Re: IANG license translation draft

[Dmytri Kleiner <dk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I've come to think that the economy of 
> copyleft should not be managed only by producers, but also by consumers. 
> I'll try to explain why I think it's a better approach in the sense of 
> freedom, equity, solidarity, in short, copyleft.

Perhaps I haven't made myself clear in this area, because I believe this
to, but each economic actor in this sense has a different role. I am very
much against producer control of the commons, as I have frequently argued
it is not commons if it producer controlled, all that which to employ the
common stock must be free to do so, that is the very essence of a commons.

However, it production, not consumption, which must have it's production
that must have it's costs accounted for, else there is no common stock,
because if the producer can not account for his own subsistence, neither
they nor the product of their labour can exist at all.

Consumers must have rights to access the common stock, however consumption
is not itself a contribution to production.

> However the most important thing is not who owns, but who decides, 
> and the license already states that decisions about the work belong to 
> all who contribute to this work. Also, the material work is not the 
> creative work, and I don't see why for example the printing press 
> operator should have a say in the story of the book, except if s-he is 
> admitted in the creative project. But I agree that this operator should 
> have a say in the economic project.

I'm not sure what you mean by "who decides" in the creative context.

The story of the book would be free for the press operator or anyone else
to employ, modify, etc, in peer production in any way they want, and unfree
for anyone to employ in capitalist production based on private property and
wage labour.

"decide" only makes since in the economic context, where the distribution
of captured value must be distributed.

> My view is that exchange value should not be captured at all, by no one, 
> not even by work contributors.

Then how are these contributors expected to account for their material
costs of subsistence?

I find it very frustrating that this issue is ignored entirely by most
promoters of free culture and peer production, it seems to be assume that
the producers will provide for their material subsistance from some other
source apart from their actual productive work. What can these other
sources be? McJobs? Social Assistance? What?

Peer production will be nothing other than an value creating input to
capitalist production and the exchange value *will* be captured by owners
of physical property whether we want this to happen or not, that is simply
a fact of objective reality that we can not wish away.

>> a whole, not simply the "original creator," in order to directly be a
>> contribution to the commons.

> Your "commons as a whole" is only the producers, while for me the 
> commons should include producers and consumers, the latter being 
> presumably more numerous than the former, thereby making sure that 
> exchange value is not inequitably shared or appropriated.

I'm sorry if I have not been clear here, but for the commons as a whole is
certainly *not* the producers, but does include both the producers and
consumers. However, it is only the producers who need their material costs
accounted for, and all consumers are also producers.

All people are both producers and consumers, these are not different
classes. Exchange is always between producers, with each producer being the
consumer of the product of other producers. It makes no sense to
contemplate a consumer in isolation.


> Also note that a private investor contributing to a IANG economic 
> project, as a legal entity, has only one vote, so a multinational 
> company equals a single customer. And finally, as stated in article 6.2, 
> there is no obligation to admit a contributor.

However the need for economic contribution and the threat of withholding
such contribution still give the multinational more influence then one
vote, as they can buy those of others.


> Customers are however the most important economic contributors, because 
> without them, the economic project couldn't exist (except if the 
> producers only produce for themselves, which would be of limited public 
> interest).

This is confused, IMO. Consumers are only import economic contributors to
the degree that they are producers of something that is being exchanged.


>> My view is that this public interest will in most case be manifested in
>> work contributions by individuals and groups joining the project and
>> contributing to it directly.

> This is not necessarily true. For example, free software hackers have an 
> interest in technical skills and programming tricks, that is opposed to 
> most users interest in simplicity. Even if some recent Linux 
> distributions have become more or less useable, there is still a strong 
> resistance towards user friendliness.

Not sure what the point is here, software hackers have consumption needs,
thus producers of other goods and services can exchange these in return for
development of user friendliness or other features as needed.

If the software developers are not compelled by exchange to add user
friendliness, then the only other option is that they are coerced by force,
which is not what you are proposing I imagine.

>> The "public" is nothing more that the extended community of producers.

> A user is rarely a producer in the sense of creation. I doubt that all 
> the listeners of Jamendo compose music, or that the millions of Firefox 
> users all contribute code. (In fact there are about 1000 developers for 
> 100 millions users, a rather low ratio.) But no one knows better than 
> the public what are the needs, what should be developed, what 
> investments would be necessary, etc.

Yet all users produce something, and thus are producers. The fact that they
produce different things is what makes exchange possible.

>> They also share public goods, and the amount of common-property the
> employ
>> in there production could be greatly increased. I do not think that
>> competition and markets cause problems so much as private property and
>> economic rent.

> I think that the market, which values competition and profit, is by 
> nature opposed to copyleft, which values cooperation and giving.

This is also confused, competition and profit are opposites, where you have
perfect competition there is no profit, price is cost, and where you have
perfect profit you have no competition (monopoly) and price is marginal
utility.

"The Market" is nothing other than the manifestation of the free will of
the producers. The market is incompatible with Capitalism which depends on
private control of scarce property to extract surplus value from producers.


> If we 
> want to transpose copyleft into economy, I think we should be careful 
> with the market. As you noticed, reproducible information cannot have 
> direct exchange value of its own, so in this game, authors will always
> lose.

Unless those authors also control the physical means of reproducing such
information as well, and those that employ private property and wage labour
are denied free access, which is the point of what I proposing, a
peer-production license that allows free access for peer producers denies
free access to producers who employ private property and wage labour.



>> It is possible, as in my example with a radio station or a night club
>> being able to capture surplus value from a recording, even without
having any
>> copyright on it.

> Whether the recording is ecopyleft or copyright, if authors want to 
> distribute it to private broadcasters, they must deal with them, 
> possibly through the collection society.

Such a broadcaster would only need to negotiate with the society if they
didn't otherwise have free access as an option, which they would under
copyleft.

> If this society is managed by 
> both music producers and consumers, the broadcasters will be more 
> obligated to stick to their role of intermediaries, and not abuse their 
> position. On the contrary, if producers handle collecting on their own, 
> they will be faced at the same time with the broadcasters, with their 
> public (market relation of obligatory reciprocation), and with 
> themselves (conflict for distribution of income).

Unless the private broadcaster is denied free access by the license they
have no need to negotiate with the collection society at all.


> For me, the public is mostly comprised of users, who rarely contributes 
> to the production.

The public is comprised of producers who are each the consumers of the
product of each other's labour.


> For example, the majority of people who have heard 
> about free software think it's just software that is free (as in free 
> beer). However, some contribute, either to copyleft creations, or to 
> their financing (the latest Wikipedia donation campaign raised $1 
> million in 2 months). The question is, how to make sure that these 
> contributions are not appropriated. The IANG approach is somehow to 
> apply the copyleft principle to economy. That is to say, economic 
> contributions can be given, but not taken away. To guarantee this, all 
> economic contributors should not only have access to accounting, but 
> also have control of it, just like free software contributors can not 
> only access the source code, but also change it. So if a capitalist 
> company wants to sell ecopyleft works, it must let its customers control 
> its capital.

I agree with this, that is why I think our approaches are compatible, and
the IANG is very close to being the peer production license I feel is
needed.

> 
> I think that a big problem with the economy in general is that consumers 
> have no control on it. Multinational companies rule the roost and reign 
> over customers. For example, Stallman was motivated to create the GNU 
> project because a printer manufacturer refused to give the source code 
> of a driver. 25 years later, free drivers may exist for some printers, 
> but the situation has not really improved, free software developers are 
> often obliged to reverse-engineer printer protocols, and customers are 
> forced to buy printers that break down just after the guarantee and 
> can't be repaired, ink cartridges more expensive than the printer, etc.

As I said, consumers and producers are not two separate classes, producers
are property owners are.


> Even if the knowledge is copylefted, it is of no help for users as long 
> as means of production are controlled by producers seeking profit. 

The means of production is *not* controlled by producers, profit is a
return to property owners (share holders), not producers. Share holders do
not produce anything.


> Suppose for example that the patent system is abolished and all 
> pharmaceutical companies are under workers' control. What would happen? 
> Since we're in a market economy, these compagnies will probably continue 
> to invest in the most profitable medicine at the expense of billions of 
> people having unprofitable diseases, will continue to spend twice more 
> on advertising than on research, etc.

Right, which is why my focus on on material property relations and not
intellectual property in isolation.

> When working on a license, I think we should always keep in mind the 
> copyleft values of freedom and solidarity. If an economic project is 
> ruled by producers, there won't be freedom for users to determine its 
> orientation, their only option being to choose a competitor project on 
> the market. The solidarity between producers and consumers is a central 
> value of copyleft, and a raison d'être of IANG is to defend this 
> solidarity also on the economic level.

However I think that consumers and producers are by nature in solidarity,
the source of class struggle is property.

> This kind of partnership between 
> consumers and producers is also emerging nowadays for example through 
> fair trade, the Seikatsu cooperatives, etc. But I think that creative 
> works are special because the public is more inclined to donate to 
> artists. Involvement of the public even starts to happen in movie 
> production, as for example with korean netizen funds or Blender open 
> movies. If a 100% open economy will be harder to reach than 100% open 
> source (even open source software sometimes uses closed source drivers) 
> and some intermediaries may be necessary, I think it's important that 
> users have a control, in conjunction with producers, so that they can 
> counteract these intermediaries, and make progress towards a more free 
> society.
> 
> Regards :-)

I fully agree and am also inspired by the same developments, I think this
conversation has drifted a bit and the differences we are discussing have
more to do with general political terminology than the details of a peer
production license. When I have some time I will review my original
comments and perhaps revise in light of our continuing discussion to see if
we can come closer to drafting something we both agree on.

Cheers.

-- 
Dmytri Kleiner
editing text files since 1981

http://www.telekommunisten.net