How Creative "Commonists" rocked Argentina

LAST WEEK the folks at the Creative Commons Foundation headed by its founder -Stanford Law Professor Dr. Lawrence Lessig- and Duke Law professor James Boyle descended upon Argentina for a presentation at the local Sheraton in Buenos Aires. Sponsored by the OSDE foundation -most of the time identified with by the general public with medical matters-, and Telefonica-owned local portal Terra among others, it was aptly titled "Between the Public and the Private: common goods in the Information Age", and of course, the INQ was there. This report is delivered to you a bit late courtesy of my now-smashed-to-pieces-with-a-hammer analogue tape recorder.

Lawrence Lessig interviewed by the folks at Terra who sponsored the event

Over the course of the three and a half hours that the event lasted, I -along with a full auditorium of between 1,500 and 2,000 locals and more people following the webcast over the Net- had the privilege to listen to Mr. Boyd and Mr. Lessig, explaining their view of "what's wrong" with the current approach to intellectual property, "piracy" and copyright law. Being Law professors, both know what they're talking about, and of course, they didn't just diagnose the problem but also proposed their personal solution, which is the embrace (by artists and content creators) of the Creative Commons licences, a "Middle of the Road" or 'Third Way' between the approach of "all rights reserved" in the current copyright law, and the "no rights reserved" of the 'Public Domain'. Both Mr. Boyd and Mr. Lessig should be praised and hailed for making such a complex subject like intellectual property and its pitfalls -as well as their proposed solution- accessible and understandable by the general population, not only computer geeks like me.

Their presentation was dynamic enough to not only prevent people from falling asleep, but also to be entertaining, making use of plenty of music and video clips, irony, and references to the "bad guys" of the IP wars, that is, the abuses of copyright law by current content owners, film studios and corporations. It was at times very funny (click for a short MP3 audio clip), winning the applause and laughs from the audience - more than half of which followed the event using simultaneous translation. Of course, the RIAA, the MPAA the lawyers and other juggernauts currently waging the legal and religious "IP wars" wouldn't like their speech a single bit: if every artist and content creator embraces more flexible licences like CC, then the people who built their political or lawyer careers based on fear, lawsuits, and the prosecution of the little guys would quickly end up without a job.

Prof. Lessig, local journalist Nelson Castro, Mr. Boyle, and Ms. Fontt from Chile

Lessig started his speech by comparing the scenario of the past, with analogue content and "passive" consumers of culture, with the scenario of this age, where consumers can be active "remixers" of culture thanks today's digital technology, which allows to mix-and-match different pieces and create new derivative works. Yet he was very clear on the point that while he thought the system "is wrong" and "needs reform" it doesn't mean that he or Creative Commons supports piracy of copyrighted works in any way. What they are advocating for is the voluntarily change by artists and content creators to the CC licences. Or as he puts it, a "voluntary revolution" by content creators to change the system but on a private basis [ audio].

Media corporations, lawmakers and even U.S. trade representatives got a quite deserved rap from Lessig, as he described the current "extremism climate" [ click for audio] in the IP debate in the U.S. of A. that in his view makes the chances of legal reforms close to zero "at least in the next ten years".

A Full Auditorium follows the presentation

There were plenty of tragic and/or comical "horror stories" given as examples of the current copyright madness/idiocy, some of which apparently appear on a book titled "Hollywood's war against the Digital Generation", a title which I've added to my wish list after Lessig's mention. One case in point: Disney's refusal to grant permission for the use of small clips to a father wishing to edit his children's home birthday video for private use, someone who dared to -or some could say he was naive or silly enough- to ask the Corporation for its blessing. Another humorous anecdote involved a documentary maker who in one of his film scenes recorded a crowd, and at some point a mobile phone ringed... with Rocky theme ringtone. Of course the owners of the Rocky movie copyrights were willing to license the 3 seconds long clip to the documentary maker for the low price of... ten thousand greenbacks. The choice was to cut the scene, or pay $10,000 bucks. [ audio].

James Boyle, member of the CC board and Law Professor at Duke

James Boyle from CC, who's also a member of the Centre for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke spoke in the second part of the presentation, and tackled the more complex issues of the politics and economic implications of the Creative Commons, using the two projection screens for simultaneous english-and-spanish slideshows. I learned, for instance, that Yahoo is offering a version of its search engine tailored to restrict searches and results among content tagged as and published under the Creative Commons licence. While Lessig provided the laughs and the food for thought, Boyle's presentation was more academic, but not less interesting. For instance he made quite clear that Creative Commons licences not only benefits consumers and artists - that is, audio-visual "entertainment" content - but also scientists, students and researchers, particularly in developing countries where access to scientific research commercial publications is expensive. Worth mentioning were the charts showing the impact of restrictive licences on R&D and innovation, as well as a series of World Maps showing the evolution over the years of the countries where Creative Commons licences are available.

Not just wishful thinking, the guys did their homework...

But it takes more than goodwill to embrace CC, in order for such licences to be legally enforceable in each country, it also involves having the licences rewritten for each country's legal system and peculiarities, as well as establishing local branches to promote and manage such efforts. In South America, Brazil embraced and got their own Creative Commons licences about a year ago in an event kick started by Gilberto Gil, musician and the Brazilian Minister of Culture; Chileans got their own Creative Commons less than one month ago and Argentina is expected to have its own licence and local managing organization complete around September, when Lessig and his troupe will be back down here for the formal launch event.

Gabriela Fontt recites the Chilean experience

After Boyle, academic researcher Gabriela Fontt from Chile explained -quite frankly in convoluted and redundant way, or perhaps I just wanted her to conclude so I could speak to Lessig- the challenges and opportunities of CC, and the work they had to do in Chile with the help of the public university ( UChile) to write their own licence in local legalese. Her presentation was monotonous and lacked the dynamic and humour of Lessig's and Boyle's. I think most university professors need to read a book or two, to make their presentations more engaging and less like to enraging dictation with 10 minutes of babbling and reading per slide. But don't get me wrong: Ms. Fontt's speech probably makes an interesting classroom reading material.

Argentine education minister Filmus

Finally, the journey ended with a brief appearance and speech by the local Education Minister, Daniel Filmus, who, contrary to his last name, is not related with Film Festivals or the movie industry. *wink* *wink*. He arrived at the last minute but seemed to have some grasp of what was said before his arrival and some vague yet correct concept of the issues at stake. He talked about the importance of CC and offered all his support, whatever that means, and then proceeded to talk about the importance of public education and bridging the gap not only to the digital age but also to the Gutemberg Age, that is, also giving every child down here the chance to gain literacy. Not-so-expectedly for me, his speech got nods of approval from Mr. Boyle, and a sustained round of applause from the attendance. Too bad that the civil servants at the Education Ministry didn't bother to put his speech online *nudge* *nudge*.

The " Creative Commonists" seem to be taking the world by storm, and they certainly seem to have made an impact on the local audience, including myself. I will be eagerly awaiting their visit next September for the launch of the local CC licence, which is getting worked on with the help of the OSDE foundation. µ

See Also

Frequently Asked Questions about Creative Commons licences
The Hippie Professor and his PDF ebook
Yahoo's Creative Commons search (beta)
March 2005: UK gets its own Creative Commons
Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation
PBS' CC licenced NerdTV steers clear of Microsoft's Media Juggernaut
Creative "Communists"?: is Bill scared?
Bill scared of DRM going the way of the dodo?.
Hard Working George (sample of mixed-content released under CC licence)