Líneas de investigación
Proyectos en Curso
Proyectos Anteriores
siguenos en:
Encuentros Copyleft Critical discussions on intellectual property [Málaga 2006]
Critical discussions on intellectual property [Málaga 2006] |
|
- Cordination: Organisers of the Critical Discussions on Intellectual Property in Malaga
PRESENTATIONPRESENTATION
Back in 2003, at the squatted social centre Laboratorio 03 in Madrid, we began to bring all these questions to the fore at a key moment in the public debate, with experiences and projects, whilst advocating the right to access to culture and, equally important, participation in its construction. Thanks to the Nomadic University, we came into contact with collaborators from Creative Commons (CC)1 (responsible for the migration to free software in Brazil), the Wu Ming literary collective (a group of writers who make their work available for copying), experts on biopiracy, university researchers who post their findings on the Internet, and many of you. In March, as the Enduring Freedom operation buried Iraqis under its missiles, we became aware that the management organisations, big producers, and cultural proprietors, and the media, had started preparing their arsenal: they intended to impose a royalty fee on CDs and DVDs and were threatening to do the same with hard disks. They created alarm about the feared hackers and their experiments with wi-fi networks and freeware, whilst criminalising file sharing through P2P systems, and exerting pressure to push for directives to establish the patentability of software and impose a royalty fee on public libraries for doing what they do best: offering the free dissemination of culture. We are well aware of the power and ferocity with which these organisations try to restrain knowledge and the distribution of the common wealth that lies within the culture which we share and modify on a daily basis. Few could fail to notice that their gigantism increasingly stands on feet of clay and that is precisely for that reason that they use aggressive tactics which are radically indifferent to the fatally historic impact they can have on our culture. Neither should we underestimate the increasing power of the worldwide trend that champions free culture and free public access to creative wealth: more than 8 million works have now been licensed by CC; an increasing number of centres and public administrations from across the world (including Andalusia) advocate the use of free software; film directors like Michael Moore and the creators of Hay motivo publicise the fact that they are using P2P networks to disseminate their works; publishing companies like Traficantes de Sueños, Acuarela, and Atrapasueños demonstrate that posting their books on the Net benefits both internet users and their printed published material; and today we can celebrate Brussels' rejection of the Directive on software patentability. Evidently these positive results, which are of considerable significance, are the result of a lengthy process of discussion and collective effort generated by the daily work carried out in cultural production and association via the virtual or local networks in which we are involved, and in specific conferences (held initially in Madrid, then a year later in Barcelona and a brief presentation in Malaga, and last year in Donosti). These initiatives have provided us with an element which will be essential to any ambitious initiative: the continuity of a process that encourages mutual knowledge, the exchange of information, experience, interests and projects. It is a process that prompts discussion and the formulation of new battles (the so called P2P-fightsharing2) whilst giving us the opportunity to map the paths that we have taken so far and will continue to take in the future. In the past few years, this journey has given us the opportunity of finding like-minded fellow travellers in institutions, cultural organisations and other entities related to social and artistic fields, such as UNIA arteypensamiento. Thus, this period has been marked by a generous symbiosis between our respective paths and origins (areas that may appear entirely different at first glance - hackers, the literary, the legal, the academic, the artistic, and the scientific worlds) which has led to many cooperation initiatives. We regard these initiatives as mutually enriching and, above all, see them as instigators of debate and culture related conflicts which we cannot ignore in our day to day activities. In this respect, Lawrence Lessig, the founder of CC, and one of the most learned experts on the issue of the copyright on the Internet, expressed himself in forthright terms in the first edition of Barcelona's Copyfight. According to him, culture has become a battlefield in which the moguls of the entertainment industry and the media are waging an unprecedented war against new technology, creativity, and the public in general. He sees this war as being resolved in as little as five years. After that, we will either have taken a historic step back towards fossilisation and the commercial domination of culture or we will have laid the foundations for creation and open knowledge in this new era. As the Group organising the discussions in Malaga we believe that, quoting John Perry Barlow, the moment has come to act as "good forebears" and not shrink from this decisive battle to liberate culture. This is the essential purpose of this new edition of critical discussions on intellectual property which are to be held in Malaga. "Creativity is best defended by its sharing"
____________
PROGRAMMEPROGRAMME Thursday 9 March 2006
· 18:00 h.
· 20:00 h.
· 21:30 h.
· 12:00 h.
· 17:00 h.
· 17:00 h.
· 18:30 h.
· 20:00 h.
· 21:30 h.
· 10:30 h.
· 10:30 h.
· 12:00 h.
· 17:00 h.
· 18:30 h.
· 20:00 h.
· 21:30 h.
· 10:30 h.
· 12:00 h. VENUES
Archivo Municipal de Málaga
Ateneo de Málaga
Centro Cultural Provincial de la Diputación
de Málaga
Centro Social-Casa de Iniciativas 1.5 (CS-CI 1.5)
Instituto de Estudios Portuarios
Sede Fundación SOLITEC
Fundación Picasso-Casa Natal
PARTICIPANTSPARTICIPANTS
GA, member of Hacklab Metabolik (Bilbao), works on audiovisual productions
and the development of Cinelerra.
|
||
![Critical discussions on intellectual property [Málaga 2006]](images/stories/estetica/estetica09_07.jpg "Critical discussions on intellectual property [Málaga 2006]")
Every day, millions of digital files circulate through decentralised networks.
Thousands of people cooperate freely, defying the narrow logic of cultural
controllers by using digital technology to compress, distribute, and reproduce
data at negligible costs. Likewise, the mass media generates large amounts
of discussion and confusing or simply stereotyped images associated to
buzz concepts like piracy, intellectual property, hackers, royalties,
etc... There can be no doubt that we are facing a major social litigation
whose significance lies in the fact that it concerns concepts as important
as the circulation of ideas, the different types of copyright, and the
free access to public assets and creative sources.
