Own Nothing, Have Everything

- original Napster slogan

"Peer production, peer governance, peer property",

Excerpt of Article by Michel Bauwens - link : http://www.re-public.gr/en/?p=87

Introduction

"Peer to peer social processes are bottom-up processes whereby agents in a distributed network can freely engage in common pursuits, without external coercion. It is important to realize that distributed systems differ from decentralized systems, essentially because in the latter, the hubs are obligatory, while in the former, they are the result of voluntary choices. Distributed networks do have constraints, internal coercion, that are the conditions for the group to operate, and they may be embedded in the technical infrastructure, the social norms, or legal rules.

P2P social processes more precisely engender:

1) peer production: wherever a group of peers decided to engage in the production of a common resource

2) peer governance: the means they choose to govern themselves while they engage in such pursuit

3) peer property: the institutional and legal framework they choose to guard against the private appropriation of this common work; this usually takes the form of non-exclusionary forms of universal common property"

Typology

= a clear distinction is to be made between resources owned in common (common property) and resources for which no property rights have been defined (open access).

G.G. Stevenson compares these three forms in terms of group limitation and extraction limitation. [1]

3 Property Institutions:

Open Access Property:

- Limited: members only, unlimited extraction - Unlimited: open to anyone, unlimited extraction

Common Property: members only, extraction limited by rules

Private Property: one, extraction limited by individual decision

Introductory Articles

• Introduction to Private and Common Property: Achim Lerch, The Tragedy of the Tragedy of the Commons. [2]

See also:

1. Kevin Kelly: In a dematerialized economy, sharing is better than owning
2. Dmytri Kleiner: The Modular Company, Open Capital, Venture Communism: How are they related
3. Marjorie Kelly: Not Just For Profit: Emerging alternatives to the shareholder-centric model could help companies avoid ethical mishaps and contribute more to the world at large. Explores three new-style corporate designs: 1. stakeholder-owned companies; 2. mission-controlled companies; and 3. public-private hybrids.
4. Copyleft and the Theory of Property. Mikhaïl Xifaras (French)

Special topic: property and conflict in free culture communities:

1. Play Struggle, excerpts of the book Hacking Capitalism by Johan Soderbergh.
2. Klang, Mathias, "Avatar: From Deity to Corporate Property - A Philosophical Inquiry into Digital Property in Online Games
3. Contrasting Proprietary and Free/Open Source Game Development, Alessandro Rossi & Marco Zamarian
4. Moore, Christopher. 2005. "Commonising The Enclosure: Online Games And Reforming Intellectual Property Regimes." Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society 3(2): examine the potential for computer game studies to contribute to an understanding of an alternative intellectual property regime known as the commons
5. Who Owns the Mods? by Yong Ming Kow and Bonnie Nardi. First Monday, Volume 15, Number 5 - 3 May 2010 [3]

Citations

1.

The difference between open access and defined property rights (private or common property), by contrast, is the difference between an unregulated and a regulated condition. The difference is fundamental.

- Achim Lerch [4]

2.

"For Stevenson, a “private property, common property, open access trichotomy” ultimately exists. He compares these three forms in terms of group limitation and extraction limitation. Characteristic of the common property form is that both the group and the extent of resource use are limited by the individual members."

- [5]

Source: STEVENSON, G.G: Common Property Economics. A General Theory and Land Use Applications. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.1991, p.58