Re: IANG license translation draft

On 10/19/07, Patrick Godeau <pogo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello Dmytri,

Here are some comments. Sorry for the delay.

Dmytri Kleiner a écrit :
>> 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.
>

Consumption is (or should be) the purpose of production, hence it is
reasonable that consumers have a control on the production economy,
together with producers, like in some consumers' cooperatives. If there
is no customer, no accounting can exist at all.

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

The IANG license defines two distinct areas of decision making: the
creative project, and the economic project. The creative project is
where decisions about the intellectual work are taken democratically by
the creative contributors. For example, a creation like a software could
require many decisions about what features to add, which contributors to
admit, etc.

>
>> 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?
>

Sorry, I should have written "surplus value" instead of "exchange
value". Of course I didn't want to imply that authors should starve. A
purpose of IANG is precisely to address this problem, not with a
solution that would feed all authors, but with rules that prevent them
to be stolen.

>> 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.
>

By "profit" I didn't mean surplus value, but the tendency to maximize
revenue and minimize expense, which is inherent in market economy.
Vendors of copyleft works, even if they care for authors, compete with
other vendors and thus are obliged to cut down authors' pay. This is why
the market is not beneficial for copyleft creators, and why we need
ecopyleft.

>> 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.
>

If I understand correctly your proposal (maybe I don't) I think there
are problems with this approach:
- This is contradictory, because peer producers would also employ
private property. But I think the question of private or public property
is not relevant, the important point is whether this property gives or
removes freedom.
- If free access is exclusive to a category and denied to others, then
this wouldn't be free at all.
- Who will qualify as a real peer producer, and who will decide
admission or banning? What contribution would be enough to be admitted?
What about users that don't contribute, are they denied the right to
produce for themselves?
- This would be dangerous if producers have full control for example on
the production of sensitive resources like medicines or organisms.

I think that the IANG license in its current state already prevents
capitalist grabbing, without being discriminatory and without the
aforesaid drawbacks.

>> 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.
>

While they should be in solidarity, the market forces them to be in
conflict.

>
>> 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.
>

OK, I look forward to this, to better understand your proposals. But I
think that the IANG license, as is, would already meet our common
requirement for preventing the capture of surplus value.

Ciao,

--
Patrick