P2P Foundation

Here is an interesting blogpost at the Italian Commons Sense Forum:

““in February 2011 at the International University College of Turin, Gunther Teubner presented an interesting paper in which he provided several interesting suggestions for thinking about the phenomenon of societal constitutionalism.

The Teubner version of “societal constitutionalism” is, of course, imbued with the sociologically-informed cybernetic approach of systems theory, which he is one of the main supporters of. This approach postulates the existence of multiple communicative systems – i.e. autopoietically closed structures of communication – like politics, law, the economy, the mass media, and so on. Each of these structures unfolds and evolves according to its own idiosyncratic “foundational rationality”, encompassing the self-understanding of a system, as well as its understanding of the relationship with other social systems. As a consequence, the presence of as many such “foundational rationalities” as there are social systems accommodates the possibility of radical change of a fundamental, “constitutional” nature in relation to each individual social system.

So, for example, for Teubner it is fundamental to alter the implosive tendencies of the capitalist economy by acting from within. One of the ways this is done is, to quote Teubner himself, through:

- Politicisation of the consumer:… Continue reading »

A contribution by Clay Shirky to the newspaper paywall debate:

Clay Shirky:

“A printed paper was a bundle. A reader who wanted only sports and stock tables bought the same paper as a reader who wanted local and national politics, or recipes and horoscopes. Online, though, that bundle is torn apart, every day, by users who forward each other individual URLs, without regard to front pages or named sections or intended navigation. This unbundling leads to the odd math of web readership — if you rank readers by pages viewed in a month, the largest group by far, between a third and half of them, will visit only a single page. A smaller group will read two pages in a month, a still smaller group will read three, and so on, up to the most active reader, in a group by herself, who will read dozens of pages a day, hundreds in a month.

Against this hugely variable audience behavior, a paywall was all-or-nothing: “If you won’t give us any money, we won’t show you any ads!” Offered this all-or-nothing choice, most readers opted for ‘nothing’; the day they launched their paywall, the Times of London shrank its digital audience from… Continue reading »

Douglas Rushkoff (Author, “Life Inc.”), “Radical Abundance: How We Get Past “Free” and Learn to Exchange Value Again” English and Dutch captions by Martien van Steenbergen:

“Too Big To Know” is a book about how the Internet is changing knowledge, and, in turn, how it is changing us.

Here is an excerpt from an interview of the author conducted by Rebecca J. Rosen:

“In your book, you argue that we are in a new age of “networked knowledge,” meaning that knowledge — ideas, information, wisdom even — has broken out of its physical confines (the pages of a book or the mind of a person) and now exists in a hyperconnected online state. You say that this new structure “feels more natural because the old ideals of knowledge were never realistic.” In what ways does it feel more natural? What were these old ideals of knowledge and in what ways were they unnatural?

We’ve known for a long time that there was more going on in the world than our libraries could contain or our media could show us. We’ve known that experts are not as reliable as they often were made out to be. We’ve known that world is less ready and able to come to rational agreement than we’d been promised. We’ve known much of our codified knowledge is less than perfectly unreliable. We’ve known… Continue reading »

Excerpted from JD Moyer, the owner of a netlabel:

“The music industry still consists of proprietary players (including my company, Loöq Records), but music culture has been open-sourced, and this spirit now pervades the more enlightened aspects of the music industry. Music is radically less expensive to produce (a laptop with good software in capable hands can now compete, in terms of sound quality, with a multi-million dollar studio). For most musicians and producers (and many labels), getting their music heard and appreciated is more important than making money. To this end, artists are willing to share streams or files directly with their peers and fans. Many artists are also willing to share “remix parts” (the source sounds that make up a recording).

Does this reduce the amount of money exchanged? Yes, drastically. While open-source culture is great for the consumer, and even good for the artist in some ways, it’s terrible for the business of selling music.

Capitalism is based on scarcity. In order for the principles of supply and demand and “self-regulating” markets to function as expected, production and distribution channels need to be privately owned and tightly controlled.

Open-source destroys scarcity. When the means of production are free or… Continue reading »

* Article: Rethinking Enclosure: Space, Subjectivity and the Commons. Alex Jeffrey, Colin McFarlane, et al.

(to be published by Antipode)

In the abstract, the authors propose:

“While concepts of “enclosure” and the “commons” are becoming increasingly popular in critical geography, there have been few attempts to think them together. This paper sets out a dialectic of enclosure–commons as a means for thinking through contemporary processes of exclusion, violence and alterity. We examine what is at stake through a geographical reading of enclosure, that is, the processes through which neoliberalism works through—and summons into existence—certain forms of spatiality and subjectivity. In doing so we confront the spatialities of enclosure’s “other”: strategies and practices of commoning which assemble more inclusive, just and sustainable spaces. We examine the materiality of enclosure across a range of sites, from processes of walling to a more substantial assessment of the diverse assemblage of materials and subjectivities drawn into modalities of enclosure. We go on to explore the inscription of enclosure on the human body through an examination of, first, law, and second, biopolitics. In conclusion, we explore the implications of this argument for critical geographical scholarship.”

Excerpts

1.

“Our project is motivated by a desire to… Continue reading »

An assessment of the state of the movement, excerpted from Michael Greenberg:

“Lately, the contest has entered a new phase, with police pushing reporters aside, and sometimes arresting them before a crackdown, in order to avoid a repetition of the kind of scenes of brutality that propelled the movement’s rise when they appeared on YouTube. When police evicted protesters from Zuccotti Park on November 15, journalists, as The New York Times reported, were “herded into a pen out of sight and sound” of the action. At least twenty reporters were arrested, and a CBS News helicopter was ordered to leave the airspace above the park. At a demonstration on December 17 more reporters were handcuffed and arrested. And on New Year’s Eve journalists were physically harassed while trying to cover a protest.

Protesters have paid a considerable price. An earnest, rather mild librarian from North Dakota named Jeremy was bewildered and frightened to have been charged with assaulting an officer—a felony—after police tackled him during a demonstration at the New York Stock Exchange on November 17. “The cop said that when he swung at me he injured his finger.” For weeks a police satellite truck was parked in front… Continue reading »

A European Citizen’s Initiative for a European Charter of the Commons was initiated by the municipality of Naples, with the the first high level technical meeting of jurists taking place recently (in December) at the International University College of Turin.

Introduction:

“The dichotomy of private property and the state, on which the current constitutional tradition is grounded, has proven itself incapable of resisting the distortions produced by more than 20 years of neoliberal order. The outcome has been a global and severe constitutional imbalance, favoring the private sector and specifically corporate interests at the expense of the people.

Massive transfers of common resources from the public to the private sphere are occurring throughout the world, with total disregard of any constitutional guarantees of the public interest, due process, and just compensation. Our democracies are increasingly being jeopardized by collusive state and market actors; government representatives that put the short term profits of individuals and corporations ahead of the interests of the common people.

From Greece to Spain, from Tunisia to Egypt, from Italy to Bolivia, Ecuador, rural India and China, the people are increasingly aware of the need for a different model of globalization. These activists are currently engaged in acts of… Continue reading »

Excerpted from Byrne Hobart:

“Most popular web-based businesses are deflationary. They substitute expensive forms of content consumption for cheap ones, they make it logistically easier to deliver discounts to people who will respond to them, and they create numerous financially cheap forms of social status. As more activity moves on to the web, the main effect on the economy will be broadly lower prices and less need for employment.

This theme was briefly explored in the excellent The Great Stagnation, but the full impact has yet to be realized. A booming Internet sector has an almost universally negative effect on prices:

* The web makes entertainment cheaper: A crummy music experience is available for free, either low-quality music through filesharing, or music interrupted by ads. A great music experience is available for $10 per month via Spotify. Casual music consumers don’t care that much about their experience, and they’re pretty happy with the free product. Heavy music consumers care deeply about their music experience, and almost certainly spent more than $10 per month on it during the pre-Internet days.

And music is hardly the only example. The most pernicious aspect of Internet entertainment is that it’s so… Continue reading »

AJ fisher defines the sensor commons as “A future state whereby we have data available to us, in real time, from a multitude of sensors that are relatively similar in design and method of data acquisition and that data is freely available.”

As a population we are deciding that governments and civic planners no longer have the ability to provide meaningful information at a local level. … the true Sensor Commons, as I see it, we need to have deep engagement with the population as a whole, regardless of technical ability or knowledge. … My definition is not just about “lots of data from lots of sensors” – there is a subtlety to it implied by the “relatively similar in design and method of data acquisition” statement. In order to be useful, we need to ensure we can compare data relatively faithfully across multiple sensors.”

Here’s how he characterizes the 5 requirements of the Sensor Commons.

“I believe there are five critical requirements for getting a Sensor Commons project off the ground and making it a viable endeavour. A Sensor Commons project must:

Gain trust
Become dispersible
Be highly visible
… Continue reading »