The previous year saw far too much fighting over who gets to define
and control the term
free culture. The biggest problem, in my
opinion, is that these fights conflate a very important discussion
about the goals of a set of nascent social movements -- or the lack
thereof -- with much less important issues of semantics, definitions,
and control over terms. The term is being used in a way that describes
a whole lot of projects I support and participate in fully -- and a
few I don't. And I think that's OK.
When Erik M ller and I launched the
Free Cultural Works Definition
(at the time, the
Free Content and Expression Definition), we
struggled to find a good term for the works that we wanted to
liberate. We thought about using the terms content, expression,
knowledge, information, art, data and communication but each word
seemed to exclude an important body of works or producers. Few
musicians we knew thought of their productions as "content" while few
encyclopedia writers did not.
The term we liked most was
culture: it defines a very broad set of
practice and has very positive connotations. Of course, others had
already been using the term
free culture so we spent some reading up
on the term and talking to the people most closely associated with it.
Originally, the term seems to have its
roots in the book
Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. I reread the
book to get an idea for exactly what Lessig meant when he used the
term but, upon reaching the end, I found myself without a good
answer. The book's index included a promising entry for "Free culture,
defined" which pointed to a short section in the preface:
A free culture is not a culture without property; it is not a culture
in which artists don't get paid. A culture without property, or in
which creators can't get paid is anarchy, not freedom. Anarchy is not
what I advance here.
Instead, the free culture that I defend in this book is a balance
between anarchy and control. (emphasis mine)
Framed by a negative definition of what
free culture is not, Lessig's
definition describes the broad space between two unattainable extremes.
This resulting ambiguity is fully intended: Lessig has not only spoken
out against
my particular suggestion but against
any definition
and the process of offering
ex cathedra definitions or goals
altogether .
In personal conversations about
our definition, Lessig was
initially very supportive. In fact, it was Lessig who introduced Erik
and I to each other and suggested that we work together. What Lessig
did disagree with us on however, was calling the definition the
Free
Culture Definition. I think that Lessig felt some sense of ownership
of the term and felt that he and others had defined it and been using
it in a way that was broader and incompatible with the definition we
were proposing and with
any definition of the type of we were
suggesting.
Early on,
Lessig blessed a group of students to create a
Free
Culture student movement. Most active now in
Harvard Free
Culture and
Free Culture NYU and but in a handful of other
places as well, these groups have been involved in everything from the
promotion of
transgressive approaches to IP, to
speech
bubbles, to
anti-DRM work, to
protecting the right of cereal
restaurants to operate. When Erik and I suggested to this group
that they might benefit from adopting the
Free Cultural Works
Definition as a set of explicit ideals or goals for their movement,
the larger part of the coalition soundly rejected the idea. Like
Lessig, they wanted
free culture to refer to wide variety of projects
and did not feel good about describing any work by sympathetic parties
as "non-ideal."
Erik and I were faced with two choices: we could call our definition
the
Free Culture Definition and in effect engage in a power struggle
with Lessig and with some portion of the free culture student movement
or we could pick another term. While we don't like the alternatives as
much as
free culture, we didn't have a lot of trouble deciding that
going with a term like
free cultural work or
free content and
expression was the better choice.
This is why I am a little worried about the recently announced
UK-based
Free Culture Foundation. I have nothing but respect for
the founders (Matt Lee, Tom Chance, and Rob Myers) and trust them to
create the type of free culture organization that I would like to
see. I am very much looking forward to working closely with them on
this project in the future. They seem likely to choose a set of goals
and adopt a set of strategies in line with the ones I've argued for.
But in that my goals and strategies have run into opposition among
many of the most visible people using the term
free culture in the
past, that's also why I'm a little worried.
SJ Klein and I were recently saying that its time to start naming
organizations and projects in this area using only words in dead
languages. That way, we can side-step the (unimportant) semantic
arguments over who gets to control existing terms and focus on the
real goal of building stronger social movements, setting goals that
sound as unthreatening to each other as they actually are, and
building better tools. Without semantic arguments in our way, we'll
be able stronger to build coalitions and work together in all the ways
we should be.
