Copyfarleft
by classless, 26 December 2007
For copyleft to have any revolutionary potential it must be Copyfarleft. It must insist upon workers ownership of the means of production.
In order to do this a license cannot have a single set of terms for all users, but rather must have different rules for different classes. Specifically one set of rules for those who are working within the context of workers ownership and commons based production, and another for those who employ private property and wage labour in production.
A copyfarleft license should make it possible for producers to share freely and to retain the value of their labour product, in otherwords it must be possible for workers to make money by applying their own labour to mutual property, but impossible for owners of private property to make money using wage labour.
Thus under a copyfarleft license a worker-owned printing cooperative could be free to reproduce, distribute, and modify the common stock as they like, but a privately owned publishing company would be prevented from having free access.
Dmytri Kleiner: Copyfarleft, Copyjustright and the Iron Law of Copyright Earnings.
Wednesday 26 December 2007 at 3:42
Obviously I agree.
Makes complete sense.
(in the short term anyway — in the longer term scenario there would be other methods employable and applicable).
Wednesday 26 December 2007 at 11:09
This guy is a clueless as the people behind the copyleft. The copyleft was designed to make programming easier for rich kids going to MIT on daddy’s dime - so that they can get access to information - at the cost that they can never make a cent on their products. You have to be independently wealthy (or have other income) to produce copyleft software.
In the real world, the only effect that copyleft software has is because it’s free as in it costs no money. Some of it isn’t so restricted by it’s license as to be useless (though much is) - any software that you would need to put in your own product that has a full GNU license is useless (except to the wealthy) etc. It will never help a poor person put food on the table.
As for the copyfar“left”, it’s pie in the sky shit to think that you can write software limited for commune (or some such) so wonderful and magical that it will have any effect on lower classes at all.
Better would be to put software source code in the public domain with no god damn restrictions at all, no copy”left” or copyright, so that a little guy programmer can include it in a product he publishes, and so put food on his table even though he couldn’t afford to license commercial software. There are millions and millions of people in a position to be independent instead of wage slaves if they had the right tools, but almost no-one ready to join some worker owned collective / and certainly no one who could survive selling software whose license limited it’s use to worker owned collectives only.
There’s another Iron Law, which is that an employer will be stingy not only with wealth in the form of money, but with the more important, for many people, wealth in the form of time. They will, to the extent they can, steal an employee’s life, expecting work as close to 24 hour a day, 365 days a year as they can, because it’s slightly more efficient. You can see that in countries where their are either no labour laws preventing this or where those laws are not enforced (such as the US or China).
People with programming skills get around this only by not becoming employees in the first place - thus the importance of having free or low cost tools without restrictions.
I’ve worked in companies where people were worked like slaves, slept under their desks and had their marriages ruined, in California. I’ve talked to people in Japan who experienced the same.. It’s not just common, it’s the fucking rule.
Wednesday 26 December 2007 at 11:14
The fact is that no restrictions you could put in a license could possible help the little guy more than hurt him.
The corporation always has the option of buying good software, so you can’t take their advantage away - they always have options.
So the kind of “free” software that helps the lower classes the most is free as in costs no money, that has no restrictions on use. Period, end of subject. Any restrictions at all means that there is some situations (and probably most) where they can’t use the software to survive. Period.
Wednesday 26 December 2007 at 16:16
I think part of the problem here is a continuing failure to appreciate “intellectual” labour as labour. Perhaps Kleiner imagines it would be possible for worker-owned collectives to produce automobiles free of charge to workers in other collectives on the basis of presumed reciprocity from said collectives (for, say, food and shelter) and charge a rent/fee for automobiles to those employee wage labour and private property. If so, all power to him though I cannot say this model has worked terribly successfully in so far as it has been tried.
If, however, copyfarleft is meant as a special case for the production of software - and I would imagine for other supposed intangibles such as music - then I agree with Josh: This looks an awful lot like a socialism for those who are independently wealthy, i.e. my kind of socialism. Less Marx than noblesse oblige, in other words.
Wednesday 26 December 2007 at 20:33
@Josh
I get the impression you’re missing something here. The idea is not to produce exclusively for the zillions of workers’ own cooperatives - that would be non-sense, of course. And you’re right with most of your other remarks regarding copyleft.
This idea, however, is about charging those who charge others, that is, software is supposed to cost the reseller, not the reuser. You do have a point on the problem how to tell them apart, both theoretically and practically.
Anyway, this is not an official party line or something like that, I consider it to be an idea how to make _any_ sense of an existing movement the author is finding himself close to at times - he will, with three of his fellow Venture Communists, talk about “Hacking Ideologies” on this year’s Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin.
Wednesday 26 December 2007 at 22:39
Copyleft licences are liberal reform. They are however exemplary ironizations of the forms of liberal society. Unless you replace the irony with palao-socialist concepts that Marx debunked, Romantic-creative-genius congruent Stakhanovite idealizations of authorship, and confusions of labour with mechanical reproduction. Then you get a self-defeating bit of entryist wank.
This isn’t to say that reclaiming copyleft from the venture-capital-fetishizing logicians of the Web 2.0 bubble and worse isn’t at least an interesting task for soi-disant socialists. But a good heuristic is that if Wired magazine’s Bruce Sterling likes your peer-to-peer Ponzi scheme then you’re probably doing something wrong.
Wednesday 26 December 2007 at 22:53
josh scholar: The copyleft was designed to make programming easier for rich kids going to MIT on daddy’s dime
It was adopted by someone who left a depratment at MIT paid for by DARPA at the height of the cold war. It was adopted as an ethical measure. DARPA’s dimes didn’t pay for that, but they did pay for the development of the technology you are using to post this.
Copyleft makes value available to diverse social ends. These include ends opposed to or at least of no interest to capital.
In the brief moment before capital routes around this damage, socially interesting things can happen. The value that copyleft ironizes is having social impact in the global south and the inner city.
This isn’t about making it easy for rich kids. Rich kids hate copyleft because venture capitalists won’t pay for it.
Wednesday 26 December 2007 at 23:24
A copyfarleft license should make it possible for producers to share freely and to retain the value of their labour product, in other words it must be possible for workers to make money by applying their own labour to mutual property, but impossible for owners of private property to make money using wage labour.
If anyone can think of a way to write a practical license that makes this possible, I’d like to read it. It’s not clear to me how this is possible, just having read the article.
Also I don’t see how a programmer can live off of making software that is immediately owned by the world world, even if it is the world of non-capitalists.
Wednesday 26 December 2007 at 23:28
It was adopted by someone who left a depratment at MIT paid for by DARPA at the height of the cold war. It was adopted as an ethical measure. DARPA’s dimes didn’t pay for that, but they did pay for the development of the technology you are using to post this.
I didn’t mean that as literally as you took it. I didn’t mean that it was literally designed to that end, I meant that it was unconsciously designed by rich kids for the interests of rich kids.
It makes code free as in beer, which makes it useless to a programmer who isn’t already rich.
There was an idea that the ideas would be free, because people could still read the source and use the ideas.
But that turned out to be COMPLETE FUCKING NONSENSE because no one can read very much code. Code is for the computer - and retains its value because it runs not because of any ideas that went into programming it.
Those ideas are useful as words in English on paper, not as code to be read.
Wednesday 26 December 2007 at 23:37
Typo. I meant:
Also I don’t see how a programmer can live off of making software that is immediately owned by the whole world, even if it is the world of non-capitalists.
Thursday 27 December 2007 at 3:03
Ironizing the forms of liberal society? I had not realized this was a Frankfurt School hang-out. I think Marx’ labour theory of value was and is toss but it is nevertheless logically consistent toss. Perhaps the entirety of Marx’ oeuvre might be thought of as a copyleft gift to the world on Engel’s dime (i.e. as an effect of the surplus value of the labour expropriated by Engel’s capital).
Thursday 27 December 2007 at 6:09
Actually, lots of money IS made from copylefted software, much to Stallman’s unhappiness. The GPL was fairly unpopular except among rich kids until a company named Cygnus Technology decided to try out making money by selling support contracts for GNU software. They lasted a long time, meaning there must’ve been at least enough money to pay a rent check or three.
Since then, loads of companies have made money on various business plans involving giving Open Source software away and making money on support and other services.
dirigible wrote:
Copyleft makes value available to diverse social ends. These include ends opposed to or at least of no interest to capital.
There is no such beast as capital. There are many individuals with money who different things. Some invest in Microsoft, EA, and other evil companies. Others like Mark Shuttleworth do things like Ubuntu, which does much to make copylefted code help many, including special initiatives for the people in poor countries.
Rich kids hate copyleft because venture capitalists won’t pay for it.
…I see we’re under the illusion that rich people must all think the same way. Hint: different people think differently.
The VC bit isn’t true, either. Several copyleft-based companies have been venture-funded, including Red Hat Linux, which even went IPO.
Thursday 27 December 2007 at 7:05
until a company named Cygnus Technology decided to try out making money by selling support contracts for GNU software.
I have seen a trend for companies who rely on GNU licensed software to leave it unfinished, poorly documented and hard to use so that companies who use their software have to buy support contracts just to get the code working. It’s an interesting incentive.
Thursday 27 December 2007 at 7:30
Actually to be more fair, open sourced software is usually pretty well documented.
What’s missing (that gives people an incentive to buy service) is easy to use installation and management code.
Thursday 27 December 2007 at 8:32
Better approaches to the whole issue which I know are unfortunately all in German and mostly hard-copy, such as “Copyright & Copyriot” by Sabine Nuss whose latest talk on the matter I reviewed in my German blog: http://www.classless.org/2007/12/14/geistiges-eigentum-und-eigentum-uberhaupt/
Generally, she argues that without questioning the very concept of property, there is nothing immanent about the Free Software thing that leads beyond capitalism.
Thursday 27 December 2007 at 9:51
Looking at how software is used in 3rd world countries:
1. commercial software is pirated - since piracy cost is 0 once the protection is broken.
2. GNU software is used by software developers because it has useable source code - and the licenses completely ignored, another form of piracy.
So both kinds of software is useful to to the poor, in different ways, because poor people are smart enough, desperate enough and far enough form lawyers that they simply ignore the laws and licenses. And good for them.
I have some software a Chinese company. I’d bet a hand that the developers pirated code from GNU licensed libraries - and added significant value of their own too, by the way. The licenses would have been ignored, as I said.
Thursday 27 December 2007 at 23:00
Josh Scholar wrote:
What’s missing (that gives people an incentive to buy service) is easy to use installation and management code.
Since Open Source code has been unfriendly and hard to use well before the profit motive showed up (a tool named sendmail was infamous), I’d argue that that’s because Open Source programmers mostly see UIs as intellectually uninteresting. We HAVE been seeeing more Open Source UI programmers recently, but they’re still harder to find than kernel programmers, IMHO.
I think you’re right about the 3rd World usage - I’m entirely in favor of turning a blind eye.
classless notes:
Generally, she argues that without questioning the very concept of property, there is nothing immanent about the Free Software thing that leads beyond capitalism.
I’m not seeing the problem, unless you see a problem with people having shoes and enough to eat. No, Open Source is realistically about bringing the kind of advantages science enjoys from open publication to programming.
Friday 28 December 2007 at 1:01
The wanky, geeky, super-snobbish bullshit about open source and the like — I’m too old and intelligent to be taken in by this transient modish piss. Wake up you stupid fuckers!
You Hyperabstracting gabblers see some point wanking on about an alliance with Linux heads, Firefox fanatics and the kind of people who think the internet is like, really neat, because, hey, it’s the future, right … I have already got my coat you fucking tossers. Come and get your techno-determinism crap here!
Anyone else got a clue what these perfect examples of tosswittery are on about?
Fuck me — I was nearly taken in by the “jargon of authenticity”. Creating an aura that makes the reader seemingly experience a non-existent actuality. Fuckers!
“Just as the slogans of rugged individualism are politically useful to large trusts in society seeking exemption from social control, so in mass culture the rhetoric of individuality, by imposing patterns for collective imitation, subverts the very principle to which it gives lip service”.
Carry on experiencing your non-existent actuality techno-heads. You lot crack me up so you do. (Eclipse of Reason, Horkheimer)
PS. The Frankfurt School references are for Flea. Kiss kiss.
Friday 28 December 2007 at 2:31
What an odd feeling it is to realize that I actually won Will over.
Saturday 29 December 2007 at 1:30
I ‘won myself’ over you fucking dick. I didn’t even read your pissing wank. Life is too short as it is for that.
Saturday 29 December 2007 at 1:41
Thanks. The world is back to normal.
By the way, the abbreviation for your attitude is:
tl;dr “too long; didn’t read”
Saturday 29 December 2007 at 2:23
‘Little dick’ (without the quote marks) is the abbreviation for your crap. Fuck off pigshit brain.
Will delete anything I see by you from now on. Back to normal here in other words.
Saturday 29 December 2007 at 3:52
[deleted — you’re banned].
Tuesday 1 January 2008 at 18:21
John Scholar wrote, “certainly no one who could survive selling software whose license limited it’s use to worker owned collectives only.”
Software should be developed for use by members of workers collective who require this software for further production, not for sale, this software becomes a common stock available to other peer producers who also require simular software.
The question posed by copyfarleft is rather should /non/ collective organization be given free use as they are currently under copyleft?
Flea, “I cannot say this model has worked terribly successfully in so far as it has been tried” is an example of a “Argument from Incredulity” fallacy. Times change, epoch-defining changes such as advances in telecommuncations and transportation have created possibilities for new social relations, these cerainly must be discussed before you simply dismiss them out of hand.
Apparently, If Bruce Sterling wrote 1+1=2 on his blog, that would be enough for dirigible to conclude that was probably worng.
You can find some other text here:
http://www.telekommunisten.net/venture-communism
Some of the topics mentioned in other comments from classless and others are covered. Feedback is very welcome, especialy from those who prefer discussion to posturing, which sadly does not describe many of the remarks posted here so far.
BTW, classless, if you are responsible for some of the stickers I found at CCC, nice work.
Cheers.
Wednesday 2 January 2008 at 10:35
“The question posed by copyfarleft is rather should /non/ collective organization be given free use as they are currently under copyleft?”. This is a particularly stupid question, however portentously intoned. It hides the question “should collective organizations be given commercial use of non-collective organizations’ assets as they are currently under copyleft?” Answering “no” cuts off copyleft’s nose to spite capital’s face. That is posturing indeed, of the most adolescent and ill-considered kind.
Apparently, if Sterling blogged that 2+2=5 Kleiner would conclude that this was probably rihgt. And if Sterling posted that The Customer Is Always Right, Kleiner would identify himself as a customer.
Don’t be seduced by Telekommunisten’s confections.
Monday 7 January 2008 at 18:21
Dirigible, the answer to your question:
“should collective organizations be given commercial use of non-collective organizations’ assets as they are currently under copyleft?”
Is moot in the case of media assets, as “use” in this case means “circulate,” not “used in production” as is the case in Software. How do you imagine Copyleft gives collective organization use of non collective media assets, i.e. movies, music, etc? Do you have some examples?
I do not dispute that Copyleft is effective for software, the topic of the essay is artistic production, not software.
Also, I have not drawn any conclusion from the fact that Sterling has or has not blogged about something, that is apparently a component of your analytical framework, as proved by your own comments.
Cheers.