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cc-nz - Re: [Cc-nz] The Creative Anti-Commons

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Subject: Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand discussion

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  • From: Damian Stewart <damian AT frey.co.nz>
  • To: "Creative Commons Aotearoa (NZ)" <cc-nz AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Cc-nz] The Creative Anti-Commons
  • Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 10:36:10 +1300

strypey AT riseup.net wrote:

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.

This view is overly simplistic, misses the point, and ignores the fact that Creative Commons as a system implicitly includes the rights of consumers. The ultimate right to decide whether or not consumers have the right to do particular things rests with the artist/producer, yes, but this is true with the GPL as well. As the author of a piece of code I can choose whether to release it under the GPL (derivates must also be GPL'd) or the LGPL (derivates need not be GPL'd), and this reflects the producer/consumer dichotomy also: the producer of code is the one who decides whether it will be GPL'd or LGPL'd (or full-blown copyrighted, or released to the public domain, or whatever).

It's all very well to do away with the distinction between producer and consumer in theory, but in the real world there is actually someone who makes something, which they then release to other people. Other words like Artist or Musician and Audience could do the place of Producer and Consumer here but the division is still there.

The biggest advantage of Creative Commons in my mind is that it adds another choice to the artists. If an artist truly doesn't believe in the producer/consumer split they can release their works to the public domain. Creative Commons is there for artists who believe that, because they have made something themselves, they ought to hold some special kind of privileges of 'ownership' (there's /that/ word) over it.

--
Damian Stewart
+64 27 305 4107

f r e y
live music with machines
http://www.frey.co.nz
http://www.myspace.com/freyed




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