[Reader-list] FW: [boell] [lab] copy adorno, go to jail?

[Monica Narula]

dear Andreas and others,

I agree with you that there is a necessity to develop rigorous 
arguments to expand the culture of copy. This is what I was stressing 
in my mail. I am yet to see a intellectual framework to understand 
the culture of copy. By evoking Foucault i was not being optimistic 
but pessimistic!

There are many ways to enter the debate on IP. One mode is opened by 
the free software route. This creates a practice of making and 
sharing things and seems to have found a legal framework for itself 
(it will be tested in coming years). The other mode will be to look 
at histories of dispossession over the last 400 years and see how the 
discourse of property had dispossessed millions. One needs to 
seriously re-read works by social historians for this (i would think 
that works of EP Thomson, Peter Linebaugh etc) would be important. If 
we take the example of Forest Laws, we see clearly a process of 
dispossession (more than the present tame word `displacement`, which 
makes it a technical issue). In his book 'Common Property, Common 
Poverty', Chatrapati Singh had brilliantly argued how Forest Laws 
dispossessed and criminalised thousands of people. The law comes and 
then destroys other ways of understanding and practicing. I would 
think that Intellectual Property discourse would need such an 
interrogation. Let the idea of property itself face its other 
reality: that of histories of mass dispossession and dislocation.

Within the legal framework, IP stands as a right that is bargained of 
by the public for a public good, that is adequate compensation for 
creativity and also so called advancement of science and arts. I 
would think that over the next few years this tension will appear 
within the legal framework of IP enforcement. Strict IP enforcement 
will make factions of global capital uncompetitive as much as it 
makes others competitive. This tension will emerge. And the commodity 
logic of fecund-reproduction will clash with property. Property may 
not stand as the only form to anchor stable returns.

Regarding this specific case, i would say that it will be interesting 
to see what kinds of rights were bargained off by Adorno or Benjamin. 
Did they bargain away `electronic rights`: those rights to rapid 
circulation and reproduction? IP holders of today have to be asked as 
to what they are holding and for how long and in what condition. This 
is critical for it will shape how we are to understand the 
relationship between technological practices, social arrangements, 
and legal framework.

best
M

At 11:36 +0100 27/2/04, Andreas Broeckmann wrote:
>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...


-- 
Monica Narula [Raqs Media Collective]
Sarai-CSDS
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054
www.sarai.net