The Globalisation of “Open”

Is Creative Commons the right strategy for governing the ownership and distribution of Wikipedia?

cc is a political artifact

What things regulate

Lessig ‘Code’

+litigiousrule of law well est.strong enforcement local demandaccessible legal system -weak enforcementweak complianceinaccessible legal systemltd law-making expertiseforeign demand

+litigiousrule of law well est.strong enforcement local demandaccessible legal system -weak enforcementweak complianceinaccessible legal systemltd law-making expertiseforeign demand

+skilled architects

breaking the code doesn’t result in a losslocal support

-lack of skilled architects

it is easy and cheap to break the code and this

results in a loss

+litigiousrule of law well est.strong enforcement local demandaccessible legal system -weak enforcementweak complianceinaccessible legal systemltd law-making expertiseforeign demand

+skilled architects

breaking the code doesn’t result in a losslocal support

-lack of skilled architects

it is easy and cheap to break the code and this

results in a loss

+competitionhigh demand

+litigiousrule of law well est.strong enforcement local demandaccessible legal system -weak enforcementweak complianceinaccessible legal systemltd law-making expertiseforeign demand

+skilled architects

breaking the code doesn’t result in a losslocal support

-lack of skilled architects

it is easy and cheap to break the code and this

results in a loss

+competitionhigh demand

-lack of competitionlow demand

+litigiousrule of law well est.strong enforcement local demandaccessible legal system -weak enforcementweak complianceinaccessible legal systemltd law-making expertiseforeign demand

+skilled architects

breaking the code doesn’t result in a losslocal support

-lack of skilled architects

it is easy and cheap to break the code and this

results in a loss

+competitionhigh demand

-lack of competitionlow demand

+large, well-developed,

diverse, informed community

+litigiousrule of law well est.strong enforcement local demandaccessible legal system -weak enforcementweak complianceinaccessible legal systemltd law-making expertiseforeign demand

+skilled architects

breaking the code doesn’t result in a losslocal support

-lack of skilled architects

it is easy and cheap to break the code and this

results in a loss

+competitionhigh demand

-lack of competitionlow demand

+large, well-developed,

diverse, informed community

-small, uninformed, homogenous community

Flickr’s ‘Share this’

‘free’

Ecosystems that facilitate sharing

Bloggers, Twitter, science

public domain

CCFlickr’s ‘Share this’

‘free’

Sharing among some, restriction of others

Bloggers, Twitter, science

Governance

• representation;

• resource distribution;

• < formalisation;

• i.e. having less and less room to do radical reformation when it is most necessary to do so.

What are we choosing when we choose CC?

• reinforce copyright law

• reinforce commodification of culture

• reinforce lawyers’ power

• reinforce global disparities

• adopt a system that has developed as far as it will?

choice