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: Faced
with the option of placinge copyright on conditional release, could
we return to the idea of shared property, communal spaces that are,
moreover, managed communally? This workshop proposes the construction
of models that go beyond the user licence. It follows the same path,
freeing up channels, bandwidths, software and hardware in order
to achieve sustainability of shared knowledge.
In 2003, Platoniq brought out the copy-left licence Aire Incondicional
(unconditional air). Prior to this, in different projects such as
Burn Station (copying station for free distribution material) and
Radiored (Platoniq’s first net radio, now Opserver.org and
Burn.fm), free licences from the Electronic Frontier Foundation
were already in use. The reason why they decided to start from scratch
on the design of a new legal document with the solicitor Abel Garriga
was to understand the use and above all the preparation of the licences
as a group construction project, a living text that by its nature
was to be used, modified and adapted according to whatever needs
arose.
At the same time, problems became evident that suggested the need
to return to work from the base. The licences that still coexisted
at the time were in English and were subject to Anglo-Saxon law,
specifically the North American legal system. Concepts such as public
ownership, commons or copyright cannot be exported or translated
simply without creating confusion or even serious error such as
assuming that copyright and author’s rights are the same thing.
As a result, this task also meant a particular stance in contrast
to the models proposed by Creative Commons that at that point were
not so popular but that seemed already to have a strong vocation
to convert themselves into The Model that would inevitably end up
destroying or overshadowing other prior initiatives still linked
to the free software as in the case of Open Content.
We are currently in the middle of an expansion of Creative Commons
“franchises” from Japan to Spain, and we can see another
problem emerging, that of expert dependency. The first cases of
infringement of free licences have already arisen, and we should
ask ourselves by what means we can defend them, since it is clear
that only universities or companies with capital will be in a position
to afford the costs of legal proceedings.
The task does not begin with distribution or reproduction but rather
opening up all those processes that have so far been dominated by
just a few, and in reaching agreement on “ethics of work”,
“ethics of use” with respect to information and knowledge.
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