Free Culture Research Workshop 2009 took place at Harvard Law School on
October 23, 2009. This one-day workshop was attended by about 50 scholars and
practitioners interested in emerging issues and challenges connected to "Free
Culture" (as exemplified by collaborative production of culture artifacts such
as Wikipedia, and the enabling technologies, legal agreements, and social norms
behind them). The participants necessarily come from different disciplines —
anthropology, economics, law, and information technology, among others — but
have been previously engaged in research and investigation in various aspects
of Free Culture. As such, this workshop provides a rare opportunity for this
diverse group of people to interact and jointly reflect on their findings, to
develop possible research agendas, and to facilitate collaborations. The
workshop agenda, as well as the essays submitted by the participants, are
available at the workshop
website.
The workshop was opened by welcome remarks from the Berkman Center for
Internet & Society, Harvard University, and the NEXA center, Politecnico di
Torino (the main sponsors of the workshop). After a brief opening by Lawrence
Lessig, Jonathan Zittrain facilitated a warm-up session where the participants
introduced themselves. The main part of workshop consisted of three sessions,
each lasted 1½ hours. As there were a large number of participants, no podium
presentation was used, instead each session proceeded by a themed discussion
led by a moderator (who had read all essays related to the theme of the
session). The themes for the three sessions were "Lessons from Practice"
(moderated by Aaron Shaw), "Free Culture and the Marketplace" (moderated by
James Grimmelmann), and "Free Culture in Society" (moderated by Nagla Rizk). A
one-hour wrap-up session was moderated by Giorgos Cheliotis and Elizabeth Stark
held at the end, and was followed by some summary comments from William
Fisher.
Given the conversational nature of the sessions, I can only recall, overly
simplifying and subjective, what I still remember now of my understanding then
of the discussions. The participants' essays at the workshop website are the
definite sources of their viewpoints. (Note that not everyone who had submitted
an essay did come to the workshop.) In the first session, the discussions are
around what are Free Culture practices, and what are (shaping) the current
landscapes of these practices. There is some argument for more quantitative
measurements (e.g., statistics on CC license adaptations), but also about what
are to be measured and how. (Do we recognize every form of Free Culture?)
Issues of governance, in organizations like Creative Commons and in
collaborations for culture productions, are also raised.
For the "Free Culture and the Marketplace" session, I am attracted to the
essays by Bodó Balázs, Judith Donath, James Grimmelmann, and Yuri Takhteyev.
They explore the various "free" factors (as in cost and in expression) in
people's interactions to one another, in group dynamics, and in their
interfaces to relationships established by monetary transactions. My reading is
that the convenient analogy between free software and free culture is not
really satisfactory. In the discussion, I used a Karaoke get-together to
illustrate that free culture is not about free cultural artifacts (i.e.,
duplicating the sound tracks), but more about uncensored cultural practices
(i.e., singing with friends). I wish I had deliberated my
thoughts better.
The last session includes several interesting essays, e.g. by Julie Cohen,
Gabriella Coleman, and Zac Zimmer, which offer legal, political, social, and
even literarily critical views of freedom in the current copyright regime. The
discussions, however, more or less center on whether Free Culture is a social
movement, and if it is, what constitutes this movement, what it aims to change,
and how. My feeling is that there is little agreement on what the Free Culture
movement is (if there is one), as we have yet to fully comprehend what Free
Culture is. I think it is also premature to equal what Creative Commons
licenses can do with what Free Culture is about. But this is just my opinion.
The participants agree, however, that more research shall be done, and ones
shall ask critical research questions.
One of the pleasures in participating in a research workshop like this is to
meet colleagues and friends whom one does not often get to meet face-to-face. I
was very happy to see Shunling Chen (SJD candidate, Harvard Law School), Mike
Linksvayer (VP, Creative Commons), John Wilbanks (VP, Science Commons), and
quite a few Creative Commons jurisdiction project leads at the workshop. At the
morning of October 24, the day after the workshop, CC jurisdiction project
leads and representatives from China Mainland, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Poland,
Singapore, and Taiwan also got together with Diane Cabell (Corporate Counsel,
iCommons), Mike Linksvayer, and Lawrence Lessig. We updated one another about
the status of our jurisdiction projects, and even planned out some joint
projects.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Note: Obligatory trip report, submitted to Academia Sinica in December
2009.
Related note: Jude Yew took some nice
photos about the workshop.
