|
|
| Line 1: |
Line 1: |
|
| |
|
| =Discussion=
| |
|
| |
| ==Towards an Autonomous Commons==
| |
|
| |
| From: Matteo Pasquinelli: [http://www.rekombinant.org/docs/Ideology-of-Free-Culture.pdf The Ideology of Free Culture and the Grammar of Sabotage]:
| |
|
| |
| "Among all the appeals for "real" commons only Dmytri Kleiner's idea
| |
| of '[[Copyfarleft]]' condenses the nodal point of the conflict in a
| |
| pragmatic proposal that breaks the flat paradigm of Free Culture. In
| |
| his article "Copyfarleft and Copyjustright" Kleiner notices a
| |
| property divide that is more crucial than any digital divide: the 10%
| |
| of the world population owns the 85% of the global assets against a
| |
| multitude of people owning barely nothing. This material dominion of
| |
| the owning class is consequently extended thanks to the copyright
| |
| over immaterial assets, so that they can be owned, controlled and
| |
| traded. In the case of music for example the intellectual property is
| |
| more crucial for the owning class than for musicians, as they are
| |
| forced to resign their author rights over their own works. On the
| |
| other side the digital commons do not provide a better habitat:
| |
| authors are sceptical that copyleft can earn them a living. In the
| |
| end wage conditions of the authors within cognitive capitalism seem
| |
| to follow the same old laws of Fordism. Moving from Ricardo's
| |
| definition of rent and the so-called "Iron Law of Wages"25 Kleiner
| |
| develops the "iron law of copyright earnings."
| |
|
| |
| The system of private control of the means of publication,
| |
| distribution, promotion and media production ensures that artists and
| |
| all other creative workers can earn no more than their subsistence.
| |
| Whether you are biochemist, a musician, a software engineer or a film-
| |
| maker, you have signed over all your copyrights to property owners
| |
| before these rights have any real financial value for no more than
| |
| the reproduction costs of your work. This is what I call the Iron Law
| |
| of Copyright Earnings.
| |
|
| |
| Kleiner recognizes that both copyright and copyleft regimes keep
| |
| workers earnings constantly below average needs. In particular
| |
| copyleft does not help neither software developers nor artists as it
| |
| reallocates profit only in favour of the owners of material assets.
| |
| The solution advanced by Kleiner is copyfarleft, a license with a
| |
| hybrid status that recognises class divide and allow workers to claim
| |
| back the "means of production." Copyfarleft products are free and can
| |
| be used to make money only by those who do not exploit wage labour
| |
| (like other workers or co-ops).
| |
|
| |
| For copyleft to have any revolutionary potential it must be
| |
| Copyfarleft. It must insist upon workers ownership of the means of
| |
| production. In order to do this a license cannot have a single set of
| |
| terms for all users, but rather must have different rules for
| |
| different classes. Specifically one set of rules for those who are
| |
| working within the context of workers ownership and commons based
| |
| production, and another for those who employ private property and
| |
| wage labour in production.
| |
|
| |
| For example "under a copyfarleft license a worker-owned printing
| |
| cooperative could be free to reproduce, distribute, and modify the
| |
| common stock as they like, but a privately owned publishing company
| |
| would be prevented from having free access". Copyfarleft is quite
| |
| different from the 'non-commercial' use supported by some CC licences
| |
| because they do not distinguish between endogenic (within the
| |
| commons) commercial use and exogenic (outside the commons) commercial
| |
| use. Kleiner suggests to introduce an asymmetry: endogenic commercial
| |
| use should be allowed while keeping exogenic commercial use
| |
| forbidden. Interestingly this is the correct application of the
| |
| original institution of the commons, that were strictly related to
| |
| material production: commons were land used by a specific community
| |
| to harvest or breed their animals. If someone can not pasture cows
| |
| and produce milk, that will not be considered a real common. Kleiner
| |
| says that if money can not be made out of it, a work does not belong
| |
| to the commons: it is merely private property."
| |
| (http://www.rekombinant.org/docs/Ideology-of-Free-Culture.pdf)
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| [[Category:Encyclopedia]]
| |
|
| |
| [[Category:Governance]]
| |
|
| |
| [[Category:Politics]]
| |
|
| |
| [[Category:IP]]
| |