Uploading to CAS

I believe the term ‘gift economy’ was coined by Lewis Hyde in ‘The Gift’ (1979) - a very important book, though not helped by its (original) subtitle ‘Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property’! He has since written a very good follow-on - ‘Common as Air’ (2010), subtitled ‘Revolution, Art and Ownerwhip’ - which is clearer. This quote from the flyleaf sets it up well:

In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ address during a march for voting rights on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Thirty years later his son registered the speech and made it private property, even though much of it is comprised of words written by Thomas Jefferson, a man who believed that the land grab of knowledge was at odds with the development of civil society.

I am minded of the lovely quotation from Jefferson:

“He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.”

As teachers I think we all understand and uphold this principle. But there is no shortage of people wanting to ‘land grab’ ideas and knowledge.

It is lovely to see the discussion coming from this small blog that I have written. I never would have written this however I was asked by someone from CAS and I was in so many minds of writting it or not however I am so glad that I have. It is great to read and reflect on your comments.

I have loved learning more of the history about copyright and intellectual property @Richard_Pawson

Here’s to more contirbutions to the ecosystem

Exactly. I call it the “CAS gift economy”.

CAS is not a pay-for-service organisation, like the RAC or AA (good though those organisations may be). Instead, CAS is a community, in which we each bring our own gifts, experience, software, lesson plans, ideas; and we share, for free, in the gifts that others bring. It is very like the open-source moment that Richard describes, which has been so successful in the software world. (I myself participate in the open source community around the Glasgow Haskell Compiler. This open source project is 35 years old, and still going strong.)

The big challenge that gift economies face is the tragedy of the commons. CAS will flourish if (and only if) we all contribute to it. As our strapline goes: there is no “them”, there is only us.

So a big thank you, @tlund-1!

Thanks for writing and sharing the blog Thomas. @Richard_Pawson I love this reply (tempted to steal those anecdotes and claim them as my own…)
One of things I’ve always liked about CAS is how it gives everyone a platform to be able to create, share, publish, discuss and learn - thank you both!

This was until I properly discovered Creative Commons…

It was nice to read this, Thomas. For me too, learning about the Creative Commons - together with related movements such as the Free Software Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Open Source movement - was a life-changing ‘moment’ (that took a few years!).

I feel privileged to have met several of the pioneers of these movements, including Lawrence Lessig (CC), Richard Stallman (FSF), and John Perry Barlow (EFF - and former lyricist for The Grateful Dead). Lessig was one of the best speakers I have every heard, and his several books (especially The Future of Ideas) were real eye-openers. I now have quite a library of books all relating to the broad theme of ‘copyleft’. One of the main things I learned from Lessig in particular was how the concepts of copyright, patent, trademark (only recently brought together under the banner of ‘intellectual property rights’) have evolved over history, to the extent that they would be unrecognisable to their pioneers.

For example, the introduction of copyright and patent protecion did not relfect a recognition that an author/composer/inventor had a natural right to a monopoly in their work. It was a pragmatic trade off. The state would grant the author/composer/inventor a limited (originally 14 years) monopoly, in return for which the grantee had to give something back that would benefit the public. For copyright that meant that the grantee had to provide books to the public libraries, where anyone could read them for free (and that was how most people did read them). To be granted a patent, the inventor had to disclose exactly how their invention worked (which is why some innovators today refuse to apply for patents - so they can keep their knowledge secret).

Over time, the legislation has changed, all in favour of the author/inventor/composer (or, more realistically, the publishers and corporations that make the money) and at the expense of the public. Copyright (at least for a ‘literary’ work) is now for the life of the author plus 70 years. In the USA the term gets extended every few years, driven by intense lobbying from Disney Corp and others. In the memorable words of Lessig:

‘Because Disney thinks no-one should be allowed to do to Disney what Disney did to Hans Christian Andersen!’

Stallman created GNU, which laid all the groundwork for what would eventually become Linux when Linus Torvalds wrote the kernal - and Stallman is quite agrieved that that the whole ensemble of tools came to be known by the latter name and not the former. Indeed he is quite an irrascible, albeit very interesting individual. I sat next to him for dinner once and made the mistake of referring to his commitment to open source - which resulted in a long harangue from him about how ‘open source’ was an ‘evil’ distortion of the ideas of (his) ‘free software’ movement! It reminded me of that scene from Life of Brian, where the Judean People’s Front are arguing with the People’s Front of Judea, until one pleads with them to stop this infighting and unite against the common enemy - to which they all chorus ‘the Popular Front of Judea!’

The ideas of ‘copyleft’ apply to all fields of ideas. I am proud that our field - Computer Science - is at the forefront of it. Even just 30 years ago, if I had been chatting with other software developers down at the pub, and someone mentioned the new idea they had come up with, the response of the group would typically have been ‘how are you going to protect it?’ (software patents being in their infancy, and even copyright being substantially untested). Today, if I met some developers down the pub (less common!) and one discussed a new idea they had had, the reaction of many other developers would be ‘we assume you are going to open source that so we can all use it?’ That’s an extraordinary societal change. I’m glad to read that you are a convert, too, Thomas.

(Sorry for the ‘lecture’ - as usual, once I start I find it hard to stop )