I really loved Lawrence Lessig’s Remix. I especially liked his distinction between me-regarding and thee-regarding motivations. Lessig does a good job of describing why and how we contribute to the open internet. We are obviously in a state of flux. Tensions between for-profit and open (some of which profit and some of which do not) projects lead to a number of questions about motivation, sustainability, and fairness.
The problem with motivation is that motivations must be evaluated from a number of perspectives. First, we must consider the motivations of the contributor. What makes a person write scripts to beautify Second Life? I think Lessig does a serviceable job outlining these motivations by distinguishing between community spaces, collaborative spaces, communities, etc. Another consideration, though, is the motivation of the space creator. Lessig uses the Star Wars mashup site as an example. While fans were technically permitted to create derivative works, any works created would be owned by the franchise.
So, here motivation leads to questions of fairness. How much ownership should a fan creator have over derivative works? I get the feeling that fans are on the losing end of this battle. If Lucas and Co. declare widespread ownership and people still create, then what is the motivation to enable freedom of creation? Inevitably, questions of fairness will ultimately lead to questions of sustainability. At what point will fans refuse to create if they are not granted ownership of their works?
Perhaps there is a solution between an open and closed copyright system. If the purpose of copyright according to the Constitution is “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries,” then it seems to me the creators should have rights to their works. The problem, here, is that in mashup culture, we have two types of creators: the original creator and the mashup creator (and sometimes even a mashup of a mashup). The issue is obviously complex. But if we blindly allow mashups (or similar) of all works, then we risk devaluing the original works. Further, there seems to be a sense of entitlement driven by our materialistic culture; I want to use that work, so I should be able to. But if I come up with an idea, is it right for someone else to profit?
I’m not a lawyer, but it seems that recent attempts to create stricter copyright laws stem from the fear that others profiting from a particular creation will ultimately diminish the profitability of the initial work. Personally, I think this is a just concern. I also think that mashups are an important part of social culture as are fan sites. Yet fan sites make money in the form of advertising revenues and are generally building upon work that is currently popular (i.e. Harry Potter), so even the old copyright laws would not allow fans to use the works. The creative commons licensing allows for a variety of options…I especially like the share and remix with attribution but non-commercial purposes. I wonder, though, how this addresses issues of social capital, and what of fan sites that earn money? If social capital is increasing in value, how can that value be attributed to the original author. So, a person can’t make money of another’s work, but they can become famous…are we ok with that? Does this stifle creativity as some claim?
I interpreted some of the open examples cited in Lessig’s text as subtle manipulations of the open culture. Most of the early projects seem to have developed democratically: a free resource for the people by the people. As we move toward more of a hybrid economy, though, we need to be wary of for-profit enterprises looking to exploit the contributions of users willing to contribute for social reasons. While there may be a rise in the value of the social economy, the fiscal economy is still the driving force in American culture. I think as time goes on, we will see far more of these latter examples attempting to enter the market.
Oh, and in case you’re interested, Educause has several podcasts of Lessig: This is a video of his keynote at the 2009 Educause conference. His talk begins at 27:57. I like this version because it has a video of the talk and his slides in the same place. This podcast is an interview that covers much of the same information but is only 30 mins and can be downloaded to your iPod.
Perhaps all this pondering is why I have avoided blogging for a while. I am finally narrowing in on a topic and am preparing to investigate it as a possibility. What I wasn’t prepared for is all the uncertainty I feel. Anyone have one of these? 
My summer classes aren’t exactly over, but with one class down, I actually have some spare time early this summer. I’ve been eager to dive into some fiction, but I had a really hard time selecting a book to read. I finally settled on a book I’ve picked up several times over the past few years but never got around to reading, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I downloaded the sample to my kindle a while back, but couldn’t get through it. I don’t know what made me try again, but I’m glad I did (I’m not usually into thrillers, but this book was engaging and character-driven, and I never got caught up in investigative details). So I spent the past couple of weeks reading the entire trilogy only to find out that the author, Stieg Larsson, died before the books were published, and therefore I will not have the opportunity to read more about the quirky and endearing computer genius, Lisbeth Salander. Crap.
