Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand discussion

["strypey AT riseup.net" <strypey AT riseup.net>]

Kia ora koutou

I aim to avoid being an uncritical advocate, even of things I think have
enormous potential benefit. So in that spirit here's a critical analysis
of CreativeCommons taken from a UK Indymedia site.

RnB
Strypey

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/09/350884.html

"The dominant themes of this year's conference are centred around the
work of Lawrence Lessig and his many collaborators in the Creative
Commons family of resources and projects, and Yochai Benkler's ideas
relating to "commons-based peer-production" or "Social Production" as
expressed in his book "The Wealth of Networks."

In his key-note address Lessig presented a history of culture framed in
the idea of a "Read-Write" culture, a culture of free sharing and
collaborative authorship, having been the norm for the majority of
history and having been, over the course of the last century, thwarted
and exterminated by Intellectual Property legislation and converted to
"Read-Only" culture dominated by a regime of Producer-Control .

In his presentation Lessig bemoans a number of recent travesties where
the work of artists was censored by copyright law, mentioning DJ
Dangermouse and his "Grey Album" and "Jesus Christ: The Musical" by
Javier Prato, both projects torpedoed by the legal owners of the music
used in the production of the works, similar to the experiences of
Negativland and John Oswald before them.

It is important to note here that in all of these cases the wishes of
the artists, consumers in the eyes of the law of the music in question,
was subordinated to the control of the legal representatives of the
producers, The Beatles and Gloria Gaynor respectively.

The specific problem expressed, then, is that Producer-control of
culture, by creating a Read-Only culture is a hindrance to culture;
destroying the vibrancy and diversity of popular cultural on behalf of
the narrow interest of a few privileged "producers" at the expense of
everybody else.

The idea of producer-control is presented in contrast to the idea of a
cultural "commons" a common stock of value that all can draw from and
contribute to. The "commons," then, denies the right of producer-control
and instead insists on the freedom of consumers. Thus, the "free" in
"free culture" specifically refers to naturally unhindered freedom of
"consumers" to make use of the cultural common stock and not the
state-enforced "freedom" of "producers" to control the use of "their"
work. Or more to the point, the idea of a cultural commons does away
with the distinction of producers and consumers of culture-- seeing them
as being in fact the same actors in an ongoing iterative cultural
discourse.

Lessig argues that now, as a result of the Creative Commons and
commons-based peer-production, Read-Write culture is reborn anew; the
beneficiary of a rich-commons and a wealthy network.

The questions must be asked: Is the "Creative Commons" really a commons?
And in what way is the network really wealthy? Or more specifically, who
is a position to convert the use-value available in the "commons" into
the exchange-value needed to acquire essential subsistence or accumulate
wealth? Who are the real material beneficiaries of the wealth of the
network?

The website of the creative commons makes the following statement about
it's purpose: "Creative Commons defines the spectrum of possibilities
between full copyright -- all rights reserved -- and the public domain
-- no rights reserved. Our licenses help you keep your copyright while
inviting certain uses of your work -- a 'some rights reserved' copyright."

( [Image] http://creativecommons.org/learnmore)

The point of the above is clear, the Creative Commons, is to help "you"
(the "Producer") to keep control of "your" work. The right of the
"consumer" is not mentioned, neither is the division of "producer" and
"consumer" disputed. The Creative "Commons" is thus really an
Anti-Commons, serving to legitimise, rather than deny, Producer-control
and serving to enforce, rather than do away with, the distinction
between producer and consumer.

The producer is invited by the Creative "Commons" to chose the level of
control they wish to apply to "their" work, including such choices as
forbidding duplication, derivate works and "commercial" use of the work,
specifically providing a framework then, for "producers" to deny
"consumers" the right to either create use-value or material
exchange-value of the "common" stock of value in the Creative "Commons"
in their own cultural production.

This is more than evident by the fact that, even had the Beatles and
Gloria Gaynor published their work within the framework of the creative
commons, it would still be their choice and not the choice of DJ
Dangermouse or Javier Patro, whether "The Grey Album" or "Jesus Christ:
The Musical" should be allowed to exist.

The legal representatives of the Beatles and Gloria Gaynor could just as
easily have used Creative Commons licences to enforce their control over
the use of their work.

Thus, the very problem presented by Lawrence Lessig, the problem of
Producer-control, is not in anyway solved by the presented solution, the
Creative Commons, so long as the producer has the exclusive right to
chose the level of freedom to grant the consumer, a right which Lessig
has always maintained support for.

The Creative Commons mission of presenting for the producer the
"freedom" to chose the level of restrictions their work is published
under stands in distinct and essential contrast to the mission of
advocates of commons-based production: The denial of the distinction of
producers and consumers, and the denial of the right of Producer-control
of the common stock.

The Free Software foundation, publishers of the GPL, take a very
different approach in their definition of "free," insisting on the "four
freedoms:" The Freedom to use, the freedom to study, the freedom to
share, and the freedom to modify. This is consistent with the idea of
"free" in the history of free culture, for instance, the journal "The
Situationist International" was published with the following copyright
statement:

"All texts published in Situationist International may be freely
reproduced, translated and edited, even without crediting the original
source."

Even earlier, Woody Guthrie including the following note in a 1930s
songbook distributed to listeners who wanted the words to his recordings
had the following message:

"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for
a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin' it without our
permission, will be mighty good friends of ours, cause we don't give a
dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it,
that's all we wanted to do."

In all these cases what is evident is that the freedom being insisted
upon is the freedom of the consumer to use and produce, not the
"freedom" of the producer to control.

If free culture is really intended to create a common stock for cultural
peer-production, then the framework provided must specifically be
designed in such a way that can not be used to attack free culture, the
GPL and the terms presented by Woody Guthrie and the Situationist
International pass this test, the Creative Commons does not. Moreover,
proponents of free cultural must be firm in denying the right of
Producer-control and denying the enforcement of distinction between
producer and consumer, Lawrence Lessig and the Creative Commons, affirm
both the right and distinction of the Producer and therefore are the
sworn enemies of free culture, and thus their usage of the cases of DJ
Dangermouse and Javier Patro to promote their cause is nothing other
than an extravagant dishonesty."