[cc-community] NC, anticapitalism and clashing visions of freedom - was: More discussion on NC

j.martin.pedersen m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk
Fri Oct 15 13:00:38 EDT 2010



On 15/10/10 15:11, Paul Houle wrote:
>  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.

I pretty much agree with all of this. However, it seems to me to be a
rather different tangent of the NC discussion than I was engaging in,
but you are certainly right about universities being commercial
enterprises. For sure.

-martin



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