Talk:Response to Two Economies

There's no reason to spend so much time speculating on Lessig's motivations or the philosophical crisis that this has introduced. There's a really simple response to the two economies buried in there and it goes something like this:

"Read closely, Lessig seems to be arguing against using permissive licenses in favor of NC! That's a pretty silly position if you think about free software examples or an ultimate goal to, "make more things more free." Defending the use of NC is one thing, (still suspect, IMHO), but not if it's going to happen at the expense a public domain! In these terms, the ridiculousness of Lessig's position is pretty easy to understand." -- User:Benjamin Mako Hill

I'm not happy with that reduction of the argument, simply because I don't agree with the FSF line on "freedom". I'm sympathetic with Lessig's aim to commercialise copyleft in areas that aren't as easy as with software, and for my real creative freedom depends as much on the ability as the right to pursue cultural activities. From a strategic point of view, it's also not very new to call Lessig out on his support for NC (which, let's face it, CC has promoted almost exclusively from day one), and it won't convince him if we talk about free software. In my original draft I wanted to focus on the underlying flaws in his argument and the alienating effect they'll have, rather than their friction with the free software community. -- Tom Chance

I think you're responding to an argument that I didn't make. I'm not suggesting that you argue against the idea of commercializing creative, NC clauses, my own definition of freedom or that you talk about software. I'm saying that arguing against permissive licenses is silly. Saying, "use of NC licenses is one thing." Saying "use NC licenses over permissive licenses" is in effect calling for a ghettoization of the free culture community and less freedom overall. You can do the second without doing the former. There's no reason to bring free software into this. -- User:Benjamin Mako Hill

OK, let me try again :-/ What I mean to say is that I don't think fewer restrictions necessarily equals more freedom. The ghetto issue is an old chestnut, and heavily promoting NC isn't helping. But Lessig's new move is to suggest that NC should be CC's defining strategy, that there are two distinct economies and CC should defend an amateur one without harming the ability of amateurs to go professional. That's a big change in his position, one that I'm interested in tackling without bringing up the existing issues with ghettoisation and NC's flaws. It's possible that cultural freedom would be best enlarged with a single, relatively restrictive copyright license, just so long as that license maps onto reality, which Lessig is failing to recognise. -- Tom Chance