Re: <nettime> a free letter to cultural institutions

[Florian Cramer <fcramer@pleintekst.nl>]

I disagree with this letter since I am working for a small cultural venue
(WORM in Rotterdam) myself and see a discrepancy between good intentions
and not-so-good practical consequences.

First of all: the release of work as free culture (according to the
standards of freedomdefined.org or the FSF Free Software Definition) should
be intrinsically motivated and a decision of those who created the work. It
should not something forced upon by an institution/venue which would then
use its institutional power to force upon modalities of distribution - i.e.
you can't play/exhibit/work here if your work isn't released under a free
license. It is not upon an institution to dictate ways of distribution
outside that institution. If, for example, a punk band would decide that it
is not releasing its recordings under a free license - for which it might
have sound political arguments -, it would, under your model, be banned
from all punk venues to perform. This would boil down to the creation and
enforcement of purity laws, the typical knee-jerk reflex of the radical
left and trap into which it is running into again and again.

To clarify: At WORM, we have fostered, (co-)hosted and co-instigated a
whole range of free culture projects, such as the Hotglue and now SuperGlue
web site creation system, the Libre Graphics Research Unit, the Free?!
conference last fall, a number of Crypto Parties; our office computers run
on GNU/Linux and our streaming server streams Ogg Vorbis.

But we also don't think that it is forbidden if an underground band sells
its self-made small edition LP after a concert with no whatsoever free
license because it can't live from the kind of artists' fees we pay.

Florian



On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 11:17 PM, ozgur k. <ozgur.k@httpdot.net> wrote:

> a free letter to cultural institutions,
>
> please do not fund/exhibit/distribute/promote any non-free cultural
> works.(see freedomdefined.org for the definition of free cultural
> works)
>
> please approach your audience as peers and give them the freedom to
> build on what you make them experience.
 <...>


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