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Free Culture

Copyleft And Marxism

I am a militant liberal, possibly a socialist libertarian. My political motto is “beware teleology”, so I regard pluralism as the least worst option for society given what happens when societies fall under ideological closures. Including Neoliberalism. Pluralism has come to be the basis of my ongoing interest in copyleft. I believe it strongly supports pluralism. I am nonetheless not delusional regarding the scope and socioeconomic effects of copyleft. It is not a panacea, and I think that Negativland’s Expanded Fair Use might be a better baseline for creative freedom in bourgeois capitalist society were it not for the practicalities.

My research over the last few years has only strengthened my regard for Stallmanism. This research has taken me through venture capitalism, the economics of Web 2.0, neoliberal ethics, the history of the enclosure and allotment movements, the levellers and diggers, 1968 in France, LIP self-management, various anarchist texts, the production of Classical Greek pottery, the history of collectives and LETS schemes, and all sorts of other historical and sociopolitical/economic moments. Oh and Lessig’s writing and that of Isaiah Berlin and of Mackenzie Wark. I have maintained my interest in copyleft not due to doctrinal monomania but to being unable to find anything better given current historical conditions.

I’m writing this to try to gather my thoughts prior to responding to someone who has objected to my criticism of their essay. They have accused me of regarding copyleft as perfect and immutable and believing that anyone who doesn’t share this opinion just needs to read the right books. I have taken several days to consider this and have come to the conclusion that my position will be practically indiscernible from that position for them, but that this is a mischaracterisation of what I believe.

I do believe that copyleft will support the ends of socialists and marxists within society better than a licensing scheme that seeks to refuse “the commons” to “capitalist exploitation of wage labour”. I believe this because of my long consideration of the self-defeating effects of the Non-Commercial Creative Commons Licence and other discriminatory licenses, and because I don’t believe that capital is stupid enough not to start selling picks and shovels to the workers who will be the only permitted users of such a licence if one is ever written.

I also believe that there is probably some interest for marxist students of the property question in essays titled “Why Software Should Not Have Owners” and “Did You Say Intellectual Property? It’s A Seductive Mirage”.

But I am interested to hear if any of my more marxisant readers think I am talking bollocks, and if so exactly why. Anyone?

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Personal

Mwahahahaha!

My Sunshot t-shirt has arrived.

Take that, causality!

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links

links for 2007-07-28

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links for 2007-07-27

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Free Culture

Today the BBC made it official — they have been corrupted by Microsoft.

Today the BBC made it official — they have been corrupted by Microsoft.With today’s launch of the iPlayer, the BBC Trust has failed in its most basic of duties and handed over to Microsoft sole control of the on-line distribution of BBC programming. From today, you will need to own a Microsoft operating system to view BBC programming on the web.****** http://www.defectivebydesign.org/blog/BBCcorrupted *******Please Digg: http://tinyurl.com/3dzo57Please Reddit: http://reddit.com/info/2a0qt/Also, if you’re in the North of England and would be interested ina potential protest at BBC Manchester on the same day, please considering joining ‘Manchester Free Software’. As you may know, theBBC is soon to move large amounts of its London operations to Manchester and Salford.http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsuk-manchesterIf you’re a British citizen or resident, you can also sign this petition:- http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/iplayer/You can also leave comments about the service, and demand a service that works on free software systems, such as GNU/Linux, on the BBC iPlayer Messageboard – http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbiplayer/F7357542

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links for 2007-07-26

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Free Culture

Ironised CC Licenses (BY-NC-SA and NC)

200707242307

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Reviews

Sunshot Live On YouTube

Whisky Dave has posted some classic Sunshot gig footage on Youtube. There’s clips from two shows:

Middlesex University

Sunshot at Middlesex University part 1 of 4
Sunshot at Middlesex University part 2 of 4
Sunshot at Middlesex University part 3 of 4
Sunshot at Middlesex University part 4 of 4

The Bull & Gate

Sunshot at the Bull & Gate part 1 of 5
Sunshot at the Bull & Gate part 2 of 5
Sunshot at the Bull & Gate part 3 of 5
Sunshot at the Bull & Gate part 4 of 5
Sunshot at the Bull & Gate part 5 of 5

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