Development of Creative Commons licenses

[nina <nina AT aktivix.org>]

> Which means that while electronic works are naturally
> democratic (software/text/music for the people),
> physical works are naturally commercial
> (designs to be mass produced by companies).

*naturally* commercial!?!

This completely distorts the very violent and artificial nature of 
capitalist (mass) production!

The fact that mass production is possible at all is based on an 
incredible amount of brutality and threat of more, it is based on the 
expropriation of very many people and (artificial) perpetuation of 
poverty. It is dependent on an unbelievable amount of resource 
extraction and creates a heartbreaking amount of waste.

The fact that many of us (on this mailing list) enjoy the fruits of this 
struggle rather than bear its wounds does not make these kinds of 
products, and this form of production any more *natural*.

Sorry I'm barging in like this, but I really believe this is such an 
important discussion to be had!! To my mind, the most important 
questions FLOSS raises are questions that address the potential for new 
forms of production and distribution not only in cyberspace, but in hard 
space - what can we learn from the FLOSS/GPL/CC experience in terms of 
the other, the *physical* property relations we are entangled in, we are 
legislating, we are maybe struggling against?

How can we engage in collective production of *hard* stuff BEYOND the 
commodity paradigm? How can we produce in a way that uncovers the fact 
that our current practices of mass production are exactly NOT natural at 
all, that they are institutions embodying a lot of suffering, and that 
they can be and have to be changed?

Of course there are significant differences between soft and hardware 
that make these questions difficult, and by no means straightforward, 
but it is in their midst that the truly revolutionary potential of 
CC/etc lies.

cheers
nina
PS. I am a research student, based in North West England, and have been 
hanging out on this list silently for a little while. I am working on 
how intellectual property law affects and is used by indigenous peoples, 
and was hoping to start a discussion on some of these issues on this 
list at some point. Just so much real life stuff on at the moment.