Challenges to traditional copyright resulting from peer-to-peer applications, free software, filesharing and appropriation art have caused a wide ranging debate on the future of copyright. Dmytri Kleiner brings existing critiques of material property from the left to bear upon the realm of copyleft artistic production and asks how, within the existing copyright regime, can artists earn a living?
COPYFARLEFT, COPYJUSTRIGHT AND THE IRON LAW OF COPYRIGHT EARNINGS
by Dmytri Kleiner for Mute Magazine
http://www.metamute.org/en/Copyfarleft-and-Copyjustright
In the area of software development copyleft has proved to be a tremendously effective means of creating an information commons which broadly benefits all those whose production depends on it. However, many artists, musicians, writers, film-makers and other information producers remain sceptical that a copyleft based system where anyone is free to reproduce their work, can earn them a living.
Copyleft licenses guarantee intellectual property freedom by requiring that reuse and redistribution of information be governed by 'the four freedoms,' the freedom to use, study, modify and redistribute.
However, property is the enemy of freedom. It is property, the ability to control productive assets at a distance, the ability to 'own' something being put to productive use by another person that makes possible the subjugation of individuals and communities. Where property is sovereign, the owners of scarce property can deny life by denying access to property, or if not outright deny life, then make the living work like slaves for no pay beyond their reproduction costs.
David Ricardo first described Economic Rent. Put simply, economic rent is income the owner of a productive asset can earn just by owning it, not by doing anything, just by owning. Thus, Rent is the economic return for allowing others to use property. What would a person pay for the right to exist? Well, they would pay everything they produce, minus their subsistence costs. This is the basic bargaining position faced by all of us who are born into a world entirely owned by others.
"COPYFARLEFT, COPYJUSTRIGHT AND THE IRON LAW OF COPYRIGHT EARNINGS" vollständig lesen