permaculture

[<fdnokes@hotmail.com>]

VERY meaty post!
And thanks for the theme of live together or die alone.
I was reflecting on the value of anything while out walking today, and 
though, surely, if there was a value to permaculture as a reified concept, 
then it was the way in which can pull people together.
The power is in the earth, the plants, the people.
As long as we are sleeping, we are as slaves.

I reflected that while we dance on the head of this pin called is 'copyright 
right or is it right to copy', Monsanto is changing all of our plants 
genetic information, and rather than facing lawsuits for this action, they 
are suing others for possessing the seeds that they have patented.

f

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Permaculture Cooperative" <permaculturecoop@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 5:37 PM
To: "COMFOOD Listerv" <comfood@elist.tufts.edu>; "permaculture" 
<permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [permaculture] Live Together or Die Alone - Copyright vs 
Cooperation

> Live Together or Die Alone - Copyright vs
> Cooperation<http://gaiapermaculture.com/projects/permaculturecooperative/blog/2009/11/17/live-together-or-die-alone-on-copyright-cooperation/>
> by Nicholas Roberts <http://gaiapermaculture.com/people/niccolo/profile>
>
> [image: Old and new Mondragon / Arrasate]
>
> 1. *Group Effort*:
>
> The Permaculture Designers Manual was a group effort: the manuscript was
> written and edited by Bill’s x-wife: Reny Mia Slay. It was illustrated by
> Andrew Jeeves. Do they get any money, royalties or credit ? where are they
> now ? I heard Reny went broke and now drives a taxi.
>
> 2. *Sourcing*:
>
> There are precious few sources, or references for such a big, dense book ?
> so, the filter of Bill’s mind, then his dictation/colloboration to Reny 
> and
> to Andrew make this legal, but maybe not the most ethical way to write 
> such
> a encyclopedic designers manual. The contents of the manual are drawn from
> all over the world, and re-branded “permaculture”. For instance, do a 
> search
> for permaculture in relation to the ecoburb Village Homes in Davis
> California.
>
> 3. *Inspirational not very educational*:
>
> As an inspirational guidebook, a pointer to future research directions, 
> the
> Tagari Permaculture Designers Manual is the Old Testament. its stands 
> apart,
> a kind of keystone to the Permaculture guild of books. However, as an 
> actual
> Designers Manual, its not that good. I realise for many permies this is
> heresy, but I know quite a few people in Australia, that went through a 
> long
> phase where they treated the PDM as a manual and actually lived by it, and
> quite frankly they are p%^ed off. Its full of factual inaccuracy, half 
> baked
> theories, poor references, and is indiosyncratic in the extreme. They 
> still
> believe in many of the ideas, but the content of the designers manual is 
> not
> that great.
>
> 4. *Tagari Farm the Reality*:
>
> I went to Tagari Farm in Tyalgum in the mid 90s, during the peak of that
> wave of Permaculture popularity, the Global Gardener had followed-up In
> Grave Danger of Falling Foods on national TV in Australia and the 
> Designers
> Manual had just been carried by the ABC book shops. The story I was told 
> was
> that something like 3000 species has been planted in something like 20
> acres. Already the ecosystems had signs of unbalance, bamboo running, 
> sweat
> potato spreading. Worse the damns - 30% was to be aquaculture - eventually
> sprung leaks. The property Tagari in Tyalgum was eventually abadonded and 
> is
> kind of the skeleton in the closet, the crazy aunt in the attic of
> permaculture. The Tyalgum farm was meant to embody, manifest the glories 
> of
> the Permaculture Bible (Designers manual) from the Prophet Bill. No doubt 
> if
> someone was crazy enough to buy the Tyalgum property for 2 million
> Australian dollars, Tagari in Tasmania would be in a much better financial
> situation. 
> http://www.tagari.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/web_version.pdf
>
> 4. *Spanish and other language editions*:
>
> Why isnt there a Spanish translation ? let alone other languages. Again, a
> story; I was told that someone made a verbal arrangement with Bill, did 
> the
> translation and had copies printed all at their own expense. Then there 
> was
> some kind of dispute with the Prophet and it came screeching to a halt, 
> and
> the Spanish translator went broke. These kinds of stories around copyright
> with Bill/Tagari are legion.
>
> 5. *Permaculture Word Copyrighted*
>
> Tagari tried to Copyright and license the actual usage of the WORD
> Permaculture. That would mean all of us, using or planning on using
> Permaculture in marketing material would need to obtain (and presumably) 
> pay
> for a license. How many of the “Copyright is good crowd” have a paid-up
> license for using the Permaculture Word ?
>
> 6. *International Copyright*
>
> Most developing nations, including and especially the United States of
> America IGNORED intellectual property regimes during their own 
> development.
> It was the only way that they could break free of the imperialism of 
> Europe
> and establish their own economic rights. The founders of the US where 
> deeply
> sceptical of Copyright.. From the authors of the original Copyright 
> Clause,
> Jefferson and Maddison
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property#History<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property#History%20>
>
> *Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the
> progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive
> fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed 
> in
> exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less
> susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the
> thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess
> as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it 
> forces
> itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot 
> dispossess
> himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the
> less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an 
> idea
> from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who
> lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas
> should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and
> mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have
> been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them,
> like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in 
> any
> point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical
> being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions 
> then
> cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. —Thomas Jefferson, to Isaac
> McPherson 13 Aug. 1813 Writings 13:333–35[14]*
>
> 7. *International Development*:
>
> If someone is starving to death, say in East Timor, your are not going to
> send them a book of high-level concepts and a myriad of interesting and
> inspiring stories. You need to help them with practical information now. 
> The
> idea of sending the Permaculture Designers Manual to the Global South is
> basically like sending Bibles to the natives. Its much better to support 
> the
> writing of a local edition of a Designers manual, drawn from global best
> practice (there are dozens of good permaculture and related specialty 
> books
> now) and local knowledge. An excellent example is the East Timorese
> Permaculture Designers Manual, written like a cartoon, containing local
> species and traditional practice, in the local dialects. This book was
> funded and written in East Timor, “authored” by Ego Lemosand many others..
>
> http://www.idepfoundation.org/ptl.html
>
> http://www.petrabali.com/petra-s-publications/permaculture
>
> http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/the-face-ego-lemos/story-e6frg8n6-1111119019080
>
>
> 8. *Online Market for the Designers Manual*:
>
> There isn’t an online market for the Permaculture Designers Manual, there
> never has been, and chances are there never will be. If there is any money
> to be extracted from the Mollison PDM it will be captured by Google and 
> your
> ISP. Not the online publisher. There has been a huge ongoing debate about
> opensource, opencontent etc.. and many, many commercial operations -
> software especially - release software code AND documentation FREE.. .they