permaculture

[Dick Pierce <dickpiercedesigns@gmail.com>]

Thanks, what a great email - good thoughts - esp. the E. Timor Link - what a
great example of what can be done from a modest start, for the good of the
local/regional people, with the cooperation of professionals, grass roots
folks, NGO's, local/national governments, employees/volunteers - if and when
they have a uniting influence/cause/organization. Very, very impressive and
useful media program and products. Thanks to you and thanks to them for the
fine example that we could follow. Please take a look at
http://www.idepfoundation.org/ptl.html and be warmed and amazed. Makes the
current listserve dialog look small, petty, and non-productive. There is so
much work to do together - bless those that get out there and do it. Viva la
IDEP. YeeeHawww!

Dick Pierce

On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 7:37 PM, Permaculture Cooperative <
permaculturecoop@gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> do this as a kind of loss leader, a marketing exercise.They use the
> educational and marketing materials and experiences as an elaborate sales
> process. Then they make money from consultation and maintenance.
>
> 9. *Squabbling while the planet burns*
>
> The Copenhagen Climate talks are offically going to fail, no agreement for
> reductions. However,
> thehttp://www.Klimaforum09.org <http://www.klimaforum09.org/><
> http://www.klimaforum09.org/> is
> organised by a permaculturalist Tony Andersen, and they are working on a
> plan called 10 000 Trees per lifetime and less than 1 tonne GHG per persons
> year. To implement this plan they are lobbying for a carbon tax of 100 euro
> per tonne. They want to use the international permaculture network and
> expand the base of permaculture institutes from 300 to 50 000 in 50 years.
> Whether this plan gets funded or not, it gives one a sense of the WORK
> needed, the expansion of the International Permaculture Network required.
> Its way beyond where we are now as a discordant collection of permaculture
> small businesses. http://permaculture.tv/?s=klimaforum
>
> 10. *What-If for Permaculture.coop* ?
>
> What if the 300 institutes and hundreds of design and related permaculture
> businesses and cooperatives and organisations, established a
> *Permaculture.coop
> Intercooperation Framework* (using Mondragon as a good model, like Mollison
> said in 1983 http://permaculture.tv/?s=mondragon)  What if this
> Permaculture.coop Intercooperation Framework had a Retirement Fund, that
> could provide Pioneers like Mollison with an income and real, tangible
> support ?  Like maintaining their farms in Tasmania and Tyalgum ? What if
> there was a sensible, global mass-multi-media campaign developed, where the
> large array of books, DVDs, courses etc, was managed like a global commons,
> and exploited sustainably ? If we gave away FREE a lot more courses, books,
> videos etc, and got a lot more PAID work and funds, and expanded the
> international permaculture network, this argument would simply disappear
> into the history of the 1990s. http://permaculture.tv/?p=1224
> http://permaculture.tv/?tag=mondragon<
> http://permaculture.tv/?tag=mondragon%20>
>
> 11. *Freedom is Not Free*
>
> I know how much time, money, resources go into publishing - I was webmaster
> for *The Australian* and *The Daily Telegraph*, and about 30 other
> newspapers in Sydney at News Ltd, between 2000-2003. The realities of
> modern
> print-publishing are really pretty dire. Its not easy printing these
> Designer Manuals. But it would be a hell of a lot easier if there was a
> cooperation system that went beyond email exchanges and some casual sending
> of funds. Online publishing is a nightmare. Quite literally MOST of the
> economic value of internet publishing is being gathered by Google. Look at
> the Google Books Settlement or this for a taste
>
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randall-amster/a-googlement-above-the-pe_b_165024.html
>
> 12. *Reality Check*
>
> Like Evan, who I respect, I have been trying to get the International
> Permaculture Network to adjust to the realities of the 21st century;
> sudden,
> abrupt cllimate change, globalisation, neoliberalism and the Internet.
> Evans
> publishing of the PDF is important as a political gesture but its
> irrelevant
> in terms of effecting sales of the book. Reading PDFs online is not a great
> experience <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030714.html>, and you would
> have
> to be pretty desperate (and poor) to do so. Those that can afford to buy
> the
> book, will. But sadly, many people in the West, and most people in the
> South, and that includes those who need them cannot afford them.
>
> 13. *A different model*:
>
> The computer book publisher, Oreilly invented a new subscription based
> service, that allow you to spend say, 20 USD per month and you get access
> to
> a limited number of chapters and videos. What would happen if we did
> something similar ? a quality online offering ? allowing users to pay and
> login and access books, videos etc online for a subscription. It would
> actually create a market where none existed before. We could then pay
> authors, and offer free access for schools etc.
> http://my.safaribooksonline.com/home?subpage=hometab2
>
>  As they said on the TV series “Lost”… “Live together or die
> alone<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Together,_Die_Alone>
> ”
>
> skype permaculturecoop
> email permaculturecoop@gmail.com
> phone +1 415 670 9710
> --
> plans http://gaiapermaculture.com
> video http://Permaculture.TV <http://permaculture.tv/>
> --
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> http://www.youtube.com/user/permaculturecoop
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