[Reader-list] Notes on Contested Commons Conference

[joy at sarai.net]

Traditional medicines, software, entertainment commodities are different
trajectories of intellectual property [IP]. If we don’t see all these
things from the point of view of IP, neither even from the side of
knowledge rather as a flowing social experience and social good we might
be able to have different perspective to understand all these forms.

The objective is to share and develop all these without any barrier. Some
how software community have found interesting mechanism, rather than
calling it solution, to safeguard such interest of share and access of
codes through use of IP, that is copy right law by deploying licensing
mechanism. Creative commons license is also designed in a similar fashion.
Though I have problem with these and I will come back to it later.

But entertainment commodity circulation has found yet another model for
easy flow. The model is piracy. It is true for software as well.

Capitalist society, unlike aristocracy, makes desire free and available to
every one in the society at almost equal level. But the access is totally
marked by class abilities. In such situation, commodity market comes up
with all kind of cheaper solutions as well. Fake goods and piracy are two
typical example of such condition. It is not that necessity is not linked
with it, but one does not need fake versions of branded products for basic
necessity. There comes the standardised understanding of living condition
in hierarchical society and its desire. There are two kinds of fake goods,
one that is fake and don’t claim to be original by its look and market
circle. Another is trying to disguise as original and exists within the
market of the original. Both of them have their class representation. A
badly made backpack with incorrect Lotto logo sold in weekly market has a
different commodity status from well made perfectly printed fake backpack
sold in Lajpat Nagar market. They both are cheaper than original, but
again within themselves one is cheaper than other. But all of them some
how try to identify with the original brand. This brand is like the most
successful boy in the locality, or a successful singer whom another
thousand copy. It is the success and perfection that determines the
movement of human activity in present society.

Similarly video/audio tape and later CD/DVD technology made copying films
and music cheap and made it cheaply available to public who is not in a
condition or not willing to spend money to go to cinema hall. Copies can
be made and are also made in a legal way, that is, by paying royalty, tax,
duties, interest and spending many other liabilities. But in that case,
going to cinema hall becomes cheaper than buying such copies. Then if some
one has to make profit in copy market, he has to bypass all these
liabilities. This is what we call piracy.

Out sourcing by big companies makes this practice more complex. It is very
normal in present big companies that instead of producing themselves they
outsource the production to smaller players who can afford to produce at
cheaper rate using non-industrial spaces to avoid lot of industrial
liability like permanent wage to factory rent at industrial rate. And also
they fight with each other. Competing forces will always try to find short
cuts. It is part of capitalist mode of existence. I presume due to
increasing lack of simple commodity based society capitalist production
deploys illegality more sharply to fight each other.

So these events are normal in market production and distribution network.
But what it does, it shows us the possibility of production of commodities
rather useful goods at cheaper cost.

And that fascinates me. It is not the network, not messiness, these things
are any case there in any production and distribution system in present
world whether big or small. But it is this ability of such production and
distribution network to reduce cost interests me. It shows us that it
doesn’t cost much to produce any commodity if liabilities for
proprietarily claims are not spent. It is not only intellectual property
but also other forms of property as well.

As far as creativity is concerned, bad translation of legal films also
create interesting interpretative recessions. Hindi version of Speed and
Jurassic Park are good enough example for that. So it is the quality of
usage not piracy. Piracy only increases this possibility of usage many
fold. But it is the cost that enables such elaborate usage.

It links to the issue raised on medicine that pharma companies don’t
disclose their cost of production that can be possibly much less than the
market cost of the medicine. But because of the patent regime it is not
possible to determine actual cost of those medicines. How can we negotiate
that? Or can we at all negotiate that. Thus discourse around medicine ends
up with policy making and policy changing. The idea of share culture dries
up by the time we reach medicine or for that matter traditional knowledge.

It seems that the way IP helps to liberate computer code might not at all
help to liberate medicine o traditional knowledge. Then does it mean the
sharing possibilities end there? Is there any other way to look at other
than IP? What is the problem with IP and its different avatar of licensing
models?

There comes my philosophical problem with GPL and Creative Commons. These
are sharing models. But before sharing it ensures the owner of the goods,
that is knowledge, will not diminish if that person shares that object. So
in the case of another object that would diminish through share will we
stop sharing? If GPL and Creative Commons license are strategy to defend
sharing dynamics of an object that does not diminish through share, in
that case we need to find another model for those objects which might
diminish through share.

What that model can be? There I think commoning is the solution. Though I
don’t think Magna Carta defends a rigorous practice of commoning, it
merely symbolizes it, and can still survive like a fossil without any hint
of commons. For me commoing is philosophical and spiritual condition where
every one is ready to share in spite of loss and every one respects that
sharing ethos. Every object has its own production and circulation cycle,
there can not be one single model to produce and share it. Knowledge to
predict Tsunami by Andaman Tribes might need hundred years to learn. Lets
respect that process and request them to inform us in crisis, rather than
trying to know it in a NIIT type crash course and share it through GPL.

Best
Joy