[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> Rhizome.org Member Agreement

["Mark Dery" <markdery@mindspring.com>]

Steve: No question, we live at a time when hyperlitigious corporations have
perverted copyright law beyond recognition. (Didn't Disney once threatened
to sue, for copyright infringement, a man who had everyone's favorite
talking rodent tattooed on his back?) But there's a quick-and-dirty solution
to the problem you mention. If a non-profit organization like Rhizome, which
I've always assumed is on the side of the angels, wants to archive my
contribution to the living sculpture that is its community, fine and well.
But if it decides to monetize (!) that community, I want a piece of any
revenues that result from the sale of my intellectual contributions to that
community.

In other words, if you never commodify the collective work to which I've
contributed freely, pay me nothing. Or, if you commodify it but only with
the non-profit goal of benefitting the public good, as in your PBS laserdisc
example, pay me nothing. But if you *turn a profit* from the sale of my
commodified words and ideas, I want buck. As one of the wretched of the
earth, also known as freelance writers, this seems self-evident.

M. Dery


----- Original Message -----
From: cisler <cisler@pobox.com>
To: Mark Dery <markdery@mindspring.com>; Nettime <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 11:27 AM
Subject: Re: <nettime> Rhizome.org Member Agreement


>
>
> > From: "Mark Dery" <markdery@mindspring.com>
>
> > It's the last part---"and (iii) reproduce, publish, perform, display,
> > adapt, distribute or otherwise make available Your Content in web sites,
> > books, CD-ROMs or any other form or medium whatsoever, whether now known
> > or as may hereafter be developed"---with its (at least theoretical)
> > potential for generating revenue for Rhizome from the sale of someone
> > else's intellectual property that seems grabby---not to mention weirdly
> > hegemonic, in the good old _New York Times_-ian sense, for a site that
> > wraps itself in the mantle of Mister Destratification, Gilles Deleuze.
>
> I have seen this sort of language used by academic presses, non-profits,
> startups, and anyone else who finds all the horsetrading (i.e. annoying
> negotiation) about rights and permissions to be too time consuming.
>
> One example from the 1990's.  The Public Broadcasting System had a
> critically well received program on Martin Luther King Jr. It was several
> hours long and they wanted to re-purpose it ( a favorite old term of
> multimedia producers) in laser disc (a format that had its ups and downs
in
> the past couple of decades).  As they renogotiated all the scripts,
photos,
> performances with writers, actors, photographers, audio engineers, it
became
> so expensive and drawn out that the new product could not be sold for a
> price that would have been acceptable to schools and other organizations
in
> the target market.  I think it was subsidized partly,and only because of
> that did it get produced.
>

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