[Reader-list] FW: [boell] [lab] copy adorno, go to jail?textz.com doesn't think so (fwd)

[Andreas Broeckmann]

dear monica,

thanks for your message. your response to britta is perfectly 
understandable from the perspective of somebody who does not want to 
restrict the usage of texts, talks, images, etc., and who trusts 
people to use them fairly.

the question that you do not address is how you will argue with 
someone who is not intent on giving up his rights to, in this case, a 
text by Adorno. there's a private foundation that owns these rights 
and that does not subscribe to your belief in free usage, they see 
their text online in an unauthorised version, they make a claim in 
court -- so easy. -- how do you argue with them? how do you address 
the fact that they see their property and its exploitable potential 
stolen from them? we can argue about the deep principles (or 
impossibilities) of 'intellectual property', but so far this concept 
is embedded in a filigree structure of international and national 
laws which it will be difficult to debunk.

i admire your faith in the inevitability of the coming of an 
enlightened copy culture, 100 years from now. however, i doubt that 
it will come about all by itself, and what i was trying to suggest 
was that we need good arguments and strategies for challenging the 
current regimes of ownership in intellectual property. this will be 
the more difficult, as in the 'knowledge economy' this 'intellectual 
property' is becoming the most valuable stuff there is -- more 
valuable than gold, in the case of some software or entertainment 
products...

this is why i believe that there needs to be much more than a 
moralistic campaign, but really an engagement with the economic and 
political structures that are held in place by the current principles 
of (intellectual) property. otherwise we do not know what 'copy 
culture' is up against.

what are the long-term political strategies for fostering a new 
understanding of the rights of usage in cultural products, an 
understanding which will have not only a moral, but also a legal 
grounding? i read this morning that the movie, Lord of the Rings 
Pt.3, has billed over 1 billion US-dollars. how is it possible to 
convince somebody that s/he should not be able to exclusively exploit 
such a valuable product?

regards from berlin,

-a


>I am not sure about the invocation of art by Andreas. Most 
>unauthorised copying is way outside this context and one would 
>expect art contexts to at least reflect on this reality. Everyday 
>many raids are being carried out and court cases are being filed for 
>unauthorised copying and faking. This is a reality we are living in 
>- we need to think about it with some seriousness. We have few 
>intellectual resources at present to understand this experience. And 
>as we read Foucault today, and wonder about the making of 
>'abnormals' and 'delinquents/criminals' two hundred years ago, 
>people too will read about this time a 100 years on, and wonder...