Free Culture versus Freetard
Only too frequently debates over the nature of free software and “free culture” degenerate into narrow, futile arguments over the rights of copyright holders, “illegal” file sharing on peer-to-peer networks, proprietary versus open-source software, etc. Such partial concerns obscure and distract from a more important matter, namely the hugely creative and beneficial nature of the emerging free culture in general.
Free culture isn’t about ripping off someone else’s “intellectual property”, neither is it about a generation of youngsters who are growing up with the expectation that expensively produced content should be available at zero cost. These are just temporary issues and concerns, thrown up by the inexorable shift from a world in which most content is permission-based, to one in which most content will be governed by copyleft-style licenses or else is released into the public domain. Free culture is epitomized by innovation and collaboration, it builds networks of people and content, it encourages and facilitates mutual help and support, it leads to the creation of many thousands of open and free collections of knowledge and media, it helps us reclaim data which by rights belongs to us rather than to government or corporations. Far from being all about obtaining the hard work of others for nothing, free culture is instead characterised by giving for nothing, it’s about contributing and collaborating without the expectation of financial reward.
“Giving for nothing” is rhetorical, for in fact people collaborate precisely because they do indeed receive reward. That reward is the resulting network-based ecosystems that build around people, knowledge, media, and software. These ecosystems are thriving, vibrant, and crucially, open. Obvious examples of such ecosystems include the Linux operating system, copyleft governed media, and volunteer created databases such as OpenStreetMap. Free culture would quickly run out of gas if people only ever made withdrawals instead of paying in.
And that last metaphor brings me to another common misunderstanding, that free culture is principally the result of ideology and contrivance, that it is an artificial creation, foisted upon us by techno-idealists and those who oppose capitalism. Clearly, many “practitioners” are aware of what they are engaging in and do so in accordance with their personal beliefs while actively encouraging others to do the same. Some do indeed collaborate out of a sense of duty. However, the real driver for “free culture” is not personal convictions, but its inevitability as a result of the technology we possess and the oversupply of content of all types that has resulted from the use of that technology. Free culture is not primarily a political movement, it’s the natural result of mass ownership of myriad devices that can share data. Such devices have enabled man’s natural propensity to collaborate and share to go exponential!
The great and obvious irony here is that some of the captains of industry and commerce now complaining bitterly about the development of free culture, are among those who sold us the facilitating technology in the first place. Who was it who packed warehouses and e-commerce websites with TCP/IP enabled devices, modems, routers, CD burners, gadgets with infra-red and Bluetooth ports, massive capacity storage devices, wireless cameras, etc, etc? Free culture wasn’t an artificial creation by the likes of techno-utopians, anarchists, anti-globalization protesters and their ilk, it was made inevitable by technology products and many of its key facilitators have been, and remain, those who manufacture and sell those products to the public.
To those who claim that free culture is the enemy of professional information and media, I would point out three things. First, these things are self correcting; if a free mapping service is inaccurate, it will be corrected or else it will be ignored and die, if the advice dispensed on a particular forum is generally poor, the forum will wither, if a free software application doesn’t perform adequately, it will not be used, and so on. Second, where the quality of free information and media is consistently unpolished or sub-standard, opportunities emerge to offer something better, and you can charge those who need the “gold-plated” version for the privilege (if they really need it, they’ll probably pay). Thirdly, quite simply, people are going to have to learn to deal with it, because it’s not going away.
Obviously, the best way to understand what free culture is all about is not to argue about or reiterate the theory (of course), but to look at its manifestations. Free culture is as free culture does. A good starting point is here, the Creative Commoners. This is an inspiring collection of links to people, projects and organizations who are participating in and contributing to free culture. Those who like to use the term “freetard” in anger should look closely at these websites and ask themselves how the individuals behind them can possibly be regarded as destroyers, thieves, or even, as some ludicrous commentators have suggested, as “communists”(1,2).
So finally, free culture is nothing more than, and nothing less than, mankind’s natural propensity to communicate, collaborate and share. It is not a fad, it goes much deeper. Characterising it in narrow terms as a politically motivated cult, or as a commercially damaging movement is missing the big picture, for these things are not of its essence. It is first and foremost a technology-facilitated extension of our normal modes of behaviour, of our normal desires, and this is why it is inevitable, profound and unstoppable.
Tags: coopyright, free culture, Free software, open source
March 17th, 2009 at 7:35 am
[...] http://ralpress.org/2009/03/16/fre…; What’s with the headline? They use words from a Microsoft shill. [...]
March 17th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
[...] Lancefield, Free Culture versus Freetard, Ralpress, March 16, 2009. (Thanks to Glyn Moody.) Excerpt: …Free culture [...]
March 22nd, 2009 at 4:01 am
[...] defense and explanation of free culture, by Roger Lancefield [...]
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:19 pm
[...] CULTURE MANIFESTO: A defense and explanation of free culture, di Roger Lancefield [eng. [...]
June 13th, 2009 at 12:24 am
Free culture is epitomized by innovation and collaboration, if the ppl doing the innovation want to share, otherwise its about driving the digital business model at the content business expense, and providing a excuse for the morally challenged consumer who does what to pay for what they use.
Free culture is fine if those producing wish their produce to be shared for free. Otherwise your providing no more than a philosophical justification for theft…oops..you Freetards don’t like the suggestion your stealing…. it’s copyright infringement, but not being prepared to pay the infringement fine….
Freetards think its not me that being ripped off, so using other people produce without paying is fine, and anyway all artists are filthy rich whores being leeched off by labels, who counter to the freetard pipedream (of theft justification) are mostly all making losses or in decline currently, If their not moving into other areas.
All the whilst the ISP’s and the digital co’s feeds off the music & content industry, and make massive profits without reinvesting in artists. (The whole worldwide record industry turnsover half of what 1 new media company “google” turns over.) But Freetards don’t mind paying the digital conduits of mass theft.
And all the freetards go on about hating RIAA product, but still download RIAA music, whilst ignoring 95% of all the additional “new” music that has been generated by a multitude of people who have been kidded into thinking they can all be in successful bands with average talent and effort, a broadband connection and p2p SW.
RIAA and the multitude of Independent labels, publishers and managements, have always provided a variety of services to artists, and although the exact nature of the role may be changing and combining, I don’t know many artists who want to spend all their time marketing their music ( or whatever other product or services their going to have to sell to make a living) on their computer, doing deals and administrating - because mostly their time is more valuable than that . And so a role has and always exist for music service professionals. its naive and ignorant to think otherwise.
All you freetard that go on about RIAA middlemen ignore those facts, not to mention the laughable concept of cutting out middlemen. Most work in life is in the midst of a chain or services that add value. Good middlemen add value.. most freetards are middlemen themselves.
Very few of the bands credited with being internet stars do it without a traditional working team behind them.
As for the all labels are thieves,and don’t pay artists, well you’ve obviously never tried producing and marketing offerings in an ultra competative market that may have the shelf life of a raw prawn.
It’s you the freetard (as consumer) that mainly wants to listen to what is successful already, and is only to happy to dump an artist between albums or singles, moving on to the next blog hype….. and so you should have that right.
but it does mean that it costs a fortune to get to the stage before you the consumer can be bothered to listen to the music, and that , that investment rarely lasts onto the second LP. Which is why most artist don’t recoup and dont get paid royalties, tho the vast majority get advances to live on, and the promotion necessary to give them a shot at success, where they also make money from live, publishing, and merch.
Meaningful Sponsorship is mainly for v.succesful acts.
Whereas the digital media and programmed freetard contribute little to music, apart from this brand new world, of thieving for everyone, where everyone no matter how untalented has a platform, and most distribution systems are clogged up with average to bad music, and so it far harder for the new genuinely talented to rise above the mire. But new media gets paid.
Those that spout the “let them play live” routine seem oblivious to the fact that all p2p has done is make the 5% of most successful artists even more so, and its harder for everyone else. ask your self how many of the 9 miliion odd acts on Myspace do you expect to get a gig near you any time soon.
Funny how most Freetards who propose free culture mostly don’t produce anything of value themselves. that their prepared to see shared.
To them an artist who may have spent 2 years on their LP has no more worth than 60MB of info to pass round the world. They confuse ability to do something, with whether its right or not.
Self serving hypocrites
June 15th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
freetard wrote:
If you’d bothered to actually read what I wrote you’d have understood that the whole point of my post was to draw a distinction between people that the content industry refers to as “thieves” and “pirates” and those who collaborate and contribute without applying restrictions to the results of, or expecting payment in return for, their work. They do this because they want to, because they enjoy doing it, because of the value inherent in sharing. My post was about these people and the value of their contributions. It was not about people who ignore copyright terms and conditions, and share work against its creators’ wishes.
I use the term “free culture” correctly, to refer to the primarily Internet-based activity of creating and sharing content that is not governed by restrictive licensing conditions. I’m not interested in content that requires a permit to view, copy, and share. I’d be happy if the Internet was entirely free of that type of content as its presence provides an excuse for “big content” to lobby governments to introduce restrictive controls on our use of the Network. In my opinion, the content you are referring to is the tail attempting to wag the much more important dog. It’s a turd in the swimming pool.
Free culture is primarily about content that is free as in speech. I’m sorry if advancements in technology have rendered your once viable business model unfeasible, but adapting to the new realities is something that all in the business are just going to have to have to learn to deal with.
As for Google being a “conduit of theft”, have you taken leave of your senses? If anything, content providers should be paying the search engines, for they (brilliantly) enable potential customers to find what they are looking for with an awesome degree of accuracy and granularity. Search engines are the answer, not the problem, and the Web would be orders of magnitude less useful without them, for all users, not merely buyers and sellers. The ability to copy a music file is down to the nature of digital technology, not search engines. Besides, Google’s profits have little to do with kids sharing their albums on P2P networks. If all music rights holders were able to remove all “illegal” copies of their music from the web tomorrow, the effect on Google’s profits would be utterly negligible. Google and other search engines owe the music industry nothing whatsoever. If anything, some money, at least, should flow to them, not just ad revenue.
If I want to licence code using the GPL, or attach a share-and-share alike licence to a digital image, I’m perfectly within my rights to do that, and vendors of restricted content ranting at me because their business practices are unsustainable in the age of right-click > copy is pointless, for it’s simply not my problem. That may sound harsh, but that’s the way it is. Technology doing a home run around outmoded business practices has no bearing on my perfectly legitimate right to collaborate and share unrestricted content with my friends, family and colleagues, and with anyone else I wish to make it available to. And I’ll be buggered if I’m going to pay a “content tax” in order to prop-up outmoded, self-indulgent and increasingly unfeasible methods of earning a living. Translation: stop railing against digital technology, stop trying to extort money out of Internet users and go and get a proper job, suited for the digital age (e.g. plumbing).
I suggest you “put your bullets where the Indians are” and take your frustrations to the blogs and forums that actually condone and encourage the behaviour that you’re protesting about. Despite my dim view of DRM’d content, I don’t condone or encourage anyone to break the terms of a creator’s licensing conditions. If one doesn’t like the license or copyright restrictions, don’t use the content. Simple really.