resources of our planet are really scarce indeed (oil, rain-forests, etc). But paradoxically 'intellectual property rights' try to make information artificially scarce while at the same time the economy needs to grow infinitely, depriving the physical world of its scarce resources in the process. It should be exactly the other way around!<br />
<br />
You won't be surprised to hear now that I have come to the conclusion that this can't go on forever. So what about solutions? There have been numerous proposals to improve the current system, some more radical than others. But none have been tested on a really large scale, which makes evaluating them very difficult. The truth is that the motivations, interactions and the resulting individual and group behaviour of the whole population of earth is so insanely difficult to predict that I don't think we have much of a chance to know whether a proposed economic system works as desired or not without trying it out on a large enough scale.<br />
<br />
===Demurrage===<br />
One way to tackle the problem of interest is to abandon it and replace it with 'demurrage': a fee for holding money over a given amount of time. This concept was proposed (among others) by the German economist Silvio Gesell around 1900. The largest experiment putting this theory into praxis was when the Austrian town of Wörgl introduced its own currency with demurrage in 1932, when people were saving their money during the Great Depression instead of putting it into circulation again. In such credit crunches, central banks usually lower the prime rates and print more money to get the economy going again, but in times of great uncertainty, people tend to hoard this new money too and the measures have no effect. In Wörgl, people were required to regularly purchase stamps that were attached to the money in order to keep it valid. That way the function of money as a store of value was abolished and it functioned only as a medium of exchange and a unit of account. The experiment was a huge success: people had to spend their money in order to pay less demurrage which resulted in faster circulation of money and rapid growth in employment. Unfortunately, in 1933 the experiment was terminated by the Austrian National Bank on the grounds that it was a threat to the Bank's monopoly on printing money and soon unemployment was on the rise again.<br />
<br />
Today, instead of requiring stamps on paper money, the demurrage can obviously be subtracted automatically from electronic bank accounts. With interest based currencies, you gain money when you hoard it, with demurrage you lose it. So you can't invest your saved wealth in money and expect it to grow. This leads to investments that have a high long term return, as opposed to the short term thinking and infinite growth imperative that dominates the current system. Suddenly, it's more worthwhile to invest in a forest and keep it intact to continue to harvest smaller amounts of wood over a very longer period of time instead of chipping it all down right now to invest the money on the money market which makes for a higher profit in the short term.<br />
<br />
===Community currencies===<br />
The national currencies issued by the central banks are far from the only currencies. Money which is not legal tender is often called 'scrip'. Frequent flyer miles or similar loyalty programs can also be thought of as currencies and there are many 'alternative' or 'complementary currencies' that are in use in combination with standard currencies. Some of them make use of demurrage, others don't. A subset of complementary currencies are 'local currencies' which can be used only in a small area. This stimulates the local economy and strengthens the sense of community in a town or area. That's why they are also often called 'community currencies'.<br />
One of the first modern complementary currencies is the [http://www.ithacahours.org/ Ithaca Hour]. One Ithaca Hour is supposed to be worth as much as one hour of work done (or can be changed into 10 US-Dollars). They are only redeemable in the city of Ithaca (NY). Because Ithaca Hours don't have demurrage and somebody has to print them, the issuers of the money have to face the same challenges of monetary policy as all the central banks. Too much money in circulation will lead to inflation, too little to deflation. On the other hand, things are simplified by the fact that Ithaca Hours circulate only in a small area and new money is usually inserted into the system by interest-free loans to locals or grants to local non-profits.<br />
<br />
An entirely different approach is 'mutual credit'. Most of these systems are called Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). They don't need to worry about monetary policy because money is only created in the instance of the transaction – the system is thus self-regulating. There is no physical money, instead the system is based on central bookkeeping, usually electronically and accessible through a normal web browser. Each participant has an account and when he pays another participant, the amount is simply subtracted from his account and added to the other's. This concept can also be thought of interest-free loans and there is no problem with having a little minus in your account. But if you only buy products and services through the system without giving anything back, your account will go deep into minus at the expense of the other participants. This is usually dealt with caps on negative balance or the participants might be able to look at the account balance of anybody before doing business with him. Also LETS are often local or limited to only a few hundred participants and a network of trust in a community holds people accountable.<br />
<br />
A interesting project which is still in its infancy is [http://ripple.sourceforge.net/ Ripple], an effort to develop an open source peer-to-peer protocol to exchange money all over the world. At the core of Ripple lies the idea that within a network of trust between peers, transactions can be made without the need for a third party like a bank that charges for them. <br />
Another proposal is to use units of energy as currency. Coupled with 'smart grids', radically distributed energy production might become a reality: people would sell energy, for example produced by solar panels on their rooftops. Maybe half of the price of products to purchase would have to be paid in energy units, the other half in a normal currency. The energy part of the price would be exactly the energy that is required to produce and distribute the product.<br />
<br />
There is a huge number of different community currencies. Many new networks choose to experiment with the system's mechanics or adapt it to local circumstances. Although many projects emphasize on local communities, there are also lots of networks that can make transfers all around the world and currencies that have either floating or fixed exchange rates to other community or national currencies. Community currencies need not be centered around geographic communities, there are also communities on the internet. For example virtual worlds like Second Life or World of Warcraft feature their own in-world currencies. They might be a suitable place to experiment with new exotic currencies on a large enough scale as there are often thousands of players in these worlds.<br />
<br />
===Conclusion===<br />
Obviously, no complementary currency has made the breakthrough into mainstream yet. But the ongoing financial crisis will undoubtedly make them more attractive. I sincerely hope that sooner rather than later someone comes up with a system that scales well and that favours long-term investments and the spirit of sharing and community. Complementary currencies will probably continue to exist alongside our current currencies for a long time. If they become mainstream, they will enable more people to make a living from free culture. And our children will be thankful to us if they still have a planet left to live on when they are our age.<br />
<br />
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&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[3.1 The State of It All]]<br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=2.5_Individual_and_Public&diff=281752.5 Individual and Public2009-02-03T21:12:10Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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<div>{{Template:Navigate-Overview|2.4 Property and Commons|3.1 The State of It All}}<br />
<br />
[[Image:People.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Technological changes influence societies in distinctive ways.]]<br />
The changes brought about by the networked information economy have great implications not only on the economy but also on the individual and society as a whole. Here is why they are to be welcomed.<br />
<br />
===Individual===<br />
In the industrial information economy work was organized hierarchically: workers had to do what their boss told them to, whereas in the networked information economy they can work more autonomously and often choose what task to address themselves. If they feel the need for something, they may well be able to do it themselves. (Raymond coined the phrase: "Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch."<ref>Raymond, Eric S.; [http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s02.html The Mail Must Get Through], ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar'', 1997</ref>) With lots of information and tools to produce information right at their hands, it has become much more feasible for the individual to get a task done at his own account. On the other hand, as there are millions of people connected to the internet, the chance of finding someone trying to solve the same problem is also much higher. So it is also much easier to find likeminded people and start a collaborative effort to get the task done. The passive consumers of the industrial information economy are changing to active participants and producers of the networked information economy. Individuals can do more for and by themselves, alone, or in loose collaboration with others.<ref>Benkler, Yochai; [http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom], 2006, p. 9</ref> <br />
They become more critical consumers as they understand the process of information production better and doing things themselves come to understand the workings of media better. The transparency of internet culture leads to a more self-conscious and critical discourse about the culture we inhabit.<br />
<br />
With much unfiltered information easily accessible on the internet, individuals have a greater foundation of knowledge from various sources available to base their decisions on. <br />
If for example uncertain what product to buy, it is easy to compare various competing products by prices and quality. A wide range of critical opinions may lead an individual to consider possibilities to shape their lives never thought of before. This increases individual autonomy and individual freedom.<br />
<br />
===Public Sphere===<br />
Media play a big role in how liberal democratic societies reach their decisions and how public opinion is formed. The economics of the industrial information economy led to the concentration of the mass media and control over public opinion. ([[2.1 Copyright and Mass Media#Mass Media|Chapter 2.1]]) Even mass media like the BBC that are state-financed and don't depend on advertising revenue still tend to have a rather limited intake compared to the 'new media' emerging on the internet. Whereas the old media enabled only one-to-many broadcasts, on the internet everybody gets to talk to everybody else. Today, everyone who wants to voice something can do so. <br />
<br />
[[Image:CameraPhone.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Technology like mobile phones with built-in cameras enables ordinary citizens to become journalists.]]<br />
On millions of blogs (web-logs or journals) people write regularly about specific topics of their interest like food, politics, or music, or just use the platform as an online diary. An important part of most blogs are comments that usually follow the original post and can be written by everyone visiting the page, leading often to discussions. Many blogs interlink heavily with blogs covering the same or similar topics. Links are more often found to blogs with similar opinions, but also opposing opinions are often cited. The community of all blogs is called blogosphere. There are not only text blogs but also photoblogs, videoblogs (vlog) and podcasts (iPod+broadcast) that are audible episodes that can be listened on a computer or transfered to a portable music player. However, blogs are not the only means ordinary people are using to take over the function of the mass media. E-mails, mailing lists, web pages or collaborative content production systems like wikis (as Wikipedia is one) provide for new ways of news and information to flow. The same goes for mobile phones with their text messaging capabilities and integrated cameras. Protest and boycott actions can be easier organized and people are able to check out original sources of information that are spread or linked to, rather than having to trust established news media like the New York Times for facts.<br />
<br />
People are thus empowered through technology. However, there have also been critiques to the claim that the internet has democratizing effects. It was said that in this flood of information only a few top-sites with high advertising revenues would stick out, because nobody would find or bother to check out the many small specialised sites theoretically available, and thus the internet would reproduce the topology of the mass media. The other critique, aiming in the opposite direction, was that the many small sites would lead to a fragmentation of discourse and public opinion where people hyped each other up in small groups which would lead to polarization in the end. As it turns out, both critiques were wrong. The internet is neither too concentrated nor too chaotic and fragmented.<ref>Benkler, p. 239</ref> While it's true that overall only very few sites on the world wide web have huge amounts of incoming links and most sites are not heavily linked to, sites form hundreds of small clusters that are each strongly interconnected. New information is often brought to light by small websites and then, if found noteworthy, adopted by bigger sites in the same cluster. These bigger sites in turn are being looked at by more people and if the story is good enough it is adopted again by a site even bigger. Following these routes of clusters, important information flows up its way to the top-sites. The web has thus developed an intrinsic filtering mechanism that is a peer production in itself.<br />
<br />
While professional journalists might still have a resource advantage in deeply investigative journalism, the internet provides for a much more participatory public sphere where everyone has the chance to be heard and the networked information economy is able to peer produce the watchdog function more effectively than old mainstream media could.<ref>Have a look at the [http://participatoryculture.org/ Participatory Culture Foundation's] free (as in freedom) [http://www.getmiro.com/ Miro Media Player]</ref> The internet is also far more difficult to control, for example by authoritarian regimes. And if something has once been posted on the internet the genie is out of the bottle and can't be put back again.<br />
<br />
===Justice and Development===<br />
[[Image:OLPC.jpg|thumb|400px|right|A prototype of the One Laptop per Child program which aims to develop an inexpensive GNU/Linux-powered laptop for children.]]<br />
Obviously, to benefit from the workings described above, people need to have access to information and communication technology. In the economically more advanced countries this concerns mostly the poorer part of the population. But there is also a global digital divide between the economically more and less developed countries of the world. In large parts of Africa there is neither internet access nor do the people have computers. However, mobile phones are more broadly used there. Specific initiatives, like MIT's One Laptop per Child program which aims to manufacture a small and inexpensive laptop with ad-hoc networking capabilities for children around the world, as well as generally declining hardware costs and satellite instead of landline connectivity help bridging the digital divide. It is hoped that the global penetration of information and communication technology will soon be much higher.<br />
<br />
When the material foundations are broadly established, free content and free and open source software come to play an even bigger role in enabling development - globally, and even for the poorer people in industrialized nations.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Information and Communication Technologies for Development]]</ref><br />
The system of property is based on an asymmetrical distribution of goods, resulting in trade and a market. It is one system to organize and distribute scarce resources. Information on the other hand isn't scarce by nature as it is nonrival, but only rendered scarce by exclusive rights. The more information is freely available, the more justly human knowledge is distributed. Individuals are empowered instead of being restrained by the imposed scarcity of informational resources which they need to realize their plans.<br />
<br />
Access to existing information is crucial for marginalized countries to catch up. With free content, developing nations can make existing knowledge their own and bring up an industry around it themselves, as already seen with free software, rather than being dependent on foreign companies once more. Unfortunately, the USA and the EU are pushing for ever stronger 'intellectual property' laws internally as well as in the World Trade Organization (WTO), and developing nations don't have much power to oppose this trend.<br />
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<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[2.4 Property and Commons]] | [[3.1 The State of It All]] &rarr;<br />
<br />
<br />
==References==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=2.2_Information_Technology_and_%27Piracy%27&diff=281742.2 Information Technology and 'Piracy'2009-02-03T19:40:55Z<p>MauroB: /* DRM */</p>
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<div>{{Template:Navigate-Overview|2.1 Copyright and Mass Media|2.3 Economics of Information Production}}<br />
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[[Image:Being_mobile.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Computers continue to get smaller, cheaper and more powerful, and wireless Internet is already available at many places.]]<br />
===Information Technology===<br />
As shortly described in the introductory chapter [[A Revolution in the Making]], computers have since the 1970s become ever faster, smaller and cheaper. This led to the availability of personal computers in most homes in the more economically developed countries. By 1995, the public started to realize the potential of the Internet. Through the more recent introduction of broadband Internet, most home computers are constantly connected to the Internet at several times greater speeds than only a few years ago. Individuals have received the power to not only manipulate huge amounts of data ever faster, but also to share the data they produce with others over the Internet. Now it is possible for everyone to manipulate, for example, hours of homemade video and enhance it with some special effects. On the other hand, it has also become easy to mix and manipulate the works of others and share them with all the world, as demonstrated on sites like [http://www.thetrailermash.com/ The Trailer Mash]: Here lots of people present new creative works they created - remixes of official movie trailers, rearranged to tell other stories. Use past culture to create something new. What only some lucky entrepreneurs like Walt Disney could do in the beginning of the 20th century, everybody can do today. Unfortunately, at the moment this is mostly illegal because of lengthy and restrictive copyright law. You can neither copy nor modify any work without the originator's explicit permission. It isn't like those derivative works were hurting sales of official movies or that nobody would listen to classical Mozart anymore (himself long dead) because his music was used and newly interpreted by a DJ. Nonetheless, copyright law has not been altered to let everyone make use of the new technologies, but rather tightened to prevent people from doing so. Under the pretext of protecting established artists' revenues, new artists are prevented from rising. But the truth behind all this is that the record industry fears for it's existence - rightly so. <br />
<br />
[[Image:Server-based-network.png|thumb|200px|Computer network with a central, expensive to operate server from which the clients are downloading.]]<br />
[[Image:P2P-network.png|thumb|200px|Peer-to-peer network - every node is a client and a server, both downloading and uploading.]]<br />
===File Sharing===<br />
Today, some inexpensive home computers and the Internet are superior to the distribution channels of the record industry with its CD manufacturing plants and many shops. Digital technology enables infinite copying of music and movies without any loss of quality.<br />
Shawn Fanning, a then 17 years old student, released Napster in 1999. It was the first peer-to-peer file-sharing system to gain widespread popularity for sharing music. In peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, the data isn't stored on a central server and accessed by clients (which is the case with web pages), but many peers, usually ordinary home computers, share their data with one another. Soon this technology was adopted and improved; after Napster was sued by the record industry and ultimately shut down, new networks emerged which were even more decentralized. Every user downloading is at the same time making available that very same information he/she just downloaded to other participants. The most popular networks as of today are ''eDonkey2000'' (with client-programs as eMule or MLDonkey), ''FastTrack'' (with clients as Kazaa or Grokster) and ''Gnutella'' (with clients as LimeWire or Gnucleus). While these networks are searchable through a client program, in the BitTorrent P2P network, data is found through websites like The Pirate Bay, where a small ''.torrent-file'' is downloaded and then opened in a BitTorrent client such as Azureus or BitTornado, where the actual download takes place. Most of this software is free and open source software ([[1.1 The GNU Project and Free Software]]), but some is also proprietary.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Tape.gif|thumb|200px|left|The record industry has always been cautious about new technology. Here a 1980s campaign logo against home taping cassettes featuring a death's-head.]]<br />
These services are heavily used. Millions of users all over the world share thousands of titles and even rare songs they wouldn't find in stores. The major music labels don't like that and have come up with the term of 'Piracy', equating people that share music with one another with bandits that attack other people's ships. The record industry argues that every downloaded song accounts for a loss in CD sales which ultimately hurts artists. However, it should be kept clearly in mind that not every song downloaded would have been bought. Also through sharing samples, people are exposed to new music and might come to buy CDs they otherwise would never have known of. And downloading old material that isn't available in stores anymore sure doesn't hurt artists. It is also a fact that under the current model of music distribution, the average artists gets something between 5 and 14 percent of the CD sales revenue. The rest trickles away in the business that is the record industry.<br />
<br />
[[Image:ThePirateBay.jpg|thumb|200px|right|The logo of the BitTorrent site ''The Pirate Bay'', mocking the term 'Piracy' when meant to describe copyright infringement.]]<br />
But now a new distribution model becomes feasible. Lots of ordinary people, connected through the Internet, outperform the record industry and make it essentially obsolete in a time where high quality recording equipment to supplement home computers becomes ever cheaper. It simply isn't necessary to buy physical records anymore. Especially for unknown artists, the Internet represents a very attractive marketing ground; with services like [http://www.last.fm/ last.fm] or [http://www.pandora.com Pandora], it has become very easy to discover new music. Artists who release their music earn money by performing and going on tour (like artists did before recording technology existed). Also alternative payments systems have been proposed: mechanisms like an easy way to donate small amounts of money to musicians over the Internet, or to let every person downloading pay a small monthly fee which is distributed to the artists based on their popularity. This could for example be done by bundling a voluntary fee with the broadband bill (Broadband, unlimited legal downloading included!).<ref>[http://www.eff.org/share/collective_lic_wp.php A Better Way Forward: Voluntary Collective Licensing of Music File Sharing], Electronic Frontier Foundation</ref> With these distribution and compensation methods, artists would most certainly be far better off than now, but the major labels aren't willing to adopt yet. Instead they are fighting windmills, with all means available to them.<br />
<br />
===Lawsuits===<br />
As there is no single instance responsible for the operation of peer-to-peer file sharing networks, there is nobody in particular the music industry can sue. That's why the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) turned to randomly suing people for copyright infringement that have allegedly participated in file sharing, in hope of deterrence. To find people in file sharing networks, they rely on tracing computer's IP addresses. But it is often very difficult to find out who a specific IP belongs to and impossible to tell with certainty. That's why the RIAA has already sued a 66-year-old grandmother for downloading gangster rap<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3140160.stm Grandmother piracy lawsuit dropped], BBC News</ref>, but also families without a computer<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060424-6662.html RIAA sues computer-less family], Ars Technica</ref> and even dead people<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050204-4587.html "I sue dead people..."], Ars Technica</ref> were addressed. The RIAA's tactics are to intimidate defendants and force them into settlements outside court under the threat that they are facing high legal fees. But recently, victims of such random lawsuits have begun fighting back and countersued the RIAA for malicious prosecution.<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070625-exonerated-defendant-sues-riaa-for-malicious-prosecution.html Exonerated defendant sues RIAA for malicious prosecution], Ars Technica</ref>. But it continues to be an uphill-battle and non-profit organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which fight for ''digital rights'' and provide individuals with legal defense, have only limited resources compared to the large legal departments of the major record labels. To preserve its last-century business model, the record industry has actually turned to sue its own customers, something that's only possible because they hold a monopoly on about 90% of the music produced.<br />
<br />
===Copyright in a Digital World===<br />
As video files are larger, downloading movies or TV series isn't as common as sharing music yet, but it is only a matter of time until Hollywood will find itself in the same situation as the record industry is now. Social practices like going to the movies will remain popular in addition to watching films at home. Movies will eventually be produced at lower budgets than what is common in Hollywood today, but there will probably be more ''smaller'' films, oriented towards more specific audiences, than the homogenous monster productions we are seeing today. ([[2.1_Copyright_and_Mass_Media#Mass_Media|2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]])<br />
<br />
Copyright law was always meant to regulate copying. However, in the past this was something only competing businesses like publishers could do. But today, everyone can copy a file by a simple mouse-click. Thus the scope of this law has changed dramatically over time: from regulating anticompetitive business practices to restricting consumers. Keeping up these same rules in a digital world does nothing but render a large portion of citizens criminals - for no obvious reason. Additionally, lots of creative works, which wouldn't have been possible without inexpensive computers and the Internet, are prevented from being published legally.<br />
<br />
Today's copyright law just doesn't make sense when applied to digital technology. For example, it could even be argued that looking at a website is copyright infringement, as in order to display a webpage on the screen, the computer has to download it and make a local copy from the data stored on the server. As this is an unauthorized copy, this is actually illegal.<br />
<br />
===DRM===<br />
But while technology can enable people, it can also be used against them. Under the pretext of fighting 'piracy', the major entertainment companies have come up with ever stronger copy protections, all of them having something in common - they have been cracked very quickly.<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/drmhacks.ars Hacking Digital Rights Management], Ars Technica</ref><br />
<br />
[[Image:DRM_Is_Killing_Music.png|thumb|200px|left|A parody of the image above. This one campaigning against DRM.]]<br />
In the 80s, Hollywood was crying that home video recording would kill the film production. It didn't, although you usually could easily copy VHS video tapes. On DVDs, copy prevention was already present from day 1. Now the industry is pushing a new format to hold HD video (high definition, resulting in a sharper picture) that is meant to replace DVDs: BluRay Discs. It implements new and stronger copy preventions which force the consumer to buy not only new players, but also new displays (so that Hollywood can even control the signal between the player and the display).<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070121-8665.html HDCP: beta testing DRM on the public?], Ars Technica; [http://bluraysucks.com/ Why you should boycott Blu-ray and HD-DVD], Blu-Ray Sucks</ref> Equipment has to be certified to be able to playback BluRay discs (as already the case with DVDs). Free software and open source solutions are thus excluded from the system right from the start - in order to play DVDs on a GNU/Linux computer the copy prevention has to be cracked, which is done very quickly nowadays. However, also the new technologies, implemented in BluRay discs have already been cracked by numerous methods, even before the discs get to consumers homes.<br />
<br />
In the music market, the standard audio CD provides digital music of satisfactory quality to most listeners. CDs have been around for a long time, and stem from a time where copy prevention wasn't common yet. There have been several attempts to implement copy preventions later-on, resulting in audio CDs that some players couldn't play, which led to consumer frustration. With the rise of Apple's iTunes Store, the music industry has slowly started to realize the possibilities of distributing music through the Internet. Now people can buy songs and download them right away. The prices are comparable to CDs. Although virtually all distribution costs go away for the labels, artists don't receive higher payments for the songs sold on the iTunes Store.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Ipod.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The iPod made carrying your whole music collection in your pocket mainstream. Although its monopoly on playing DRM-crippled media from Apple's own iTunes Store on the Internet is criticized, the iPod is no doubt one of the devices spurring the digital revolution.]]<br />
Music doesn’t just reside on a CD anymore: it is sold through the internet and transferred to portable music players like the iPod; the music industry cannot prevent their customers from copying it; as a result, they developed technologies to limit access to music. For these new technologies, the umbrella term '''DRM''' is used. Originally standing for ''Digital Rights Management'', opponents such as the Free Software Foundation named it ''Digital Restrictions Management''. With DRM, the data, for example music or video, is digitally encrypted and can only be played back by specific devices or software. 'Unauthorized copies' can be prevented or content can even be set to expire after a specific time period. Songs purchased on Apple's market leading iTunes Store for example bear the following (compared to others still relatively lax) restrictions: While the track can be copied on up to five different computers, playback is only possible with Apple's iTunes software and on no other portable music player than Apple's iPod. Music isn't bought anymore, it is rather just rented for limited use. <br />
The proof that it is also possible to sell sustainably DRM-free music over the Internet, which can then be played back by any device (including the iPod), was delivered by stores like [http://www.emusic.com emusic] which has currently 250,000 subscribers. However, the major record labels refuse to sell their songs without DRM, leading ''emusic'' and the likes to specialize in independent music.<br />
<br />
As history has shown us, it is impossible to come up with a copy prevention or DRM system that is unbreakable. As long as the music and movie industries try to restrict access to the media they sell, they'll be caught up in a cat-and-mouse game. Whenever a new DRM scheme sees the light of the day, eventually it will be cracked by the many skilled people collaborating over the Internet, and DRM-free copies will be available on the peer-to-peer networks. However, it might one day become ''difficult enough'' for a ''large enough'' part of the population to set the media they paid for free. Consumers might just accept that they have only limited control over their legally bought music collection. And that's the actual goal of the entertainment industry. Not bringing 'piracy' down, because they know that's impossible, but controlling consumers to maximize revenue.<ref>[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070115-8616.html Privately, Hollywood admits DRM isn't about piracy], Ars Technica</ref> Then, because you can't copy it and put it on an other device, the entertainment industry will be able to sell you the same song or video several times: once for your computer, maybe a second time for your portable music or video player, then for playback in your living room, and one more time as a ringtone for your cell phone.<br />
<br />
To ensure that it's ''difficult enough'' for most consumers, and first of all illegal, to crack the DRM on their media, additional laws were written. In the USA, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was enacted in 1998, in the European Union the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD) of 2001, which is similar to the DMCA in many ways. Now it is illegal to circumvent DRM or other access control technologies, even when copying the content was permitted under simple copyright law, for example under fair use (about fair use: [[2.1_Copyright_and_Mass_Media#Realities_of_Copyright|2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]]). Under the DMCA, even the production or spread of circumvention technologies was criminalized. <br />
<br />
[[Image:OneSmallStep.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Still frame of Neil Armstrong, stepping out onto the moon - a historical document. But much of our current cultural production is owned by few, and the public is prevented from accessing it freely.]]<br />
<br />
===Implications===<br />
With DRM and laws to criminalize circumvention of DRM in place, our culture gets locked down even more. It has become technically increasingly difficult (and simply illegal) to use many of our cultural products, like pop music or election campaign footage, to create something new. We live increasingly in a ''permission culture'', where new creators have to ask the powerful or creators from the past for permission, rather than in a ''free culture'' that would uphold the individual freedom to create. At the same time, while digital technology would allow us to build a library accessible to everyone larger than the Library of Alexandria, we run the risk of forgetting history as past culture is locked down by law and DRM. While you theoretically still could sometimes make legal use of such material under the terms of fair use, and fight for your right to do so in court, this is no longer possible if law is interpreted by your computer rather than a judge. If the footage of the landing on the moon had been broadcasted with DRM in place, you couldn't reuse one second of the clip, regardless if legal under fair use or not - because your DRM-crippled computer prevented you from doing so.<br />
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===Concluding...===<br />
Wrapped up, the changes we have seen recently in law, technology and in the concentration of the media market, lead to a devastating conclusion: ''"There has never been a time in history when more of our 'culture' was as 'owned' as it is now. And yet there has never been a time when the concentration of power to control the uses of culture has been as unquestioningly accepted as it is now."'' <ref>Lessig, Lawrence; [http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/ Free Culture], 2004, p. 28</ref><br />
<br />
==References==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
<br />
&uarr; [[Table of Contents (Overview)|Table of Contents]]<br/><br />
&larr; [[2.1 Copyright and Mass Media]] | [[2.3 Economics of Information Production]] &rarr;<br />
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[[Category:Intro]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Greek_language&diff=20929Greek language2008-05-20T18:12:34Z<p>MauroB: </p>
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Η κεντρική wiki σελίδα της P2P foundation στα Ελληνικά</div><br />
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Καλώς ήλθατε στην κεντρική wiki σελίδα. Εδώ μπορείτε να βρείτε συγκεντρωμένα κείμενα σχετικά με τις ομότιμες (P2P) πρακτικές στην Ελληνική γλώσσα. Η σελίδα είναι πάντα υπό εξέλιξη...<br />
Αν θέλετε κάποιο από τα άρθρα σε pdf στείλτε ένα email στο kostakis.b AT gmail.com με τον τίτλο του άρθρου. Επίσης δείτε ''το P2P σ'ένα καρυδότσουφλο'' για μια εξαιρετικά γρήγορη εισαγωγή στην ομότιμη θεωρία. <br />
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|style="padding: 2.5em"|<big>'''[[In a nutshellGR|Tο P2P σ' ένα καρυδότσουφλο]]'''</big><br><br>Ένας πανεύκολος τρόπος για να ανακαλύψετε τις βασικές ιδέες και τα κύρια σημεία πίσω από την ομότιμη θεωρία στο λεπτό, από τον Mauro Bieg (μετάφραση Β. Κωστάκη).<br />
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{|style="margin-right:4em;"<br />
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|style="padding: 2.5em"|<big>'''[http://del.icio.us/greekweb Συλλογή συνδέσμων διαδικτυακού ακτιβισμού στην Ελλάδα]'''</big><br><br> Σύνδεσμοι πρωτοβουλιών σχετικά με την τεχνολογία, την οικολογία, τη ζωή στην πόλη κ.α. Εγχειρήματα που διαμορφώνουν πολιτισμό. Για συμμετοχή στη [http://del.icio.us/greekweb προσπάθεια καταγραφής] στείλτε ένα email στο kostakis.b AT gmail.com.<br />
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=Άρθρα και Δοκίμια για το Ομότιμο Κίνημα=<br />
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*[[Η Πολιτική Οικονομία της Ομότιμης Παραγωγής]]<br />
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*[[Οι Πολιτικές Επιπτώσεις της Ομότιμης Επανάστασης]]<br />
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*[[Το Ομότιμο Κίνημα και η Ελληνική Πραγματικότητα]]<br />
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*[[H Σημασία της P2P Θεωρίας για το Κόσμο του Αύριο]]<br />
<br />
*[[O Μichel Bauwens στο Re-public: Ομότιμη Παραγωγή, Ομότιμη Διακυβέρνηση, Ομότιμη Ιδιοκτησία]]<br />
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*[[O Μichel Bauwens στο Re-public: Η Πολιτική μεταξύ Ομότιμων Δικτύων, το Κράτος και η Ανανέωση της Παράδοσης της Χειραφέτησης]]<br />
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*[[Το P2P είναι δεξιά ή αριστερά;]]<br />
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*[[Προς μία κριτική του Web 2.0: οι Michel Bauwens και Βασίλης Κωστάκης στο Re-public]] <br />
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*[[Οι Δύο Οικονομίες]] <br />
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*[[Η Αναδυόμενη Σφαίρα των Κοινών]] <br />
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*[[Γιατί το Κίνημα του Ελεύθερου Λογισμικού Αποτελεί μια Ιστορική Ευκαιρία;]] <br />
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*[[Μαρξισμός και Ελεύθερο Λογισμικό]] <br />
<br />
=Άλλα Ενδιαφέροντα Άρθρα και Δοκίμια=<br />
<br />
*[[Η Αντίσταση είναι Παράδοση]] <br />
<br />
*[[Κριτική της Eργασίας στην Kοινωνία της Πληροφορίας]]<br />
<br />
*[[Ο Μύθος της Αειφόρου Ανάπτυξης]] <br />
<br />
*[[Το Πρόβλημα με το Οπτικοακουστικό Αρχείο της ΕΡΤ και η Οικονομική Ανάπτυξη στην Ψηφιακή Κοινωνία]] <br />
<br />
=Άλλοι σύνδεσμοι=<br />
<br />
*Ελληνικό P2P blog: http://bloggr.p2pfoundation.net/<br />
*Στα Αγγλικά: [[Greece]] <br />
</div><br />
[[Category:Languages]]<br />
[[Category:Europe]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Category:Design&diff=20897Category:Design2008-05-19T09:03:07Z<p>MauroB: </p>
<hr />
<div><div style="background-color:#EEFFFF;margin:2em;padding:2em;border:1px grey solid; width: 60%"><br />
<br />
Thank you for the great info - it reads like an outline for a fantastic course I should start offering and then push into the engineering curriculum at every university of the world. This is the perfect way to learn - while actually doing some good.<br />
<br />
''Joshua M. Pearce, Ph.D. Coordinator of Nanotechnology and Sustainability: Science and Policy Programs [http://jupiter.clarion.edu/~jpearce/]''<br />
<br />
</div><br />
<br />
<br />
=Introduction=<br />
''This site is dedicated to two pioneers of peer to peer inspired physical production: Franz Nahrada and Marcin Jakubowski. We dedicate these pages to the memory of Lawrence J. Rhoades, pioneer of distributed digital production, who passed away last year''.<br />
<br />
<br />
The category was originally proposed and constructed by Franz Nahrada, and aims to encompass every form of design, including of hardware (i.e. [[Free Hardware Design]]) and physical production, that can benefit from peer production and open design methodologies.<br />
<br />
Goals: the larger context is how to handle a broad shift from centralized, high capital production to decentralized, low capital production, preferably based on [[Open Design]]s in order to generate [http://attainable-utopias.org/ Attainable Utopias].<br />
<br />
Our aims are therefore also congruent with the [[Open Sustainability Network]] movement, as expressed in the [http://standarrd.org/blog/ Standarrd] blog and platform.<br />
<br />
Therefore, this section will be:<br />
<br />
1) ''monitoring the progress towards a world of constant social innovation based on open designs''; <br />
<br />
2) ''monitoring the expansion of open sourcing in the physical world''<br />
<br />
3) ''monitoring the field of emerging solutions in the field of social organization such as [[Global Villages]] and [[Localization]] trends.''<br />
<br />
<br />
=Visualization=<br />
[[Image:Future of Making Map.jpg|700px]]<br />
<br />
A visualization of the Future of Production, by the Institute of the Future. [http://www.iftf.org/system/files/deliverables/SR-1154+TH+2008+Maker+Map.pdf large version]<br />
<br />
<br />
=Introductory Articles=<br />
<br />
#The [http://www.iftf.org/system/files/deliverables/SR-1154+TH+2008+Maker+Map.pdf Future of Making] by the Institute for the Future contains a summary visualization (mini-version [http://iftf.org/node/1766 here] of "making" trends<br />
#[[Can peer production make washing machines?]]. Graham Seaman.<br />
#The [[Importance of distributed digital production]]. By Lawrence J. Rhoades.<br />
#[[In peer production, the interests of capitalists and entrepreneurs are no longer aligned]]<br />
#[[Agroblogger on the state of the Open Source Appropriate Technology movement]]<br />
#Reread the classic essay on The [http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/nextIndusRev.html Next Industrial Revolution] on applying biological zero-waste cycles to industrial production. By William McDonough and Michael Braungart. The Atlantic, October 1998.<br />
#[http://www.guptaoption.com/5.open_source_development.php Facilitating International Development through Free / Open Source]: about changing the direction of international development by giving away free designs for great and useful technologies #[http://files.howtolivewiki.com/A%20Whole%20Systems%20Framework%20for%20Sustainable%20Production%20and%20Consumption.pdf]. Vinay Gupta also offers a list of priority projects.<br />
#[http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/0262562278chapm2.pdf Open Source outside the Domain of Software]. Clay Shirky<br />
#[[Why Open Hardware?]]. Patrick McNamara.<br />
#John Robb calls for the construction of [[Resilient Communities]]<br />
<br />
=Resource pages=<br />
<br />
#'''What do we need to have "economically-significant, replicable, open source physical production efforts'''?", i.e. true [[Distributive Production]]. Marcin Jakubowski proposes a set of [[OSE Specifications]] to judge such efforts.<br />
#Key entries: [[Free Hardware Design]], [[Open Development]], [[Open Customization]] ; [[Open Design]], [[Open Hardware]], [[Open Innovation]], [[Open Source]], [[Open Source Product Design]], [[Open Source Hardware]]<br />
#See also: [[Citizen Product Design]]; [[Co-Creation]]; [[Co-Design]] ; [[Desktop Manufacturing]] ; [[Peer Production Entrepreneurs]] ; [[Self-organized Design Communities]]<br />
#Open Source for Appropriate Technology: [http://www.instructables.com/ Instructables], [http://www.sristi.org/honeybee.html Honeybee Network], [http://www.appropedia.org/ Appropedia], [[Howtopedia]], [http://www.demotech.org/d-design.php Demotech]<br />
#[[Sixteen Key Technologies for an Open Habitat]]. Marcin Jakubowski [http://openfarmtech.org]<br />
#Key organizations: [[Open Design Foundation]] ; [[Open Hardware Foundation]]<br />
#Typology by degree of openness: [[Closed Hardware]]; [[Open Interface]], [[Open Design]], [[Open Implementation]]<br />
#The [[Open Source Product Design]] platform has a list of [[Open Design]] projects<br />
#[http://makezine.com/magazine/ MAKE magazine] "has managed to regenerate a previously static culture of do-it-yourselfers at a feverish pace"<br />
#The [http://www.villageforum.com/ Village Forum] focuses on how we design and build our habitat.<br />
#The [http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/P2P-Design P2P-Design] Delicious tag monitors the topic<br />
#Overview of [[Open Hardware Licenses]]<br />
#[http://vermeulen.ca/product-hacking.html Stephen Vermeulen] has compiled a long list of [[Product Hacking]] initiatives<br />
#It is increasingly easy and popular to share and swap physical goods, i.e. [[Freecycling]], using [[Free Stores]] and [[FreeSharing Network]]s. See also: [[Regifting]] and [[Regiving]]<br />
#Designing physical prototypes through [[Electronic Design Automation Software]] such as [[Fritzing]]<br />
<br />
==Books==<br />
<br />
#Christian Siefkes. [[From Exchange to Contributions]]: Generalizing Peer Production into the Physical World. 2007<br />
#[[Digital Fabrication Primer]]. Smari McCarthy.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Graphics==<br />
<br />
#The [[Future of Making Map]] [http://www.boingboing.net/images/futuremakinggggg.jpg] (commentary [http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/05/future-of-making-map.html])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Podcasts (Audio)==<br />
<br />
Selection from our full [http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Podcasts Podcasts Directory]:<br />
<br />
#[[Alex Lindsay on Digital Craftsmen for Development]]<br />
#[[Alex Steffen on Distributed Disaster Relief and P2P Energy Networks]]<br />
#[[Anil Gupta on Appropriate Technology for Agroinnovations]]<br />
#[[Beth Kolko on the effect of Hackers and ProduSers on Creativity and Consumerism]]<br />
#[[Brenda Dayne on Knitting as an Open Craft]]<br />
#[[Bruce Sterling on the Internet of Things]]<br />
#[[Chris Watkins on Changing the World through Free Content]]<br />
#[[Clay Shirky on the Age of the Amateur]]<br />
#[[Clayton Christensen on Open Source and Innovation in Business]]<br />
#[[Craig Newmark on Customer Co-development at Craigslist]]<br />
#[[David Orban and Roberto Ostinelli on Open Spime]]<br />
<br />
==Conferences==<br />
<br />
Fab Labs [http://cba.mit.edu/events/06.06.ZA/symposium.html Three] and [http://cba.mit.edu/events/07.08.fab/ Four]<br />
<br />
=Short Citations=<br />
<br />
<br />
'''What can be digitized will be shared'''<br />
<br />
- Sheen S. Levine [http://www.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/]<br />
<br />
'''In the 21st century economy, it isn't factories and it isn't people that make things. It's communities.'''<br />
<br />
- Eben Moglen [http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2008/012208-eben-moglen-on-open-sources.html?page=3]<br />
<br />
<br />
'''...it makes less and less sense to be thinking in terms of "end-users" and to be creating knowledge-jukeboxes for them. It makes more and more sense to be designing for "end-makers"''' <br />
<br />
- Willard McCarty [http://staff.cch.kcl.ac.uk/~wmccarty/essays/McCarty,%20What's%20going%20on.pdf]<br />
<br />
<br />
'''An increasing number of physical activities are becoming so data-centric that the physical aspects are simply executional steps at<br />
the end of a chain of digital manipulation.'''<br />
<br />
- Clay Shirky [http://finance.<br />
groups.yahoo.com/group/decentralization/message/6967]<br />
<br />
<br />
'''When people talked about innovation in the '90s, they really meant technology. When people talk about innovation in this decade, they really mean design.'''<br />
<br />
- (http://opensource.org/node/169)<br />
<br />
=Long Citations=<br />
<br />
<br />
'''open access to digital design – perhaps in the form a global repository of shared open source designs - introduces a unique contribution to human prosperity. This contribution is the possibility that data at one location in the world can be translated immediately to a product in any other location. This means anyone equipped with flexible fabrication capacity can be a producer of just about any manufactured object. The ramifications for localization of economies are profound, and leave the access to raw material feedstocks as the only natural constraint to human prosperity.''' <br />
<br />
- Marcin Jakubowski<br />
<br />
<br />
==Linus Torvalds on [[Open Peer to Peer Design]]==<br />
<br />
"“I think the real issue about adoption of open source is that nobody can really ever “design” a complex system. That’s simply not how things work: people aren’t that smart - nobody is. And what open source allows is to not actually “design” things, but let them evolve, through lots of different pressures in the market, and having the end result just continually improve."<br />
(http://www.openp2pdesign.org/blog/archives/43)<br />
<br />
<br />
"don’t EVER make the mistake that you can design something better than what you get from ruthless massively parallel trial-and-error with a feedback cycle. That’s giving your intelligence _much_ too much credit."<br />
(http://kerneltrap.org/node/11)<br />
<br />
<br />
==Agroblogger on a [[Appropriate Technology]] [[General Public License]]==<br />
<br />
"Let us imagine an active online community participating in vibrant discussions and sharing of [[Appropriate Technology]] plans and experiences. '''Let us imagine the AT equivalent of a sourceforge.net, a place where designers and field workers can go to download plans of greenhouses, beehives, water pumps, animal traction implements, and biodiesel equipment. And, within the legal framework of an AT General Public License (GPL), those plans can be used freely, modified, and republished under the same AT GPL.''' IRC channels dedicated to specific programmatic areas could serve as a dynamic forum where "newbies" can gain wisdom and insight from experienced field practitioners."<br />
(Agroblogger [http://www.agroblogger.com/tag/appropriate-technology])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Karim Lakhani on Communities driving Manufacturers out of the design phase==<br />
<br />
"for any given company - there are more people outside the company that have smarts about a particular technology or a particular use situation then all the R&D engineers combined. So a community around a product category may have more smart people working on the product then the firm it self. So in the end manufacturers may end up doing what they are supposed to - manufacture - and the design activity might move to the edge and into the community."<br />
(http://www.futureofcommunities.com/2007/03/25/communities-driving-manufacturers-out-of-the-design-space/)<br />
<br />
<br />
==Kevin Kelly on nearly-free material production==<br />
<br />
"'''Material industries are finding that the costs of duplication near zero, so they too will behave like digital copies'''. Maps just crossed that threshold. Genetics is about to. Gadgets and small appliances (like cell phones) are sliding that way. Pharmaceuticals are already there, but they don't want anyone to know. It costs nothing to make a pill."<br />
(http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php)<br />
<br />
<br />
==Vinay Gupta on Open Source manufacturing for Development==<br />
<br />
"An open library of designs for refrigerators, lighting, heating, cooling, motors, and other systems will encourage manufacturers, particularly in the developing world, to leapfrog directly to the most sustainable technologies, which are much cheaper in the long run. Manufacturers will be encouraged to use the efficient designs because they are free, while inefficient designs still have to be paid for. The library could also include green chemistry and biological solutions to industry challenges, for example enzymatic reactions that could be used in place of energy, and chemical-intensive processes or nontoxic paint pigments for cars and buildings. This library should be free of all intellectual property restrictions and open for use by any manufacturer, in any nation, without charge."<br />
(http://www.guptaoption.com/5.open_source_development.php)<br />
<br />
<br />
==Steve Bosserman outlines what is most appropriate for local distributed manufacturing==<br />
<br />
"strong candidates for a locally distributed manufacturing approach include ANYTHING<br />
that is agriculturally- based like food, feed, fiber, and biofuel production,<br />
much of housing and building construction including the manufacturing of<br />
inputs used in that industry, localized electric power generation using<br />
non-bio sources like wind, solar, and geothermal, and production /<br />
manufacturing of materials, components, and assemblies that use locally<br />
sourced raw materials and draw upon open-source, relatively easy to learn,<br />
appropriate technologies that can be applied in a wide range of<br />
situations-- not just a single product."<br />
<br />
<br />
==Marcin Jakubowski on [[Neosubsistence]]==<br />
<br />
"Neosubsistence is the term we apply to a lifestyle where people produce tangible (physical) wealth, as opposed to dealing with information in the information economy. We are talking about basics: '''even though we live in the information economy, we cannot deny the reality that human prosperity is founded on the provision of physical needs upon which the meeting of all higher needs is predicated'''. ''Neosubsistence is related to the information economy in that the information economy is a foundation for neosubsistence''"<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==John Thackara on the importance of design for sustainability==<br />
<br />
"Eighty per cent of the environmental impact of today's products, services and infrastructures is determined at the design stage. Design decisions shape the processes behind the products we use, the materials and energy required to make them, the ways we operate them and what happens to them when we no longer need them."<br />
(http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007654.html)</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=File:Future_of_Making_Map.jpg&diff=20876File:Future of Making Map.jpg2008-05-17T08:55:07Z<p>MauroB: </p>
<hr />
<div>source: http://iftf.org/node/1766 ([http://www.iftf.org/system/files/deliverables/SR-1154+TH+2008+Maker+Map.pdf])<br />
<br />
permission: Creative Commons by-nc-sa License</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Category:Design&diff=20875Category:Design2008-05-17T08:52:37Z<p>MauroB: /* Introduction */</p>
<hr />
<div><div style="background-color:#EEFFFF;margin:2em;padding:2em;border:1px grey solid; width: 60%"><br />
<br />
Thank you for the great info - it reads like an outline for a fantastic course I should start offering and then push into the engineering curriculum at every university of the world. This is the perfect way to learn - while actually doing some good.<br />
<br />
''Joshua M. Pearce, Ph.D. Coordinator of Nanotechnology and Sustainability: Science and Policy Programs [http://jupiter.clarion.edu/~jpearce/]''<br />
<br />
</div><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Introduction=<br />
[[Image:Future of Making Map.jpg|700px]]<br />
<br />
''This site is dedicated to two pioneers of peer to peer inspired physical production: Franz Nahrada and Marcin Jakubowski. We dedicate these pages to the memory of Lawrence J. Rhoades, pioneer of distributed digital production, who passed away last year''.<br />
<br />
<br />
The category was originally proposed and constructed by Franz Nahrada, and aims to encompass every form of design, including of hardware (i.e. [[Free Hardware Design]]) and physical production, that can benefit from peer production and open design methodologies.<br />
<br />
Goals: the larger context is how to handle a broad shift from centralized, high capital production to decentralized, low capital production, preferably based on [[Open Design]]s in order to generate [http://attainable-utopias.org/ Attainable Utopias].<br />
<br />
Our aims are therefore also congruent with the [[Open Sustainability Network]] movement, as expressed in the [http://standarrd.org/blog/ Standarrd] blog and platform.<br />
<br />
Therefore, this section will be:<br />
<br />
1) ''monitoring the progress towards a world of constant social innovation based on open designs''; <br />
<br />
2) ''monitoring the expansion of open sourcing in the physical world''<br />
<br />
3) ''monitoring the field of emerging solutions in the field of social organization such as [[Global Villages]] and [[Localization]] trends.''<br />
<br />
=Introductory Articles=<br />
<br />
#The [http://www.iftf.org/system/files/deliverables/SR-1154+TH+2008+Maker+Map.pdf Future of Making] by the Institute for the Future contains a summary visualization (mini-version [http://iftf.org/node/1766 here] of "making" trends<br />
#[[Can peer production make washing machines?]]. Graham Seaman.<br />
#The [[Importance of distributed digital production]]. By Lawrence J. Rhoades.<br />
#[[In peer production, the interests of capitalists and entrepreneurs are no longer aligned]]<br />
#[[Agroblogger on the state of the Open Source Appropriate Technology movement]]<br />
#Reread the classic essay on The [http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/nextIndusRev.html Next Industrial Revolution] on applying biological zero-waste cycles to industrial production. By William McDonough and Michael Braungart. The Atlantic, October 1998.<br />
#[http://www.guptaoption.com/5.open_source_development.php Facilitating International Development through Free / Open Source]: about changing the direction of international development by giving away free designs for great and useful technologies #[http://files.howtolivewiki.com/A%20Whole%20Systems%20Framework%20for%20Sustainable%20Production%20and%20Consumption.pdf]. Vinay Gupta also offers a list of priority projects.<br />
#[http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/0262562278chapm2.pdf Open Source outside the Domain of Software]. Clay Shirky<br />
#[[Why Open Hardware?]]. Patrick McNamara.<br />
#John Robb calls for the construction of [[Resilient Communities]]<br />
<br />
=Resource pages=<br />
<br />
#'''What do we need to have "economically-significant, replicable, open source physical production efforts'''?", i.e. true [[Distributive Production]]. Marcin Jakubowski proposes a set of [[OSE Specifications]] to judge such efforts.<br />
#Key entries: [[Free Hardware Design]], [[Open Development]], [[Open Customization]] ; [[Open Design]], [[Open Hardware]], [[Open Innovation]], [[Open Source]], [[Open Source Product Design]], [[Open Source Hardware]]<br />
#See also: [[Citizen Product Design]]; [[Co-Creation]]; [[Co-Design]] ; [[Desktop Manufacturing]] ; [[Peer Production Entrepreneurs]] ; [[Self-organized Design Communities]]<br />
#Open Source for Appropriate Technology: [http://www.instructables.com/ Instructables], [http://www.sristi.org/honeybee.html Honeybee Network], [http://www.appropedia.org/ Appropedia], [[Howtopedia]], [http://www.demotech.org/d-design.php Demotech]<br />
#[[Sixteen Key Technologies for an Open Habitat]]. Marcin Jakubowski [http://openfarmtech.org]<br />
#Key organizations: [[Open Design Foundation]] ; [[Open Hardware Foundation]]<br />
#Typology by degree of openness: [[Closed Hardware]]; [[Open Interface]], [[Open Design]], [[Open Implementation]]<br />
#The [[Open Source Product Design]] platform has a list of [[Open Design]] projects<br />
#[http://makezine.com/magazine/ MAKE magazine] "has managed to regenerate a previously static culture of do-it-yourselfers at a feverish pace"<br />
#The [http://www.villageforum.com/ Village Forum] focuses on how we design and build our habitat.<br />
#The [http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/P2P-Design P2P-Design] Delicious tag monitors the topic<br />
#Overview of [[Open Hardware Licenses]]<br />
#[http://vermeulen.ca/product-hacking.html Stephen Vermeulen] has compiled a long list of [[Product Hacking]] initiatives<br />
#It is increasingly easy and popular to share and swap physical goods, i.e. [[Freecycling]], using [[Free Stores]] and [[FreeSharing Network]]s. See also: [[Regifting]] and [[Regiving]]<br />
#Designing physical prototypes through [[Electronic Design Automation Software]] such as [[Fritzing]]<br />
<br />
==Books==<br />
<br />
#Christian Siefkes. [[From Exchange to Contributions]]: Generalizing Peer Production into the Physical World. 2007<br />
#[[Digital Fabrication Primer]]. Smari McCarthy.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Graphics==<br />
<br />
#The [[Future of Making Map]] [http://www.boingboing.net/images/futuremakinggggg.jpg] (commentary [http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/05/future-of-making-map.html])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Podcasts (Audio)==<br />
<br />
Selection from our full [http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Podcasts Podcasts Directory]:<br />
<br />
#[[Alex Lindsay on Digital Craftsmen for Development]]<br />
#[[Alex Steffen on Distributed Disaster Relief and P2P Energy Networks]]<br />
#[[Anil Gupta on Appropriate Technology for Agroinnovations]]<br />
#[[Beth Kolko on the effect of Hackers and ProduSers on Creativity and Consumerism]]<br />
#[[Brenda Dayne on Knitting as an Open Craft]]<br />
#[[Bruce Sterling on the Internet of Things]]<br />
#[[Chris Watkins on Changing the World through Free Content]]<br />
#[[Clay Shirky on the Age of the Amateur]]<br />
#[[Clayton Christensen on Open Source and Innovation in Business]]<br />
#[[Craig Newmark on Customer Co-development at Craigslist]]<br />
#[[David Orban and Roberto Ostinelli on Open Spime]]<br />
<br />
==Conferences==<br />
<br />
Fab Labs [http://cba.mit.edu/events/06.06.ZA/symposium.html Three] and [http://cba.mit.edu/events/07.08.fab/ Four]<br />
<br />
=Short Citations=<br />
<br />
<br />
'''What can be digitized will be shared'''<br />
<br />
- Sheen S. Levine [http://www.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/]<br />
<br />
'''In the 21st century economy, it isn't factories and it isn't people that make things. It's communities.'''<br />
<br />
- Eben Moglen [http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2008/012208-eben-moglen-on-open-sources.html?page=3]<br />
<br />
<br />
'''...it makes less and less sense to be thinking in terms of "end-users" and to be creating knowledge-jukeboxes for them. It makes more and more sense to be designing for "end-makers"''' <br />
<br />
- Willard McCarty [http://staff.cch.kcl.ac.uk/~wmccarty/essays/McCarty,%20What's%20going%20on.pdf]<br />
<br />
<br />
'''An increasing number of physical activities are becoming so data-centric that the physical aspects are simply executional steps at<br />
the end of a chain of digital manipulation.'''<br />
<br />
- Clay Shirky [http://finance.<br />
groups.yahoo.com/group/decentralization/message/6967]<br />
<br />
<br />
'''When people talked about innovation in the '90s, they really meant technology. When people talk about innovation in this decade, they really mean design.'''<br />
<br />
- (http://opensource.org/node/169)<br />
<br />
=Long Citations=<br />
<br />
<br />
'''open access to digital design – perhaps in the form a global repository of shared open source designs - introduces a unique contribution to human prosperity. This contribution is the possibility that data at one location in the world can be translated immediately to a product in any other location. This means anyone equipped with flexible fabrication capacity can be a producer of just about any manufactured object. The ramifications for localization of economies are profound, and leave the access to raw material feedstocks as the only natural constraint to human prosperity.''' <br />
<br />
- Marcin Jakubowski<br />
<br />
<br />
==Linus Torvalds on [[Open Peer to Peer Design]]==<br />
<br />
"“I think the real issue about adoption of open source is that nobody can really ever “design” a complex system. That’s simply not how things work: people aren’t that smart - nobody is. And what open source allows is to not actually “design” things, but let them evolve, through lots of different pressures in the market, and having the end result just continually improve."<br />
(http://www.openp2pdesign.org/blog/archives/43)<br />
<br />
<br />
"don’t EVER make the mistake that you can design something better than what you get from ruthless massively parallel trial-and-error with a feedback cycle. That’s giving your intelligence _much_ too much credit."<br />
(http://kerneltrap.org/node/11)<br />
<br />
<br />
==Agroblogger on a [[Appropriate Technology]] [[General Public License]]==<br />
<br />
"Let us imagine an active online community participating in vibrant discussions and sharing of [[Appropriate Technology]] plans and experiences. '''Let us imagine the AT equivalent of a sourceforge.net, a place where designers and field workers can go to download plans of greenhouses, beehives, water pumps, animal traction implements, and biodiesel equipment. And, within the legal framework of an AT General Public License (GPL), those plans can be used freely, modified, and republished under the same AT GPL.''' IRC channels dedicated to specific programmatic areas could serve as a dynamic forum where "newbies" can gain wisdom and insight from experienced field practitioners."<br />
(Agroblogger [http://www.agroblogger.com/tag/appropriate-technology])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Karim Lakhani on Communities driving Manufacturers out of the design phase==<br />
<br />
"for any given company - there are more people outside the company that have smarts about a particular technology or a particular use situation then all the R&D engineers combined. So a community around a product category may have more smart people working on the product then the firm it self. So in the end manufacturers may end up doing what they are supposed to - manufacture - and the design activity might move to the edge and into the community."<br />
(http://www.futureofcommunities.com/2007/03/25/communities-driving-manufacturers-out-of-the-design-space/)<br />
<br />
<br />
==Kevin Kelly on nearly-free material production==<br />
<br />
"'''Material industries are finding that the costs of duplication near zero, so they too will behave like digital copies'''. Maps just crossed that threshold. Genetics is about to. Gadgets and small appliances (like cell phones) are sliding that way. Pharmaceuticals are already there, but they don't want anyone to know. It costs nothing to make a pill."<br />
(http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php)<br />
<br />
<br />
==Vinay Gupta on Open Source manufacturing for Development==<br />
<br />
"An open library of designs for refrigerators, lighting, heating, cooling, motors, and other systems will encourage manufacturers, particularly in the developing world, to leapfrog directly to the most sustainable technologies, which are much cheaper in the long run. Manufacturers will be encouraged to use the efficient designs because they are free, while inefficient designs still have to be paid for. The library could also include green chemistry and biological solutions to industry challenges, for example enzymatic reactions that could be used in place of energy, and chemical-intensive processes or nontoxic paint pigments for cars and buildings. This library should be free of all intellectual property restrictions and open for use by any manufacturer, in any nation, without charge."<br />
(http://www.guptaoption.com/5.open_source_development.php)<br />
<br />
<br />
==Steve Bosserman outlines what is most appropriate for local distributed manufacturing==<br />
<br />
"strong candidates for a locally distributed manufacturing approach include ANYTHING<br />
that is agriculturally- based like food, feed, fiber, and biofuel production,<br />
much of housing and building construction including the manufacturing of<br />
inputs used in that industry, localized electric power generation using<br />
non-bio sources like wind, solar, and geothermal, and production /<br />
manufacturing of materials, components, and assemblies that use locally<br />
sourced raw materials and draw upon open-source, relatively easy to learn,<br />
appropriate technologies that can be applied in a wide range of<br />
situations-- not just a single product."<br />
<br />
<br />
==Marcin Jakubowski on [[Neosubsistence]]==<br />
<br />
"Neosubsistence is the term we apply to a lifestyle where people produce tangible (physical) wealth, as opposed to dealing with information in the information economy. We are talking about basics: '''even though we live in the information economy, we cannot deny the reality that human prosperity is founded on the provision of physical needs upon which the meeting of all higher needs is predicated'''. ''Neosubsistence is related to the information economy in that the information economy is a foundation for neosubsistence''"<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==John Thackara on the importance of design for sustainability==<br />
<br />
"Eighty per cent of the environmental impact of today's products, services and infrastructures is determined at the design stage. Design decisions shape the processes behind the products we use, the materials and energy required to make them, the ways we operate them and what happens to them when we no longer need them."<br />
(http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007654.html)</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=File:Future_of_Making_Map.jpg&diff=20874File:Future of Making Map.jpg2008-05-17T08:50:28Z<p>MauroB: source: http://iftf.org/node/1766 ([http://www.iftf.org/system/files/deliverables/SR-1154+TH+2008+Maker+Map.pdf])</p>
<hr />
<div>source: http://iftf.org/node/1766 ([http://www.iftf.org/system/files/deliverables/SR-1154+TH+2008+Maker+Map.pdf])</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=In_a_nutshellGR&diff=20801In a nutshellGR2008-05-11T10:01:49Z<p>MauroB: </p>
<hr />
<div>='''Tο P2P σ' ένα καρυδότσουφλο'''=<br />
<br />
{| class="toccolours" border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin:2em 3em 0; width:90%;text-align: center;font-size:medium"<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| style="font-size: x-small; padding: 0pt; background-color: #33CC66;"|[[Table of Contents (Nutshell)|<span style="color:#ddf;display: block; width:100%"></span>]]<br />
|-<br />
|style="font-size:1.5em; height:2em"|'''[[A revolution in the makingGR|Αρχίστε εδώ!]]''' &rarr;<br />
<br />
|}<br />
<br />
{{Body-Left-Nutshell|[[Image:SphereOfNetworks.png|293px]]|<br />
<br />
Καλώς ήλθατε στο ''P2P σ' ένα καρυδότσουφλο''. Περιηγηθείτε στα περιεχόμενα αυτού του εισαγωγικού κειμένου και ανακαλύψτε σε ελάχιστο χρόνο τι στο καλό είναι αυτό το P2P!<br />
<br />
}}<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
==Περιεχόμενα==<br />
<br />
# [[A_revolution_in_the_makingGR|Η επανάσταση σε εξέλιξη]] <br />
# [[The_gnu_project_and_free_softwareGR|Το GNU project και το ελεύθερο λογισμικό]] <br />
# [[Gnu/linux_and_open_sourceGR|Το GNU/Linux και ο ανοικτός κώδικας]] <br />
# [[Copyright_and_mass_mediaGR|Η πνευματική ιδιοκτησία και τα μίντια]] <br />
# [[Information_technology_and_%27piracy%27GR|Η πληροφορική τεχνολογία και η "πειρατεία"]] <br />
# [[Economics_of_information_productionGR|Τα οικονομικά της παραγωγής πληροφορίας]]<br />
# [[Property_and_CommonsGR|Ιδιοκτησία και Κοινά]] <br />
# [[Individual_and_publicGR|Ο πολίτης και ο δημόσιος τομέας]] <br />
# [[The_state_of_it_allGR|Ο νέος κόσμος]]<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[Greek_language|Πίσω στην κεντρική wiki σελίδα]] <br />
<br />
<br />
[[Category:Intro]]<br />
[[Category:In a Nutshell]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Gnu/linux_and_open_sourceGR&diff=20778Gnu/linux and open sourceGR2008-05-10T21:29:15Z<p>MauroB: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Navigate-NutshellGR|The gnu project and free softwareGR|Copyright and mass mediaGR|Το GNU/Linux και ο ανοικτός κώδικας}}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{Body-Left-Nutshell|[[Image:Tux.png|150px]]|Η κοινότητα του ελεύθερου και ανοικτού λογισμικού αναπτύσσεται παγκοσμίως, συνεργαζόμενη μέσω του διαδικτύου. Το πιο αξιοσημείωτο παράδειγμα του κινήματος του ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ (ελεύθερο λογισμικό, λογισμικό ανοικτού κώδικα) είναι το GNU/Linux, ένα πλήρες λειτουργικό σύστημα που αντικαθιστά το αποκλειστικού χαρακτήρα Microsoft Windows.}}<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
*[[Table_of_Contents_%28Nutshell%29GR|Περιεχόμενα]]<br />
*[[Greek_language|Πίσω στην κεντρική wiki σελίδα]] <br />
<br />
<br />
[[Category:Intro]]<br />
[[Category:In a Nutshell]]</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Table_of_Contents_(Nutshell)GR&diff=20777Table of Contents (Nutshell)GR2008-05-10T21:19:48Z<p>MauroB: </p>
<hr />
<div>=Περιεχόμενα=<br />
<br />
<br />
{{Box-Nutshell|Περιεχόμενα|<br />
# [[A_revolution_in_the_makingGR|Η επανάσταση σε εξέλιξη]] <br />
# [[The_gnu_project_and_free_softwareGR|Το GNU project και το ελεύθερο λογισμικό]] <br />
# [[Gnu/linux_and_open_sourceGR|Το GNU/Linux και ο ανοικτός κώδικας]] <br />
# [[Copyright_and_mass_mediaGR|Η πνευματική ιδιοκτησία και τα μίντια]] <br />
# [[Information_technology_and_%27piracy%27GR|Η πληροφορική τεχνολογία και η "πειρατεία"]] <br />
# [[Economics_of_information_productionGR|Τα οικονομικά της παραγωγής πληροφορίας]]<br />
# [[Property_and_CommonsGR|Ιδιοκτησία και Κοινά]] <br />
# [[Individual_and_publicGR|Ο πολίτης και ο δημόσιος τομέας]] <br />
# [[The_state_of_it_allGR|Ο νέος κόσμος]]<br />
}}</div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Template:Navigate-NutshellGR&diff=20774Template:Navigate-NutshellGR2008-05-10T21:14:11Z<p>MauroB: </p>
<hr />
<div>{| class="toccolours" border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin:2em 3em 0;text-align:center;font-size:medium;width:90%"<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| style="font-size: x-small; padding: 0pt; background-color: #33CC66;" colspan="3" |[[Table of Contents (Nutshell)GR|<span style="color:#ddf;display: block; width:100%">'''Περιεχόμενα'''</span>]]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| style="width: 10%"| &larr;&nbsp;[[{{{1}}}|Προηγούμενο]]<br />
| style="width: 80%"| '''{{{3}}}'''<br />
| style="width: 10%"| [[{{{2}}}|Επόμενο]]&nbsp;&rarr;<br />
<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|}<br />
<br />
[[Category:In a Nutshell]]<br />
<noinclude>[[Category:Intro Templates]]</noinclude></div>MauroBhttps://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Gnu/linux_and_open_sourceGR&diff=20770Gnu/linux and open sourceGR2008-05-10T21:10:49Z<p>MauroB: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Navigate-NutshellGR|In a Nutshell|1.1 The GNU Project and Free Software (Nutshell)|Το GNU/Linux και ο ανοικτός κώδικας}}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{Body-Left-Nutshell|[[Image:Tux.png|150px]]|Η κοινότητα του ελεύθερου και ανοικτού λογισμικού αναπτύσσεται παγκοσμίως, συνεργαζόμενη μέσω του διαδικτύου. Το πιο αξιοσημείωτο παράδειγμα του κινήματος του ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ (ελεύθερο λογισμικό, λογισμικό ανοικτού κώδικα) είναι το GNU/Linux, ένα πλήρες λειτουργικό σύστημα που αντικαθιστά το αποκλειστικού χαρακτήρα Microsoft Windows.}}<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
==Περιεχόμενα==<br />
<br />
*1) [http://p2pfoundation.net/A_revolution_in_the_makingGR Η επανάσταση σε εξέλιξη] <br />
*2) [http://p2pfoundation.net/The_gnu_project_and_free_softwareGR Το GNU project και το ελεύθερο λογισμικό] <br />
*3) [http://p2pfoundation.net/Gnu/linux_and_open_sourceGR Το GNU/Linux και ο ανοικτός κώδικας] <br />
*4) [http://p2pfoundation.net/Copyright_and_mass_mediaGR Η πνευματική ιδιοκτησία και τα μίντια] <br />
*5) [http://p2pfoundation.net/Information_technology_and_%27piracy%27GR Η πληροφορική τεχνολογία και η "πειρατεία"] <br />
*6) [http://p2pfoundation.net/Economics_of_information_productionGR Τα οικονομικά της παραγωγής πληροφορίας] <br />
*7) [http://p2pfoundation.net/Property_and_CommonsGR Ιδιοκτησία και Κοινά] <br />
*8) [http://p2pfoundation.net/Individual_and_publicGR Ο πολίτης και ο δημόσιος τομέας] <br />
*9) [http://p2pfoundation.net/The_state_of_it_allGR Ο νέος κόσμος] <br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[http://p2pfoundation.net/Greek_language Πίσω στην κεντρική wiki σελίδα] <br />
<br />
<br />
[[Category:Intro]]<br />
[[Category:In a Nutshell]]</div>MauroB