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[ox-en] Andrius' paper for Oekonux



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Stefan Meretz wrote:

Hi Andrius,

thank you for giving insights in your PD-view. What I did not find in your 
explanations is how you want to guarantee, that open content given to the 
commons (and by the commons - I like this) will stay common. Just by 
morality ignoring copyright?

Ciao,
Stefan


Stefan, Thank you for your important question, which helped me finish my 
paper!

I share my paper for Oekonux, (in HTML), please find attached.

Here also is my final section which responds to Stefan's question.

Andrius Kulikauskas
ms ms.lt
http://www.ms.lt

-----------------------------------
Organizing for Disintegration
-----------------------------------

Copyright and Public Domain both have their advantages.  If our work is 
a "finished product", then it makes sense to copyright that, as a way 
for us to continue to participate in the life of our work.  However, 
more an more, our work is never finished, and what has value is the work 
process itself, as it allows us to integrate others and create together 
a shared framework for the coevolution of all of our projects.  This is 
the point of working openly.  Here, Public Domain is most helpful, at 
least as the default.

At Oekonux, it became apparent to me that the main argument against the 
Public Domain is a concern that our material may, at some point, or in 
some way, fall into copyright, and be lost to us.  Thank you to Franz 
Nahrada, Edward Cherlin, Marcin Jakubowsky, Stefan Meretz and others for 
raising this question.

I think the way to answer this is to consider more broadly, how may we 
act responsibly regarding the future of our work?

If we think of our work as standing by itself, then if we place our work 
in the Public Domain, it stays there.  Somebody may modify our work and 
copyright their new work, but our original work continues to be in the 
Public Domain.

Instead, it is more realistic to consider our work as existing within 
some broader initiative.  For example, if a piece of software is 
actually used, then it is continuously developed further, because the 
needs of users and the technological environment do not stand still. 
Software is released in new versions, and it also has a community under 
whose attention the software develops.

Software likes to clump.  It does not like to fork.  A community wants 
to gravitate around the best product.  What can happen is that a product 
in the Public Domain can be further modified and copyrighted by a 
proprietary developer.  That developer may win the hearts of the 
community.  The Public Domain version continues to exist, but the 
community moves on.  And so, the Public Domain software dies.  If the 
only survivor is the proprietary software, then people find themselves 
forced to use it.  In this way, the proprietary software takes over the 
Public Domain software, which is especially frustrating for the original 
developers.  This is the reason that Richard Stallman created the GNU 
Public License, so that if a software is modified or incorporated by 
another, then the latter must also be under the GNU Public License, and 
satisfy certain basic expectations of openness.

However, content behaves very differently than code.  Code is meaningful 
to the extent that somebody can understand exactly what it is doing. 
Content, however, is often most meaningful precisely when we don't 
understand why it works.  Classics like The Bible or Plato's Republic or 
Confucius' Analects are handed down with care through the generations 
because we respect that they say more than we may claim to understand. 
We don't yet have such expectations for code! - and we won't so long as 
alternate programs can be used for the same purpose.  Furthermore, 
content likes to disintegrate.  It is only with great effort that 
content stays unchanged.  Very often we may find less than 1% of content 
relevant to our purpose, and we are able to use it out of context, 
unlike most code.  It is useful to reassemble micro-content for all 
manner of projects.  It is vital to circulate micro-content without 
restriction as a way to mark, find and strengthen relationships and help 
us integrate each other.

Content-based and code-based projects are therefore different with 
regard to their vitality.  In a code-based project, a minor enhancement 
can make the old software obsolete.  In a content-based project, even 
the most brilliant addition can be re-expressed, and the prior content 
remains valuable as a source of micro-content.  There is therefore no 
real risk that Public Domain content will become trapped in a 
proprietary variant.  The primary risk is that, as a society, we do not 
have the consciousness or simply the habit to dedicate our works to the 
Public Domain.  This is our current situation, and we move away from it 
with each conscious dedication.

Most importantly, we should always consider what will happen to our 
creative work when the current projects come to an end.  We have so many 
examples of abandoned projects.  In the case of old software, there is 
perhaps nothing to be saved.  But when we have created content that 
expresses our life interests, then surely that has lasting value.  If we 
want to share with those who live beyond our project, then we must not 
think as a "set of individuals" but as a "commons".  The others in the 
commons will most likely have their own cultures of sharing (their own 
licenses!).  They will need to integrate those parts of our work that 
they find useful, and ignore the boundaries that we have set.  They will 
decide for themselves what ideas, if any, to attribute to us.  We can't 
expect them to negotiate with us, but should give openly so they might 
sustain themselves and their work.  The legal system will not help us, 
and we can rely only on morality that our wishes may be respected.

I conclude with my wish that we appreciate the power of morality in our 
work together.  Legal systems are established to protect the rights of 
individuals, but never directly the commons.  Gandhi said, "there is no 
morality without community", and it is the moral system that serves to 
turn our minds to our shared responsibility for the "commons" that goes 
beyond any particular individual.  The legal system, and the court 
system, is of so little practical use for most people, as it offers its 
equal protection only in large cases.  It is surprising, therefore, why 
people run to it for defense of copyrights that are of so little 
practical value that they would never actually go to court over them. 
The moral system is a much sounder investment of our energy.  Morally, 
our wishes must be respected not only on those who know of them, but 
even on those who come to learn of them only later, or who are linked to 
us indirectly.  But morality also allows for each person's best 
judgment, thus building a true commons.  We can mix our moral appeal 
with particular wishes that we have as a "set of individuals".  Our 
moral maturity, our growth in awareness and consciousness, our 
thoughtful action - these are the foundation for a social infrastructure 
for virtual flash mobs.
[2 virtualflashmobs.html <text/html; WINDOWS-1252 (7bit)>]

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_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: projekt oekonux.de



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