[p2p-research] Non digital commons a lot more complicated than Free Software

[Samuel Rose]

On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 2:06 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton
<dennis.hamilton at acm.org> wrote:
>
> I add these remarks as a reminder that the treatment of IP is not so
> black-and-white and the situation has always been mixed, although the
> proportions alter over time and among different communities of interest.
> Then there are commoditization, complements, and externalities to consider.
>
> I am not making a pro-IP argument, simply addressing the historical
> situation.  I am, nevertheless, suspicious of claims that IP (and other
> property) rights are confirmed to be always innovation-detrimental.  The
> landscape seems too diverse for that claim to stand unchallenged.
>
>  - Dennis
>

I agree that it is extremely valuable to know the history that you are
describing.

The conditions of the beginning of the internet, and networked
computers and software, seem to me to have arisen mostly from
companies that had transitioned into a "modernist" culture and
worldview around the middle of the last century. There are still many
artifacts of this time period right here in Michigan, USA where I am
located (the design approach that some call "modernism" had a
significant amount of it's roots right here).

There's no doubt that in the 1950's, 1960's and into the 1970's that
this approach yielded a massive amount of innovation in a very short
amount of time. At that time, everyone in this part of the world still
largely held a world-view that if you wanted to develop a technology,
you would patent it (actually, the majority probably still see it this
way). And, most people probably operated under the assumption that
basic infrastructure was better made and maintained by large
companies, with many specialized departments.

Now, I believe we are seeing a breakdown of those assumptions in the
minds of people, and not just by a small but vocal niche of
counter-cultural people. Economic collapse *does* equal "industrial
era and modernism collapse", in my opinion. It happens a few minds and
communities at a time.

Nothing has changed about IP itself and it's usefulness as a vehicle
to drive innovation. However, people are finding that for instance the
amount of resources, time and energy from themselves and their
communities to create and maintain intellectual property rights for
the exclusive use of a relative few, in some cases reciprocates far
back less than what they are putting into it (sometimes in exchange
they are losing mental/physical health, welfare, freedom, shared
natural resources, etc due to the demands of companies that create
wealth off of IP and exclusive rights). In some cases, the price of
operating in what I am calling "modernist" ways can be very high.

-- 
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Sam Rose
Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation
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"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
ambition." - Carl Sagan