Loomio
Fri 16 Mar 2018 11:36AM

CopyFair/CultureBanking®

LM Liam Murphy Public Seen by 126

I have set up a Loomio page to effectively write a collective business plan for a Commons Collecting Society and Intellectual Property Asset Bank. As that's quite a mouthful I call it 'CultureBanking': https://www.loomio.org/invitations/475e91ab6cdd40734c7f.

The concerns and the aims are very close to the P2P Foundations' 'CopyFair' (there was no existing link to that here). I'd like to invite participants to contribute under the broad headings (feel free to add your own) on the page with a view to developing a distributed platform cooperative practice to manage community assets. There are lots of tools already in existence - so just pooling resources is a great start. In East Anglia, we are beginning by, literally, taking control of our cultural assets by first, 'banking' them with peer production licenses. Here: https://www.meetup.com/CultureBanking-Norfolk/events/249647758/ - come if you're in the area! LM

M

mike_hales Sat 17 Mar 2018 10:02AM

On 'culture' and commons, making and licensing . . . what about this?

LM

Liam Murphy Sat 17 Mar 2018 11:08AM

Can you be any more specific Mike?

There’s a lot been said about cultural commons. My proposition is to create a category of ‘cultural products’ which are held ‘in common’ by nothing more than the peer production licenses attached to them. Collecting is a relatively simple task compared to making decisions about distributing. I imagine the long term success of an initiative like this would see it embedded in some fairer, possibly more direct and localised taxation system. In the short term of demonstrating the concept - just think of ‘culture’ in this context as cultural products with peer production licenses attached creating a % residual flow of income for the rights holder, for re-investment in common infrastructure - or even new venture ‘capital’ dare I say?

Not exactly sure what you were asking TBH - was that any help?

Liam

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mike_hales Sat 17 Mar 2018 6:24PM

What was I asking Liam? In my original post I asked:

What is 'creative' production please? What is 'non-creative' production? I'd say this is a very dangerous distinction to be trying to build a practice on. Especially in relation to a 'commons' ethic.

Would you spell this out?

I don't believe that it's healthy to mark some labour - and labourers - as 'creative'. The term appropriates a quality that's found throughout all kinds of labour, and is covered, for example, by 'skill'.

I'm comfortable with what you say about a commons. It's your notion of 'culture' and cultural labour that I believe is divisive, and founded on an individualist Romantic notion which isn't consistent with real commoning.

LM

Liam Murphy Sat 17 Mar 2018 7:11PM

Pragmatically, in this case, anything which can be licensed for use, re-use or re-sale by a rights holder. Far from romantic! You are right, much creativity will fall outside of that definition.

What do you think to opening a general ‘debate’ thread for defining objectives, terms, first principles, definitions etc?

L

LM

Liam Murphy Sat 17 Mar 2018 7:28PM

PS - Have you read Kleiners Telekommunist Manifesto? It deals with much of this...

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mike_hales Sat 17 Mar 2018 8:42PM

This is new to me thanks Liam. For others who want to find it, it's on P2PF wiki Telekommunist Manifesto. This also includes an interview with Kleiner.

Also related, on CopyLeft etc:
- Copyfarleft
- Patents and the Limits of Open Source Licenses

LM

Liam Murphy Tue 27 Mar 2018 9:42PM

This may be off beam but I'm wondering if 'The Commons' might be an associate partner to this organisation?: https://www.iso.org/organizations-in-cooperation-with-iso.html - My goal would be to develop a Universal Standard Identifier or Digital Object Identifier for attaching to 'Creative Assets' which could then have peer production or 'human' commons licenses ( eg, Culturebanked® licences) for cultural commoning of assets in an open marketplace.... Any specialist knowledge available to tap into? Thoughts ideas - most welcome.... thanks LM

DS

Danyl Strype Sat 12 May 2018 8:18PM

I'm struggling to get my head around exactly what you're proposing (I always find myself trying to read these threads when I'm tired ;) ) but in terms of marking a work as "Culturebanked®", could the Creator Endorsed Mark (https://questioncopyright.org/creator_endorsed_mark ) serve as a useful precedent? It's an intriguing experiment in creating a symbolic commons as a plug-in to trademark law, instead of the copyright law that free code software and CreativeCommons type licenses are plug-ins to. The Toi Iho mark (http://www.toiiho.co.nz/about-toi-iho/ ) used to distinguish genuine indigenous art in Aotearoa / NZ could also be a useful precedent for the work you are doing.

LM

Liam Murphy Mon 14 May 2018 11:15PM

Stypey - also doing this when tired,,.. understood. CE marks are a good precedent. Differences are that I'm developing a licence along similar lines to the ones Arthur Brock of Holochain is talking about, ie, Human COmmons Licenses. The licenses do replace open licenses unlike here - one is open, one part restricted and one closed for availability to the market by agreement with the rights holder and on condition that the common funds are credited when commercial activity takes place. They dont enclose and they dont give away for free... The big difference as I see it, is that by using IP as a type of currency and depositing %'s of income flows from it in a mutual/common account (the 'culturebank', you are generating common/mutual ownership. CEM's handle private property passing between an individual and a distributor. CB® licensed work is placed into common ownership - to some extent - at the point of creation and licensing. Effectively, you use copyright to draw income into the commons (as kleiner suggested) but you treat copyrightable works as if they are 70 + years old and 'available' to the common as well... Like folk songs or dances... common culture. They can have a common scope and a private scope... Smart contracts will support this functions development I'd hope... Being realistic, you can time limit the period of exclusive rights to extract income from a new 'asset', making it available to a local commons at favourable fees. this has a 'proof of marketability' advantage ( eg images that aren't proven' will rarely be sold into the licensing trade) and 'closing' selected assets for the sole purpose of creating common wealth. i'm not 100% clear on the financial model but these are the dynamics. I do like the 10/20/30 etc aspect of the marks suggesting the artist should decide what proportion of their work's proceeds is credited to them or otherwise.. With a partner state working on this. A whole class of IP assets might begin functioning in the market as 'club, common or public goods' allowing local commons funds to be fed, admittedly allowing some enclosure of their use, but also doing this on own terms. As a practice, i'm also proposing Culturebaking as a Kitemark and am keen to adopt Marjorie Kelly's 5 principles there.. The simple revolution is in spreading the practice of attaching human commons licenses which insist on being observed at the point of making. Few sites or outlets currently will support this and I'd expect specific sites to establish initially. Flickr has just gone in the opposite direction as it's trying to monetise on the platform now... The beauty of a human commons license is that, basically, humans can attach any reasonable terms they like to their own work. they are very powerful... ( I may have created more confusion than Ive solved. It is, again..late) L

DS

Danyl Strype Tue 15 May 2018 7:21PM

Why do you need a new license? Why not just use a CreativeCommons license with a NonCommercial clause?
* CC BY-NC: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
* CC BY-NC-SA: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
* CC-NC-ND: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

The disadvantage of license proliferation is that you end up with a fragmented commons, with many parts that can't be used together because of license incompatibility. That's why GNU changed the Free Documentation License so Wikipedia could be dual-licensed with CC-BY-SA.

The beauty of a human commons license is that, basically, humans can attach any reasonable terms they like to their own work

That's true of copyright licenses in general, which is why the GPL and CC licenses can exist.

Flickr has just gone in the opposite direction as it's trying to monetise on the platform now

FlickR has been monetized since Yahoo! bought it. People who used NC licenses on their images are either exempt, or Yahoo has to get them to opt-in, at which point I hope they negotiate a suitable royalty.

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