[cc-community] NC, anticapitalism and clashing visions of freedom - was: More discussion on NC
Paul Houle
paul at ontology2.com
Fri Oct 15 10:11:10 EDT 2010
On 10/15/2010 8:29 AM, j.martin.pedersen wrote:
> This turned into quite a long mail. I had the feeling that the
> conversation was too much at cross-purposes and that one of the
> sentiments behind desiring NC - namely the anti-corporate,
> anti-capitalist - with respect to ideas of freeedom and in that
> particular context in relation to Free Software and Free Culture
> conceptions of freedom, was rather unclear.
>
I dunno, one reason for "NC" licensing is that some people want to
reserve the right to make money for themselves; copyright protection,
patents, trademarks and similar devices are there, primarily, so
people who produce something can have a (regulated) monopoly so they can
profit from it. Making content "NC" can be a very capitalistic thing to do.
If I'm going to get hot and bothered, it's over the connection
between "NC" and academia. Now, maybe things are different in other
countries, but here in the U.S. it's becoming recognized that the
university system is a major driver of social inequality. Colleges
often destroy young people's careers before they start by saddling them
with tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in
debt. Colleges also have a (nearly) exclusive license to suck from the
public tit to do research. I feel insulted when academics release
materials under an NC license, because (i) I've already paid for it
with my taxes, and (ii) I don't see that academic and non-profit
organizations are any more virtuous than commercial organizations.
To take an example, at some point I'm going to have to make a set
of boundary polygons for 2nd level administrative divisions for all the
countries on Earth. This already exists, in a product called "GADM",
but GADM is "NC". I'm going to have to merge data from data sources
that are (more or less) CC0, CC-BY and CC-BY-SA and spend probably a
man*week or so get something that won't be quite as good. After putting
me through that work, I'm tempted to slap a "non-academic" clause on
the license.
I make educational resources available free on the web; free to
students, teachers, and other interested people of all levels. It
costs money and time to do this, so I feel it's perfectly fair to make
a little cash with advertising. Contrast that to private unis that
charge $40k a year and admit kids that are barely housebroken if their
parents are rich.
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