Copy, Rip, Burn : the Politics of Copyleft and Open Source
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Copy, Rip, Burn Berry 00 pre i 5/8/08 12:05:39 Berry 00 pre ii 5/8/08 12:05:39 Copy, Rip, Burn The Politics of Copyleft and Open Source DAVID M. BERRY PLUTO PRESS www.plutobooks.com Berry 00 pre iii 5/8/08 12:05:39 First published 2008 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA www.plutobooks.com Copyright © David M. Berry 2008 The right of David M. Berry to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7453 2415 9 Hardback ISBN 978 0 7453 2414 2 Paperback Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin. The paper may contain up to 70% post consumer waste. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services Ltd, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton Printed and bound in the European Union by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne Berry 00 pre iv 5/8/08 12:05:41 CONTENTS Acknowledgements ix Preface x 1. The Canary in the Mine 1 2. The Information Society 41 3. The Concept of the Commons 79 4. From Free Software to Open Source? 98 5. The Contestation of Code 147 6. The Poetics of Code 188 Notes 202 Bibliography 234 Index 253 Berry 00 pre v 5/8/08 12:05:41 Berry 00 pre vi 5/8/08 12:05:41 For Trine, Helene and Henrik. Berry 00 pre vii 5/8/08 12:05:41 Prometheus: I caused mortals to cease foreseeing doom. Chorus: What cure did you provide them with against that sickness? Prometheus: I placed in them blind hopes. Chorus: That was a great gift you gave to men. Prometheus: Besides this I gave them fi re. Chorus: And do creatures of a day now possess bright-faced fi re? Prometheus: Yes, and from it they shall learn many crafts. Chorus: These are the charges on which – Prometheus: Zeus tortures me and gives me no respite. Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound Berry 00 pre viii 5/8/08 12:05:41 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing a book is never a solo endeavour and I would like to thank all those who contributed in a number of different ways to make the fi nished book possible. In particular I would like to thank Caroline Bassett, Michael Bull, John Holmwood, Christopher May, William Merrin, Giles Moss, William Outhwaite, and Darrow Schecter, for their engaging arguments, critiques and generosity in sharing ideas, concepts and theories that have infl uenced my work. I would also like to thank Trine for being there. ix Berry 00 pre ix 5/8/08 12:05:41 PREFACE The world is one and common to those who are awake, but that everybody who is asleep turns away to his own. Heraclitus (2006, Fragment 89) This book critically engages with the activities and theoretical exchanges between the free/libre and open source software groups who write and share computer code online. I place these groups in the context of the expansion of intellectual property rights and look at their discourses surrounding the enclosure of the ‘intellectual’ commons. In particular, I explore how free/libre software and open source software (FLOSS) articulates productive forms of self-knowledge and discipline (such as through discursive formations and code), which appear to establish a potential for uncoordinated and decentred models of creativity. In doing so, I investigate how code designates what is prescribed and what is not, what is articulated and what is silenced; how code structures our lives and our subjectivity. I hope to uncover the way in which the open source and free software groups are challenging our existing liberal categories (around cultural production, knowledge ownership and authorship) both in economic terms (that is, as a new form of commons-based peer production) and in terms of political liberties (for example, the question of free speech, democracy and its connection to code). First, I am interested in the disciplinary nature of knowledge and power and this is an important element in my political-economy- influenced approach. Secondly, I am interested in political intervention as practice. Thus this book forms a normative project of both explanation and a contribution to further praxis in the fi eld of creative research. Thirdly, I wish to offer readers a set of concepts that can be used both to think creatively about the questions I raise but also to offer political possibilities. x Berry 00 pre x 5/8/08 12:05:41 PREFACE xi Heidegger (2000) called for a more profound interpretation of the epistemology of technology, arguing that technology is a special form of knowledge – a form of truth or disclosure. Here then I would like to explore the extent to which the social practices of the FLOSS groups are introducing a rupture or break with the immediately given and accepted ‘nature’ of technology. That is, rather than abandoning technology, these groups foreground technological approaches to the world and bring the given of technology into fuller consciousness. In a related manner, a politics of code asks fundamental questions about human relationships with complex technologies, technologies whose complexities sometimes exceed the human ability to manage their interconnected parts. Below I examine the activities and discourses of the FLOSS groups’ approach to a ‘politics of code’ and whether they could contribute to such a Heideggerian project of disclosing technology. Much of the literature on the open source movement is scanty theoretically – essentially popular journalism – or takes a particularly liberal approach to the understanding of the subject. Questions regarding the motivations of actors are addressed as individual preferences of groups operating within the sphere of artistic or cultural production and this individualistic outlook informs many rational-choice-oriented approaches to this issue.1 To date a great portion of the literature is heavily concerned with questions of legal theory and intellectual property connected to the idea of the Romantic artist. The Romantic artist is the idea of an original author or auteur, as the French describe ‘artistic’ fi lm directors, who has somehow wrought an original creation from nothing (ex nihilo), which is sometimes considered to be an act of genius. Clearly this liberal and one-dimensional explanation of creativity leaves a lot to be desired; in contrast I argue that creativity requires a social environment to fl ourish.2 By focusing on questions of collective creativity and desire I feel that we are better able to question the notion of the Romantic artist and also to offer the possibility of collective action as a creative moment. The common is a key aspect to thinking in terms of the ways in which a ‘technology of the common’ could Berry 00 pre xi 5/8/08 12:05:41 xii COPY, RIP, BURN raise critical awareness of the collective moment in production. But it also contributes positively to new ways of approaching and applying methods of working, which legitimate and encourage the fl ourishing of social action and political practices. This book also aims to question the assumptions of the ‘information’ or ‘creative’ society. One of the most common of these is the argument that ‘incentivation’ can encourage individual creativity and hence economic growth. Thus the motivation for the artist, musician, designer or writer is explained purely through their desire for profi t; to stimulate their creativity and innovation more intellectual property rights (IPR) legislation is required. The argument for a ‘creative’ economy can therefore be used to cast everyone in the unlikely Thatcherite model of one-dimensional profit-motivated entrepreneurs rather than complex and multifaceted human beings. Additionally, there is built into much of the legislation a bias towards an understanding of creativity through the creative acts of lone genius, singularly creating works out of nothing. But as we must constantly remind ourselves, behind every musician, composer or author there is an army of teachers, friends, peers, producers, editors and managers who all contribute in different ways to the fi nal artefact. No woman or man is an island and creativity is always a collective achievement. There is a tension between the monopolistic granting of property rights in information and the democratic needs to expand the fl ow and access to this information. Copyright and other intellectual property laws seek to restrict access so that only those able and willing to pay might make use of the work. This restriction of access may therefore actually reduce the ability of certain members of society to get the information they require in order to make informed social, economic and political choices and widen the gap between an ‘information rich’ and ‘information poor’. The actions of the free software and open source movement which are predicated on a sharing of both the structural code and the content that sits upon it (i.e. the algorithms and meaning of the code), places it squarely in confl ict with the owners of copyright and other intellectual property rights. It does so particularly when understood in relation to the hugely profi table content industries, Berry 00 pre xii 5/8/08 12:05:41 PREFACE xiii which must be able digitally to restrict distribution and copying in an informational market relying on a notion of scarcity.