<nettime> Re: Copyleft Porn Praxis and Subversion over Sabotage, was: The Ideology of Free Culture and the Grammar of Sabotage

[Dmytri Kleiner <dk@telekommunisten.net>]

Hello, your SIS project is interesting, I was a judge for cum2cut last
year, I agree that free pornography is an interesting movement, for
many reasons.

On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:02:44 -0800 (PST), lotu5@resist.ca wrote:

> If we are going to critique Creative Commons, or those seeking a
> "GPL society" for being complicit in global capitalism, it seems
> that we should start with their inspiration, the GNU Public License
> (GPL) itself, and its relation to capitalism.

Part of the case against the Creative Commons is that goes against
the primary objective of the GPL, which the protection of the rights
of the consumer not the producer, as the case of the "some rights
reserved" creative commons and that it does not define any standard or
freedom. Criticism such as these are also made by those that support
the GPL, including Stallman.


> Yet, to generalize that all Creative Commons licenses are in favor
> of corporations is an oversimplification. For example, one can
> license one's work under a Share Alike Creative Commons license,
> which is the closest approximation of the GPL itself. Do we consider
> the GPL to be as friendly to global capitalism as the remix license?
> I don't.

Very few artistic works are licensed under the ShareAlike, most are
licensed under more restrictive licenses, including yours.

The "Creative Commons" monolithic brand identity obscures this fact,
people point to the ShareAlike license to defend the CC, but they
don't actual use it.


> Also, with regards the non-commercial clause, we in SIS have
> discussed the proposed idea of Copyfarleft, and find that it assumes
> too literal of a meaning of the word commercial.

That is the point, I have tried to find as precise as possible a
distinction between commons and non-commons usage.


> It takes itself too seriously.

Not sure what you mean here. "it" is a word, and AFAIK, is not
self-conscious.

I certainly do not take myself too seriously, I freely admit that
I am far more an aspiring crank than any sort of scholar, and the
terms I coin, "copyfarleft," "copyjustright," "venture communism," etc
are chosen with humour and dissonant juxtaposition in mind. I often
publish my own work under licenses that do not actually exist.

In any case, too serious or not, you can not yet license your work
under a copyfarleft license, because it remains only a proposal, no
such license exists.

I wait with baited breath for a maverick lawyer to offer to help
create it.


> We use the non-commercial license to facilitate a porn making
> praxis, to be able to invite someone to experiment with their sexual
> expression and know that no one is making money off of it, or very
> little money at best, in the case of bandwidth. We don't want porn
> corporations to use our content and resell it with their massive
> infrastructures, which we would consider commercial.

Exactly, that is why it is the "massive infrastructure" that
copyfarleft singles out.

Why restrict your fellow independent producers from incorporating your
work in their own creative production?

"Non Commercial" licensing prohibits "very little money" usage and
"massive infrastructure" usage equally.


> Yet if someone wants to make a zine of our work and sell it at the
> local diy zine fair and sell it for a few dollars, I do not consider
> that usage commercial, as it is not oriented towards making a large
> profit.

This is exactly the rational of copyfarleft, the CC license you use
prohibits the usage you are endorsing above.

While you may not prosecute, thus such usage is "safe," such usage
is not explicitly granted and all such users, even if they know your
current position, can not know your position will not change in the
future, or may worry your rights may be acquired by an individual or
organisation that has a different position.

In any case, your arguments sounds far more like an endorsement of
copyfarleft, more than a rejection of it, perhaps take a look at the
articles Matteo cites, if you haven't already. You can find them, and
some others, here:

 --> http://www.telekommunisten.net/venture-communism

Cheers.


-- 
Dmytri Kleiner
editing text files since 1981

http://www.telekommunisten.net






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