From: owner-nettime-l-digest@bbs.thing.net
(nettime-l-digest)
Date: July
24, 2005 9:09:56 AM EDT
To: nettime-l-digest@bbs.thing.net
Subject: nettime-l-digest V1 #1621
Reply-To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
nettime-l-digest Sunday, July 24
2005
Volume 01 : Number 1621
Table of Contents:
RE:
<nettime> Notes for a Liberated Computer Language
<nettime> Orlowski, On Creativity, Computers and Copyright
<nettime> hierarchy vs. rhizome
Re:
<nettime> Notes for a Liberated Computer Language
<nettime> FW: Happy Birthday! Open Letter to BBC Outlook
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 12:42:28 -0400
From: "Jon Ippolito" <ji@GUGGENHEIM.ORG>
Subject: RE: <nettime> Notes for a Liberated Computer
Language
In today's climate, this kind of thing is likely to land you both
artist
residencies in Guantanamo Bay, courtesy of the Fatherland Security
Department.
The best precedent for you is probably CMU computer scientist Dave
Touretzky's translation of a DVD-cracking algorithm into a
fictional
computer language. As one of the contributions to his marvelous
Gallery
of CSS Descramblers, this fictional C-like version of Jon Lech
Johansen's "illegal" deCSS code helped compel a judge to
rule that code
is a form of speech like other forms of written expression.
Unfortunately, since the court still held that such algorithms if
functional could be proscribed as "dangerous speech,"
Touretzky's legal
standing is to this day unclear. If someone writes a compiler for
his
language, will Touretzky then be retroactively liable for
violating the
Digital Millenium Copyright Act?
To cover himself, Touretzky began his fictional code with the
comment,
"Please do not write a compiler or interpreter for this
language." Maybe
you should attach a license to your "Liberated Computer
Language"
requiring that such language accompany any derivative program
based on
your original code ;)
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/new-language.txt
jon
- -----Original Message-----
From: nettime-l-request@bbs.thing.net on behalf of Alexander
Galloway
and Eugene Thacker
Sent: Wed 7/20/2005 12:06 PM
To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
Subject: <nettime> Notes for a Liberated Computer Language
backdoor TARGET.
Installs a backdoor in the machine specified in TARGET. If no
target is
provided, the backdoor is installed in the local machine.
bandwidth AMOUNT.
Enlarges or reduces bandwidth by AMOUNT.
<...>
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------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 11:11:18 +0200
From: Soenke Zehle <soenke.zehle@web.de>
Subject: <nettime> Orlowski, On Creativity, Computers and
Copyright
"Nor is something special simply because it's passed through
a DMA bus, or a Cisco
router." Well, if you take the Cisco-in-China debate, passage
through a Cisco
router is becoming a special privilege indeed. More to the pt: not
(simply) an
attack on the CC logic, but trying to shift the discussion from
copyright (back) to
compensation issues, Soenke
Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/21/creativity/
On Creativity, Computers and Copyright
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco (andrew.orlowski at
theregister.co.uk)
Published Thursday 21st July 2005 01:43 GMT
"We'd run out of ironic things to say" - Neil Tennant,
The Pet Shop Boys
The fur is flying. John C Dvorak thinks Creative Commons licenses
are a solution
looking for a problem. What is the point? he asks. Advocates of
the scheme say he's
ignored an important detail. At this stage in the debate, both
parties are in
danger of talking right past each other, so in the best El Reg
tradition, let us
try to bring harmony where there is discord.
The debate is much more interesting than Yet Another Argument
About Copyright
because it reveals how people value human creativity, and that's
something we're
all entitled to have a say in. It also reveals what people really
mean when they
claim their position is "good for society" - and again,
it's our obligation when
someone with this purpose pops up to shake them down vigorously,
and see what rolls
out of their trousers. In this case there is much merit on both
sides of the
exchange.
Creative Commons is an intriguing experiment to granulize the
rights a creator has
over his or her work, and to formalize what today is largely
spontaneous and
informal. The first point is made repeatedly by Dvorak's critics,
but having
digested 300 comments on Slashdot, almost of all of which are
critical, I haven't
seen a genuine attempt to answer his broader question. How is it
good for us - for
all of us? Will the trains run on time? Will babies be fed? Will
artists be
compensated for their talents? As a defense of a very
self-consciously idealistic
"movement" this is surprisingly inadequate, and supports
his argument that it's
more pose than platform.
Behind the scheme is the recognition of a very real problem. The
permission
mechanisms by which rights holders grant or deny the reproduction
of artistic works
haven't kept pace with technology. It's now very easy to reproduce
an image or a
piece of music, but it remains just as easy, or difficult, to get
the permission to
use it. We now have an abundance of material available to us, they
ask, so can't we
do more with it?
It's a reasonable question, and Creative Commons is an attempt to
answer it.
Let's look closer at what it is. Creative Commons applies the
principle of the GPL
to creative works. The GPL is a license based on strong copyright
law which allows
the author to say how a product is used. Under a GPL license, you must agree to
disclose the source code. Under a Creative Commons license, and
they're
proliferating like bunny rabbits, the author can also grant or
permit certain
rights.
And here the problems begin. Engineering recipes, or source code,
aren't the same
as works of art. They express different things; people expect
different things of
them. You expect different things of a Billie Holliday record than
a source code
compiler. We'll go into much greater depth on this in a moment.
But listen to the Creative Commons advocates and you'll notice a
few patterns
emerge. Narratives of control and subjugation proliferate. A
1984-style dystopia is
just around the corner, they fear. Many Creative Commons
evangelists are quite
other-wordly computer utopians, memorably satirized by Garry
Trudeau in the
character of Jimmy Ray Thudpucker. This is no bad thing in itself, but a sense of
the broader perspective is lost. The Creative Commons people are
inclined to
indulge in a kind of technological determinism, and the value and
necessity of
compensating gifted creative people is neglected. As we shall see,
this leads to
the quite unpleasant misanthropy and snobbery common in
techno-utopian circles.
Let's remind ourselves of a dirty and quite inconvenient little
secret. Copyright's
Dirty Secret
From at least one
perspective, this is a good time to be alive. We have an
abundance of affordable cultural goods from around the world.
Better communications
have all but removed some hideous inequities. It's no longer the
case, for example,
that Northern Soul artists were dying in poverty ignorant of the
fact that
thousands of people were celebrating their music on the other side
of the Atlantic
at all night parties. So the current structures, for all their
problems, benefit
both the artists and the public.
As we've pointed out before, storage and transmission technologies
are always in
flux, and the social mechanisms we invent around technology flex
and morph to fit.
The principle of copyright seems to endure as stubbornly as
capitalism did for
Marx, who characterized it as being in a state of permanent and
terminal crisis.
That's not a bad way to think about copyright: some boundary case
somewhere is
always threatening to break the agreement for good. Outside of
some of the
internet's echo chambers, however, the sky isn't falling, and
there's a broad
popular consensus in favor of the principle itself. We just haven't arrived at the
social mechanism yet; although, there's a consensus emerging on
what it should
roughly look like.
Computer networks, in their many forms, aren't going to go away.
I've had hundreds of conversations with people in the music
business, from artists
to promoters to recording rights holders, and the subject of the
inequity of
copyright has only been raised twice. I didn't meet anyone who
didn't have a sense
of injustice about some or several parts of the business - phrases
like "thieves"
and "greedy bastards" came up a lot - but when copyright
puts food on the table,
it's hard to argue it's at fault.
So what we have is a compensation crisis, not a copyright crisis.
The only people who insist otherwise seem to be the computer
lobbyists. And here
the argument begins to look less utopian than it does a case of
special pleading.
The system is broken, they plead, because their particular
boundary condition is
under stress.
I'm really sorry to have prick this bubble: many people want to
Get Their War On
over copyright. Things looked much more perilous for rights
holders in the 1920s
with the advent of radio, but things, as they do, worked out. And
I can think of
other copyright injustices today that are as bad or worse than
having to make a
phone call to a rights holder, and here's one in particular.
Two years ago a film biography of the poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia
Plath appeared.
The audience for this movie in its various forms was millions -
and it didn't
contain a single line of poetry, as both the Hughes and Plath
literary estates
refused permission. What, you might wonder, was the point of a
film about two poets
that contained none of their poetry?
Writers have a much harder time clearing rights from literary
estates than do
budding film makers, a favorite example of the Creative Commons
evangelicals. It's
simply another boundary that's under stress. There's a tremendous
consensus too
that copyright terms have been extended to the detriment of the
public domain. The
internet enthusiasts have fought this case, but lost so badly that
the US Supreme
Court is unlikely to return to the issue for many years.
The social contract that's endured for over a hundred years is
really simple. The
rights holders can't control the flow of culture - but they can
make money off it,
and this is willingly given with various provisos. As long as they
don't get too
greedy, and charge too much; as long as they continue to invest in
the storage and
transmission technologies that make it more accessible; and most
importantly if
they ensure that the money goes round fairly: then everyone's
pretty much happy.
So why the dystopia and high anxiety?
I've written as much about DRM as anyone in the past five years -
and some of the
discoveries have been quite nasty. But I don't believe, in the
end, that the sky
will fall. This faith is less based on heroic hackers riding to
the rescue, and
rather more because the people who put the DRM on music don't
think it will work
either. We can expect a Prohibition-length era of lousy value for
money songs and
great inconvenience, but privately, rights holders know that if
their business is
to have a future, it's going to be based on finding and promoting
talent - not on
controlling you.
To really understand why such themes of control, paranoia and
domination occur with
such people, and to understand Creative Commons thinking, we have
to look into the
mind of the techno-utopian. Ugh, you're thinking ... and no, you
don't have to
dress up as a Star Trek character to go there. But the psychology
is really
interesting, and turns out to be quite different to how the rest
of us see the
world. The strange death of remix culture
If you listen to the special pleading from a Commons supporter,
the end of world
really is at hand.
"There's a class of speech that's not possible at all without
P2P technologies,"
the Commons' most prominent evangelist, Lawrence Lessig, told the
Library of
Congress recently. They're confident that an abundance of tools
will lead to an
abundance of creativity. This is a materialistic perspective which
takes no account
of history. Culture simply follows what's available to it. Much of
the most
life-affirming music we have is a product of two cultures that
have lived through
tragic histories: Jewish and African.
Or in a coda that Orson Welles wrote for himself, as Harry Lime in
The Third Man-
"In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias they had
warfare, terror, murder,
bloodshed - but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and
the Renaissance.
In Switzerland, they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of
democracy and peace,
and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
Even more troubling than the equation of material abundance and
creativity, is the
Commons supporters' idea of creativity itself.
One of the main motivations behind Creative Commons is creating a
public domain
repository of works that can be re-used. This seems an odd time to
proselytize
"Remix Culture", which has been on the retreat for ten
years now.
But for a certain kind of computer nerd, for whom life is mediated
through the
phosphorous portal of the notebook LCD, it's only just begun.
In recent years, we've seen a return to authenticity, and a
resounding rejection of
smart aleckery and the ironic. Forms such as folk have lost their
stigma, and
full-on, early 70s rock is the most popular form of music for
teenage English kids.
There's nothing ironic about getting drunk, jumping and down, and
falling over, so
this is all very healthy.
People simply ran out of patience with jumpy, glitchy
cross cuts.
It's true that mash-ups have been a fun fad, but it's equally true
that the
pigopolists have done little to stop this flagrant copyright abuse
- it's a novelty
form that only increases appreciation of the original work of art.
And originality
is something computer evangelists have a really hard time getting
to grips with. At
times they only seem able to appreciate art
"ironically", which is not appreciation
at all, but a form of snobbery.
Your neurosis is not a lifestyle
"Remix Culture" isn't so much a celebration of culture
as it is of the machines
that make it possible.
It's also based on a lie, or if we're being charitable, a wilful
mis-reading of
history. All art borrows and recontextualizes, and it's impossible
to keep up with
this even say in one field, on a daily basis. In this avalanche of mutating
cultural forms, no computer is required. We hear musicians borrow a rythmn, steal
a style, and cover a song, all within the successful copyright
framework as it
stands today. By tying recontextualization to one very specific
activity, the
Commons supporters are either being intellectually dishonest, or
showing the
limitations of their own experience.
(I'm sorry guys, but if you want a shiny new computer, just go
right ahead and buy
one. You don't need to pose as Che Guevara on the way - just
handover the money.).
Computer evangelists find all this difficult to grasp, because
their world is
limited by what the computer can do. So Lessig is undoubtedly
sincere when he says
that an abundance of technology leads to creativity, and
restrictions on technology
lead to cultural improvrishment. For him and people like him, it's
probably true.
But the rest of us don't define ourselves by the limitations of
computer systems or
computer networks.
It's a crippled view of human creativity. Beethoven doesn't need
to be re-mixed -
he needs a good orchestra. And Billie Holliday isn't enhanced by
overlaying some
beats. Nor is something special simply because it's passed through
a DMA bus, or a
Cisco router. History in the end judges what endures and what doesn't,
so our
responsibility - and it's such a burden! - is to celebrate what's
good.
Ay, Carumba! Chileans get the Creative Commons makeover
As Dvorak points out, license proliferation is a very literal
solution to what is
already informal, human and spontaneous. The Mash Up kids just
went ahead and,
er... mashed, and they haven't had to pay dearly for their
juxtapositions, as
rights holders have recognized the benefits. Want to use a sample?
Go ahead and use
it. With a nudge and a wink, you'll probably get away with it. If
you reach number
one with that sample, expect to hear from the original artist.
This isn't so hard
to understand.
So where does creativity come from? Here's Lessig again, this time
from a Slashdot
interview from 2001:
"When the power of creativity has been granted to a much
wider range of creators
because of a change in technology the law of yesterday no longer
makes sense."
Well, if he means that the law must adapt to keep pace with the
social acceptance
of technology, then he's quite correct: you'll have noticed there
are no mules on
the freeways these days. But the rationale he cites - with our
emphasis added - is
the key. For Larry, the gift of creativity really emanates from
the machine.
Although he grew up in the 1970s, punk must have passed him by
completely; the
punks proved all you needed was three chords and some imagination.
Meanwhile the Creative Commons has produced its own confirmation
of these problems.
The repository itself is a testament to the art that's produced
when unoriginal
people are given computers. In fact, with a few exceptions, it's
very hard to find
anything creative there at all. It's hard not to think of it as
the largest Clip
Art library in the world, but one to which all good women and men
must donate.
Two years ago I heard a similar call to arms, when a conference
presenter urged
everyone in the audience to devote half an hour each day to
writing a weblog.
That's half an hour less playing with the kids, taking the dog for
a walk, or
reading a book, but, he insisted, "half an hour isn't much to
give up".
I was reminded of John F Kennedy's inaugural address: "Ask
not what the internet
can do for me, but what I can do for the internet"!
Defenders of the licensing approach say it simply adds to the
range of choices an
artist has available to them, which is quite true. But it's also
slightly
disingenuous to urge performers to forego the commercial option
that might lift
them out of poverty. The great Ray Charles died too late to
discuss this with a
Creative Commons enthusiast, but I'd love to have heard his
response.
Perhaps they could have minted a special tin cup, with a CC logo,
to get him
started.
Why do the computer evangelists have such a hard time recognizing
originality, when
for the rest of us, our lives can be transformed in one sublime
instant by hearing
it?
And why the reluctance to think about social agreements that
reward the gifted
people who give us such pleasure?
Is it, as Jaron Lanier suggests, a fear of subjective experience?
It's certainly
cultural deafness on a deep and debilitating level.
Why the recourse to mechanism - the need to have every T crossed,
every i dotted,
and a license for every possible occasion?
Why the lack of patience or understanding with art forms that
require those skills,
such as following linear narratives? Parents with Asperger's
children will
recognize the symptoms instantly.
If this particular revolution requires us to adopt such a view of
the world, then
it has little prospect of success. Creative Commons is a cute
pose, but the
problems it seeks to remedy go unsolved. Finding a way to reward
creators, which
the project doesn't even attempt to address, remains more urgent
as ever. ¨
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------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 14:34:00 -0700
From: lotu5 <lotu5@resist.ca>
Subject: <nettime> hierarchy vs. rhizome
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050721230444882
Rhizome: Guerrilla Media, Swarming and Asymmetric Politics in the
21st
Century
Jeff Vail
Philosopher Philip Bobbitt, in his seminal work "The Shield
of
Achilles", proposed that the 20th century was defined by the
ideological
conflicts between socialism, fascism and capitalism. These
competing
ideologies purported to offer the hierarchal control structure
most
suited to meeting the needs of the people. In the course of this
conflict, asymmetric warfare -- the use of non-hierarchal
structures to
successfully confront hierarchy -- was refined. The conflicts of
the 20th
century forged current theories of rhizome -- the name for
non-hierarchal,
asymmetrical and networked patterns of organization. Empowered by
a
revolution in communication technology and the spread of
democratic
freedoms, the conflicts of the 21st century will be defined not by
past
political ideologies, but by a much more fundamental, structural
conflict: hierarchy vs. rhizome.
- --
encrypted mail preferred // gpg key id 0x250E12BF
//
http://deleteTheBorder.org
http://radioActiveradio.org
http://sandiego.indymedia.org
http://organicCollective.org
# distributed via
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# <nettime> is
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# collaborative text
filtering and cultural politics of the nets
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------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 9:31:38 -0500
From: Bill Spornitz <spornitz@mts.net>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Notes for a Liberated Computer
Language
Well, this is the problem, isn't it? These are cute, but really
-> US
people: you need the following command more than any of these
pseudohackerisms:
heal SOCIETY.
Reduces division, mediates intransigence, soothes violence,
enhances community.
justathot
- -b
From: Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker
<galloway@nyu.edu>
Date: 2005/07/20 Wed AM 11:06:37 CDT
To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
Subject: <nettime> Notes for a Liberated Computer Language
backdoor TARGET.
Installs a backdoor in the machine specified in TARGET. If no
target is
provided, the backdoor is installed in the local machine.
...
# distributed via
<nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is
a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text
filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info:
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------------------------------
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 16:35:22 +0800
From: Fatima Lasay <digiteer@ispx.com.ph>
Subject: <nettime> FW: Happy Birthday! Open Letter to BBC
Outlook
Dear nettimers,
From
http://korakora.org/weblog/index.php/journal/2005/07/18/happy_birthday
A forum on "collaborative practices" (among others) soon
to take place, if
interested,
http://kurokuro.korakora.org/
Regards,
Fatima
- -----
Dear Outlook (<mailto:outlook@bbc.co.uk>outlook@bbc.co.uk),
Yesterday I went to a birthday party for a 26 year old in
metro-Manila.
Ella is a student nurse -and most of her young friends are nursing
students. Nothing special about that, perhaps -except for the fact
that she
already has a degree in digital communication -and is now studying
nursing
.in order to get a visa for Canada.
Her brother is also approaching his final year as a student nurse.
He is a
film maker -with a degree in business management -but is also
studying to
get a visa for Canada. Their older brother is not studying nursing
-but he
is applying for a Canadian visa. Two of the remaning siblings are
already
in Canada and one has not yet met the immigration requirements.
Soon, five
out of six children from an entire generation in one family will
have
emigrated to Canada.
Getting a Canadian visa is for people here perhaps somewhat
similar to
British parents getting their child into one of the more popular
preparatory schools. The visa process takes several years -and so
one has
to start early -even before one graduates. Canada seems to be the
top
choice -simply because they are the most welcoming (and therefore
the
easiest to get into) -and of course family connections (in this
family
orientated country) also help. The word is that getting a job in
Britain
requires prior experience -and so this automatically disqualifies
it
(whatever other conditions might apply). Here the kids seem
to move
directly from being a student to being a practicing nurse in
Canada.
The drain on the country must be enormous. Not only is it losing
those who
would naturally become nurses here. Doctors and dentists and a
whole range
of other professionals are retraining to join the overseas brain
drain. The
Filipino education system is effectively subsidizing the world
market for
care-givers. In the meantime, local politicians go abroad for
medical
treatment.
With so many kids emigrating -who will look after their parents?
However, one should not be fooled into thinking these people are
innocent
and helpless victims. They are well educated and intelligent
people who are
maximizing their personal potential as best as they can within the
system
they are presented with. Ella has just had a letter published in a
local
newspaper -challenging the widow of ex-presidential candidate Poe
to put
her money where her mouth is and, instead of simply exploiting the
current
presidential crisis for her own personal ends, actually do
something useful
to solve the problems confronting this country. Ellia's brother is
planning
a film based on his experiences as a student nurse. Previously
developed
skills are not abandoned for the sake of a new career on a foreign
continent -they become interwoven with new skills -which in turn
increases
their future potential.
Clearly, the tragic loss for the Philippines is a great gain for
the
Canadians -but, in a world in which everything is supposed to be
inter-connected and which that which goes around comes around -can
the west
really afford to keep sucking other countries dry?
Surely, one day the worm will turn -and when that happens, can we then
trully claim that we have not sown whatever the whilwind will reap
for us.....
Yours sincerely,
Trevor Batten
- -Korakora- Knowledge, Technology, Autonomy -
http://www.korakora.org/
- -Collaboration Space- http://balikatan.korakora.org/
- -Discussion Group- http://kurokuro.korakora.org/
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------------------------------
End of nettime-l-digest V1 #1621
********************************