Re: IANG license translation draft

[Dmytri Kleiner <dk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michel Bauwens wrote:

> I'm not really in the mindspace to do detailed work on a license, but 
> will be happy to pitch in, at least in the periods when I'm not 
> lecturing/travelling ...

I hope you pass by Berlin one day, would love to attend a lecture and 
perhaps have some time for informal discussion.


[...]


> what I can do is act as documentarian for the process, using our 
> wiki/blog resources,

Thanks, look forward to seeing how this discussion progresses and hope 
to have comments from the others.

I'd like to say a bit more on how I envision a peer-production license 
would function, in brief, without going into the political economic 
logic so much unless there are questions. I assume the concept of the 
Iron Law of Copyright Earnings is understood, and thus the need for what 
I have described as a Copyfarleft license, is likewise clear.

The IANG license, I feel comes very close to realizing the sort of 
license I thing the peer-production license should be, with the 
understanding that there would need be more explicit clauses limiting 
certain forms of "Economic Contributions," particularly to avoid 
allowing property holders to extract surplus value.

Such a license would adequately cover what I describe as endogenic usage 
of common-stock.

This still leaves open the question of what terms to apply to exogenic 
usage.

For groups of peer-producers that want to simply forbid exogenic usage, 
this is not a problem, but for most artists this is simply not an option.

For instance, how many recording artist would agree to a license that 
forbid commercial radio stations or night clubs from playing the music?

Obviously, since the number of radio stations and nightclubs that would 
qualify as commons-based peer producers and thus qualify for free usage 
is small, a commons license for popular art forms must also specify some 
sort of non-free terms for exogenic usage by private radio stations and 
nightclubs.

But, as a common-stock is owned in common, it can not be the "original" 
artist privately that benefits from such non-free terms, as is the case 
in Copyleft Non-Commercial, as that asynchronous relationship between 
the "original author" and other commons users means the creation is not 
actually a part of the commons. The non-free terms must benefit the 
commons as a whole, and not any "orginal author."

But as commons-based peer production is made up of autonomous 
individuals and groups of commons based producers, how can any temrs 
benefit the "commons as a whole."

In possibility is employing a Collection Society such as GEMA, SoCan, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collection_society


Of course, there are problems with this approach, and the function of 
such a society must be clearly defined, some risks immediately come to mind:

 - The society may be hyper-vigilant in collecting and thus be too 
aggressive in claiming that certain usage is exogenic and therefor is 
disqualified from having free access.

 - The society may become too closed and not recognize or welcome new 
peer-producers into it's membership.

 - The internal structure of the society itself could become corrupt 
and  non democratic.


These risks must be mitigated by explicitly creating terms in the 
license that define the operations of such a society quite clearly.

It also mitigated by having several such societies, not just one, so 
that the reputation of a society would attract producers to the best 
operated ones.

Assuming such societies could exist, and could represent the 
commons-based producers, they could then license exogenic usage under 
non-free terms, and use the funds collected to benefit the commons 
broadly, including:

 - Funding infrastructure projects that increase the productivity of 
the commons, including capital for production, distribution and archiving.

 - Providing grants and awards for producers.

 - Provide the legal and administrative management of the common-stock.

 - Engage in political and educational advocacy for peer-production.


Look forward to your comments!

Cheers.