[cc-community] commons (was Re: NC/ND)
Mike Linksvayer
ml at creativecommons.org
Tue Dec 20 16:50:15 EST 2011
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 3:45 PM, drew Roberts <zotz at 100jamz.com> wrote:
> On Monday 19 December 2011 18:08:28 Mike Linksvayer wrote:
>> CC's role is
>> to provide some tools, and effectively set standards, which facilitate
>> creation and cultivation of commons, so as to maximize global social
>> welfare. I think there's pretty universal agreement that offering
>> standard tools to share on a very limited basis, say "only if you're
>> an ethical hacker, artist, or other craftsperson working in Inverness,
>> Scotland" are really suboptimal from a global welfare perspective, but
>> that doesn't mean sharing only among ethical craftspeople in Inverness
>> can't be some sort of commons.
>>
>> Given that information is a global thing now, I'd prefer people think
>> of commons sort of things that don't offer global permissions such
>> than anyone can participate as equals with respect to the permissions
>> available, as semicommons, but I'm personally more attracted to
>> "optimize for maximum global welfare" than "only support unambiguous
>> global commons", even though I'd bet they obtain approximately the
>> answers with respect to CC's offerings.
>
> I think that if we are not aiming for that one global commons, available to
> all and able to be used for commercial and non-commercial purposes then we
> are missing a great opportunity and possibly missing the boat.
We're probably in violent agreement.
> One of the beauties I have seen on the GPL world is that I have seen that many
> people who on the surface might not be seen by many as "my people" are indeed
> my people in that we are working at making code for one another.
>
> The same could happen with respect to making art for one another.
Well put.
...
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 9:33 PM, Anthony <osm at inbox.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 6:08 PM, Mike Linksvayer <ml at creativecommons.org> wrote:
>> A commons can be a fairly limited affair. One could (and presumably
>> there are many; certainly there are many de facto) "creative" commons'
>> with sharing among only some specific community or field.
>
> I guess that explains what you see the term as meaning. Collective
> ownership, with "collective" including very limited groups.
"Ownership" also broadly construed.
> And I guess that also explains how something like NC can fit in.
> Thanks. That's pretty enlightening.
You're welcome, I think. :)
There's also room for NC to not fit in...
Commons is a really old term applying to various forms of community
management of tangible resources, and there is a vibrant contemporary
movement and multidisciplinary academic field around the same, plus
interest in info commons. http://www.thecommonsjournal.org is CC BY,
but I haven't made time to read many articles. I really should.
Although rather motivated to do so, I'm reticent to push too strongly
the idea that free-as-in-freedom works constitute the one true info
commons, for the following reasons:
* (my) ignorance of the broader commons, and lessons from what I
gather has been a pluralistic affair
* places too much emphasis on the info commons constructed through
public copyright licensing and particularly focused on scenarios
involving derivative works; there are many other regulatory and
regulatory-negating mechanisms (I mean "regulatory" in the broadest
sense, including legislative, market, community practice and norms) to
cultivate info commons, some of which have nothing to do with
copyright; even those that do such as copyright exceptions and
limitations don't always cleanly map to free-as-in-freedom but hugely
benefit society
* Along the lines of pluralism and NC (even NC-ND - sharing files and
format shifting) permitting what really ought be universal exceptions
& limitations, I find it hard to argue they don't contribute to a
commons at all
But I feel there's a very strong argument that to the extent info
commons is constructed through public copyright licensing that by far
the best (for all of humanity, as characterized by welfare economics
or other discipline) strategy is construction of a global,
non-discriminatory info commons, ie with free-as-in-freedom licenses.
It may be legitimate (I occasionally do so anyway) to characterize
NC/ND and other not fully open licenses as semicommons mechanims,
facilitating a mix of private property and commons. (Sure there's a
lot to quibble with, including that copyleft as currently practiced
relies on private rights on one hand, and the other, that this
semicommons is a #fail, as has been said many times by many people,
though I specifically recall Rob Myers' multiple use of that hashtag
around NC/ND ;-).) I'm about as fond in characterizing NC/ND as not
doing enough to appreciably unlock the anticommons formed by current
copyright and related policy AKA society's malgovernance of the info
commons.
I think putting as much distance between the free and non-free
licenses in the CC suite as possible falls out from the above, but I
may well be wrong, and there may be better solutions.
> On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 6:08 PM, Mike Linksvayer <ml at creativecommons.org> wrote:
>> CC's role is
>> to provide some tools, and effectively set standards, which facilitate
>> creation and cultivation of commons, so as to maximize global social
>> welfare. I think there's pretty universal agreement that offering
>> standard tools to share on a very limited basis, say "only if you're
>> an ethical hacker, artist, or other craftsperson working in Inverness,
>> Scotland" are really suboptimal from a global welfare perspective
>
> There is not "pretty universal agreement" that "optimality from a
> global welfare perspective" is even something that is definable.
> Among other problems, it rests on the assumption that welfare is
> cardinal, and not merely ordinal (nor unmeasurable altogether).
>
> There are *lots* of critics of welfare economics.
>
> Maybe you mean pretty universal agreement among CC supporters?
I do mean among something close to CC supporters -- people with some
knowledge of public licenses. Proliferation=bad, niche nonfree
licenses=superbad is conventional wisdom. And I mean something *way*
more gut level than global welfare maximization as a calculable
cardinal number. I take it when people discuss something approaching
public policy, they're doing so from a gut level "I really believe my
position is best for society" that amounts to folk global welfare
maximization, or from (often even more gut level) chauvinist group
welfare maximization, or from a position of rent seeking. I dislike
the latter two.
I presume when people like drew write above "great opportunity and
possibly missing the boat" they roughly mean there's a great
opportunity to make the world a better place, and missing the boat
means the world will be in a worse state, ie there's an ordinal
ranking of something like social welfare outcomes going on at least
implicitly.
My gut feeling is that just a lil' more focus on making explicit how
one's positions are supposed to lead to better outcomes than
alternatives can make discussions just a lil' bit more civil and
decisions just a lil' better. Maybe I'm deluded.
Although I think looking at CC and commons governance from a welfare
economics perspective is very interesting, I'll try to restrain myself
from using such language so much, as I mostly mean something much
fuzzier. I also have a gut feeling that all "social sciences" are in
part about describing the world, but also in part about figuring out
how to make the world a better place (and all of large nonsense
components of course), and I love/would love to see characterizations,
critiques, and as explicit as possible rankings of various CC and
broader commons governance options from more disciplines, in their own
languages.
Mike
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