[cc-community] NC, anticapitalism and clashing visions of freedom - was: More discussion on NC
j.martin.pedersen
m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk
Mon Oct 25 11:30:57 EDT 2010
On 25/10/10 13:47, drew Roberts wrote:
> On Monday 25 October 2010 08:29:07 j.martin.pedersen wrote:
>> ....try to see it the other way:
>
> Sorry, No can do as long as you are using the generic CC NC or ND parts. I
> don't know you and thus have no reason to trust you. Write a better license
> that gives me as a person Freedom while restricting corporations if that is
> your intention. But don't take away my Freedom and tell me it is to enhance
> my Freedom.
So you are just refusing to see things from a different perspective.
That's OK by me, but sort of a discussion stopper. Noone is taking
anything away from you, fear not, they are just refusing to share with
what they consider the primary enemies of freedom.
>> If you are fighting for 5-800 years in the name of freedom and some
>> group in virtual space emerges and says that - "Oh, No! that is wrong,
>> it is a limitation of freedom you are struggling for, true freedom is to
>> just give everything away to everyone, no matter what their intentions
>> are..", then there is a clear division between those groups. And
>> crucially the former group has through their struggle established all of
>> the freedoms upon which the struggle of the latter depends, yet now the
>> latter group wants to teach the former about how to attain freedom.
>
> Please. Do these groups have membership registries and no overlap? Do you
> think that no one who cares about Software Freedom cares about Freedom in
> general?
No, of course not, many care about both, but the leading advocates, as
already documented in this thread, happily embrace private ownership of
land, its resources and the means of production and their arguments
follow this line of thinking, hence constituting a philosophy with no
defence against capital interests in the material realm, whence all
threats of enclosure arise. And to where a lot of renewed and
desparately needed power and capital flows through the GPL and CC.
>> In any case, the virtual freedom fighters will eventually come to
>> realise that their digital freedoms are entirely materially dependent -
>> as is reluctantly recognised in the network neutrality debate, but where
>> they come running to central government begging for specific limitations
>> on some particular private property rights (all others are fine), hence
>> strengthening central government (and that is really freedom, isn't it?)
>
> And by using NC, are you not stating your intention of going to that same
> central government to keep those greedy pigs away from your work?
Yes, but in a very, very different way. Qualitativaly different. Not a
matter of degree, but in precisxely the same way as the GPL and
compatible licenses do: appealing to the established concept of
exclusive, private property (which is fine for personal possessions, not
for land, its resources and the means of production). The appeal in the
network neutrality debate is for literally building new laws and
institutions that enhance state power over private property.
>> - and as we can see, if you cannot enclose source code (due to the GPL),
>> then you can enclose the networks, the frameworks, the cloud, and the
>> hardware and the development of the code through command over labour,
>> and hence achieve a great deal of control over that code. Those
>> foundations of cyberspace
>
> Yes. We agree here. every time we achieve some freedom, someone is going to
> try and subvert it. And the fight will continue. Don't give up pushing for
> freedom.
No, don't give up, but it is the leading free culture and free software
advocates who refuse to push for freedom outside of the virtual,
informational cyberspace. That is half-arsed and does not nothing to
confront the power structures from where the threats actually arise.
They do not arise from patent portfolios, on the contrary, patent
portfolios arise from the will and interest of capital in the
tangible/material realm.
>> are what needs liberation if you want a truly
>> free cyberspace and not just some little capitalist commoning playground.
>>
>> The underlying philosophy of free software and culture is incoherent on
>> that level and hence needs exceptions (network neutrality) when material
>> reality comes knocking.
>
> In general, I don't like monopoly plays.
Except when it comes to conceptualising (virtual) freedom?
m
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