The Commons - Networked Politics & Technology Seminar

Networked Politics & Technology Seminar Berkeley 2008-12-06 The Battle Over Bits The Commons: A Culture for Healthy Techno-Politics Mike Linksvayer Creative Commons Photo by asadal · Licensed under CC Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 · http://flickr.com/photos/68242677@N00/2117153416/

Original photo by Brooke Novak · Licensed under CC BY · http://flickr.com/photos/brookenovak/337889974/ I AM NOT A

... and this is a little far afield from a normal CC presentation. The most important (and CC-relevant) takeaway is that building the commons now is critical to the future of techno-politics turning out well ... as opposed to Orwell!

“Napster politics are brutally boring” Lucas Gonze

So let’s talk about a crusade for the soul of techno-politics, not a battle over bits.

Cyber terrorism (Cyber terror war on)

Cyber terrorism (Cyber terror war on) Privacy breaches

Cyber terrorism (Cyber terror war on) Privacy breaches Loss of Generativity

Cyber terrorism (Cyber terror war on) Privacy breaches Loss of Generativity Lock-in

Cyber terrorism (Cyber terror war on) Privacy breaches Loss of Generativity Lock-in Surveillance

Cyber terrorism (Cyber terror war on) Privacy breaches Loss of Generativity Lock-in Surveillance DRM

Cyber terrorism (Cyber terror war on) Privacy breaches Loss of Generativity Lock-in Surveillance DRM Censorship

Cyber terrorism (Cyber terror war on) Privacy breaches Loss of Generativity Lock-in Surveillance DRM Censorship Suppression of innovation

Cyber terrorism (Cyber terror war on) Privacy breaches Loss of Generativity Lock-in Surveillance DRM Censorship Suppression of innovation Electoral fraud

Threat categories Legitimate security issues Protectionism Politics and power Security theater and fear-based responses (driven by all of above, not just legitimate security issues)

Healthy techno-politics Keep same rights online/digitally that we (should anyway) have offline/IRL Permit innovation and participation enabled by digital world even if not possible before Take advantage of (2) like crazy!

How building the commons (free software, free culture, and friends) helps

Security Data shows FLOSS is more secure Security through obscurity doesn’t work FLOSS encourages a heterogeneous computing environment Free software and free culture both allergic to DRM and other mechanisms that sacrifice security to other goals

Protectionism Peer production undermines policy arguments for protecting knowledge industries Free software and free culture both allergic to DRM

Politics and power Free software and culture improve transparency ... and the ability of all to participate Peer production works against concentrated power — doesn’t require concentrated production structures and lowers barriers to entry

Security theater and fear Access to facts mitigates fear and allows rational evaluation of responses Commons work against three previous threats that drive security theater and fear

What about network services? The Commons Lost ? No access to source code of web applications ( none of the four freedoms!) Application, data, content, even identifiers, all available at the whim of service provider Non-transparent, security through obscurity Subject to centralized failure, state meddling

Autonomy in a network services environment Network application providers should publish source code of running application under a free license Collaboratively created content should be available under a free license Private data should be available for on-demand export Possibly most explicit linkage of free software and free culture yet

Network services freedom: early efforts AGPL Franklin Street Declaration Open Software Service Definition Example compliant applications: Wikipedia (!) Identi.ca See http://autonomo.us for ongoing discussion

Some network services open issues Governance of centralized services? To what extent are completely decentralized services required to maintain freedom? Much more experience is required!

Photo by RocketRaccoon · Licensed under CC BY · http://flickr.com/photos/rocketraccoon/227241974/

Nagging question relevant to the development of techno-politics over last ~10 years: To what extent has the attempt to suppress P2P negatively impacted the development of completely decentralized applications, shaped “Web 2.0”, and added to the network services challenge?

Can the success of the (digital) commons alter how we view freedom and power generally?

“The gate that has held the movements for equalization of human beings strictly in a dilemma between ineffectiveness and violence has now been opened. The reason is that we have shifted to a zero marginal cost world. As steel is replaced by software, more and more of the value in society becomes non-rivalrous: it can be held by many without costing anybody more than if it is held by a few.” Eben Moglen

“If we don’t want to live in a jungle, we must change our attitudes. We must start sending the message that a good citizen is one who cooperates when appropriate, not one who is successful at taking from others.” Richard Stallman

What is the future of techno-politics? I don’t know Have a good idea of what we need to do to make it a good future It is truly wonderful that creating free software and free culture has a side effect of facilitating healthy techno-political outcomes

So Create! (and learn/experience so you can teach/recommend free software and free culture when appropriate)

Building the commons is key to the future of healthy network politics Politicians and corporations are unimaginative ... they need to see solutions, or they react in fear A dominant commons makes many closed net scenarios much less likely Presentation Lic ense ... http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Attribution ... Author: Mike Linksvayer; Link: http://creativecommons.org Questions? ... ml@creativecommons.org

The Commons - Networked Politics & Technology Seminar

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