[okfn-discuss] Removing the nc: why license restrictions on commercial use are problematic and (frequently) unnecessary

[Tom Chance]

Ahoy,

On Friday 28 April 2006 09:08, Saul Albert wrote:
> I'll pass on your comments to the editor Marina Vishmidt :). I don't
> think my remarks were particularly cryptic. I'm sure the people on this
> list are familiar with labour/information politics.

Perhaps, perhaps not. That's a big assumption, the sort that immediately 
alienates the "perhaps nots" from the discussion.


> I think it's really 
> important to discuss labour and see through the minutiae of pragmatic
> litigiousness to the issues underlying copyright reform - which is a
> class issue, globally: not the sort of thing you can solve by starting
> discussions from inside the CC-bubble. I'm hoping that by moving the
> discussion to a political level, we might be able to achieve some
> clarity, then re-enter the discussion and see ways of approaching CC-NC
> that address those issues and the conflicts of which they're symptomatic
> in a strategic way.

I sympathise with the approach, I find the likes of Berry and Wark really 
interesting and I definitely think labour is a central question. But I don't 
think it's a class issue, and nor will an awful lot of people. The problem, 
then, is when you load dismissive sentences with these assumptions. You have 
to be able to explain to the painters at our exhibition, for example, why NC 
is flawed without needing to give them a two hour lecture on 
labour/information politics.

I don't like the approach of going off into a small academic circle and 
discussing the issues, then riding back into the debate armed with a complex 
discourse that doesn't relate to the dominant discourses in the different 
political and art worlds. It seems to me like an academic conceit.

The CC "bubble" *is* political, it *is* ethical, it benefits enormously from 
critiques like Berry's, Mako Hill's and others. The great thing is that it's 
a kind of hub around which a lot of very different people can engage in 
debate. Why the need to "go away", gain clarity and then "re-enter"? Should 
everyone else wait until you come back with the answer?

Regards,
Tom