Open Source Concepts for Art?

Introduction

Probably the most interesting thing going on on the www right now is the discussion about intellectual property and digital copyrights. This text is meant to give a first glance at the issue and to start a discussion about how such movements could be related to art, as well as to encourage a copyleft approach for artistic production.

First, you will find a short history of the Free Software/Open Source movement, which in our opinion was the root and at the same time the model for the new approaches to this issue. Following that, you will find a short introduction to the copyright battle between the music/movie industry and companies like Napster and their users.

We will also have a quick look at some more general economic issues and finally we will offer some philosophical input. Then we will examine briefly those aspects which are important for art, give a few examples of work done in accordance with such concepts and present licenses of interest.


The Free Software/Open Source Movement

Let’s start with a few definitions. Many people are confused about what Free Software and Open Source Software is and about the difference between the two.

Free Software: is Software in which the source code is not hidden and which is published under a special licence, that allows you to modify the code, publish modified versions of it and freely distribute copies of the original or of the modified software. What this license does not allow, is to put a copyright of your own on any of the copies/versions or to use parts of the code for copyrighted production.

Open Source: is mainly the same as Free Software with one difference: the licence is not quite as restrictive. It can be combined with other licenses, also with more proprietary ones. 

Before the big commercialisation of software production had begun, the source code of programms used not to be hidden. It was normal to share, reuse and modify the code as seemed necessary. This is the manner in which Richard Stallman and his colleagues were working at the MIT artificial intelligence lab in the seventies.
But in the early eighties the expanding software companies started to hide the source code and to put licences on their software which restricted the users rights and allowed them to fight piracy. This meant a lot of problems for the MIT hackers because they were not allowed anymore to do any improving or bugfixing. Simultaneously, the software companies began to hire away most of the hackers from the MIT AI Lab and the peacefull code sharing community disappeared.
When Richard Stallman found himself all alone, he made a decision. Instead of working for a software company which produces proprietary software and restricts the users’ rights, he prefered to look for a way how to make such a community possible again. The most basic thing needed was an operating system, that would be licensed for free use. That’s how the GNU project was born. The goal was a UNIX-like but free operating system. But there was a lot of work to be done. First of all, a free compiler and a free development enviroment were needed, and so he started with writing that.
The idea spread and soon a whole community grew, working on different parts of the operating system and sharing their results with everyone interested. At the time, the internet was not something very common, not even in the USA and that’s why Stallman used to make copies on floppy discs and sell them. This was a first step towards a software distributing buisness with Free Software. At the same time also the GPL (general public license) with a copyleft approach was created. This license puts a copyright on the product, but then adds an extra license, which allows free use, distribution (for free or charging a fee) and modification, but not a restriction of the users’ rights guaranteed by the original licese. This means that you cannot make any changes and then put your copyright on it. Nor can you do this if you use only parts of the code. Even adding a free program to a system with non-free stuff is not allowed, because the end product (including the free part) would not be free, which again amounts to restricting the users’ rights.
In the beginning of the nineties the GNU system was almost ready, only the kernel was missing. Linus Thorvalds, a student at the Helsinki University at the time, wrote a UNIX compatible kernel which he called Linux and which, toghether with GNU, formed the GNU/Linux operating system.
Since then, Linux has grown to become a serious competition to etablished  operating systems. The idea of free software spread with it. This also meant that now, different approaches existed. Suddenly the community started to have problems with incompatible licenses. The name Free Software was critisized too, because it could be taken as free in the sense of gratis. Finally the movement got known under the name of Open Source which is used by the public as a general term for “software with accessible source code”.

If you are interessted in a more detailed history you’ll find a text by Richard Stallman here:  http://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html


The Copyright Battle

As the copyright battle is closely related to developments in technology, we would like to start with some short explanations about the most important ones.

Napster is a serverbased peer to peer service. The user can search for media files and up- or download them from a compfortable interface.

Gnutella is basicly the same services as Napster, but without a central server. Every client is a server at the same time and the users are directly connected with each other.

Freenet is an internet-independant, highly encrypted protocol for file sharing. The files are stored on the users’ computers, therefore it is not easy to locate them.

When the mp3 file format was introduced in the mid nineties it became possible to transfer digitalized music over the web, in acceptable quality. People started to share music via the www as before they used to do with tapes. It was also a intresting option for “bedroom producers” to reache a wider public. Soon several companies like for exapmle mp3.com emerged, who offered userfriendly portals for music exchange. Allready then the potential for piracy of this technology was discussed and became quite a hot topic the moment Napster appeared.
In a very short time Napster had become the web’s most important file sharing community and it was possible to find just any kind of music on the server, even of the copyrighted kind. That is when the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) got alarmed. Suddenly a lot of money was at stake, so they launched a serie of lawsuits against Napster and similar companies. But there were too many similar services on the web and the music loving hacker comunity was allready working on alternative technologies, like gnutella or freenet. While Napster is designed for mp3 files these other technologies accept various file formats and consequently the first movies appeared on the web. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) naturally reacted, but as these technologies don’t use a server nor have a company behind them, the MPAA had no other possibility than to prepare to go after individuall users, ISPs and finally also hackers. Maybe the most famous case was about Jon Johansen´s DeCSS program, that decrypts DVD’s for Linux.
The law that is applied in most of these cases is the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), a new and very controversially discussed law.
While etablished artists’ reactions range between supporting the movement, like for example Chuck D (Public Enemy), and fighting it fiercely, like Metallica, who first sued Napster and now are even going after individual users, newcomers, in contrast often see in it a real chance. Many alternative and independent musicians have already adapted to this evolution and see publishing over the web as an important possibility to get known.
These musicians are often represented by webbased Labels with a totally different approach to music distribution and copyright. Especially the electronic music scene, which went through a similar discussion when sampling became a widespread technique in music producition, seems not to have many difficulties adapting.

If you are interested in different technologies used for file sharing you will find more information here:


http://www.therecordindustry.com/record-filesharinglisting.htm

Economical aspects

In the Copyright disscussion one thing has become very clear: It is all about money. Besides sueing everyone, the RIAA also applies a second strategy, which actually seems to work out a lot better: The Major Labels are forming alliences and buying up the New Technology start ups, their former enemies. Napster got bought by Bertelsmann and mp3.com by Vivendi Universal. Finally the New Technolgy companies, claiming to defend their customers rights are after exactly the same thing as the major enterprises: Revenue. Once again the private user is the great looser in this game.
The sad thing about nowadays capitalism is that the governements adapt the law to the industry’s interests only, instead of guarding their citizens rights. No representatives of interests of customers get invited to official hearings about copyright laws. Years of lobbying and financial power have made it easy for the Industry to win any lawsuit.
Since the disscussion only has begun, the role of the public is not clear at all. Primarily many artists (musicians) are very concerned about the piracy issue, as they fear to loose their income. This is a lot different to the hacker’s community, which doesn’t seem to care about money at all. In the software buisness the things also appear in a very different light.
For years the software industry was very sure to control the market (especially Microsoft with it’s monopole), and they didn’t care at all what was going on in the Open Source movement. Linux grew strong and gained a market shares. Companies like Red Hat are earning good money selling Linux for individual use, and, more important, the new operating system is beginning to become appriciated as cheep and good alternative for company use. In recent years application producers started to addapt their software to the new plattform. The Open Source Apache server is allready the widest used server on the web.
The Software industry was forced to react in defense. And since attac is the best kind of defense, many companies (i.e. IBM) started to open the source code of their products. Not only did it seem very useful to have a whole community of people debugging and improving your product for free, it was also an opportunity to adapt the ideas a little, to create what is called “customer faith”. By working with their own licences which, unlike GPL, allow combinations with proprietary software, these comapnies managed to create dependencies, for example by using proprietary libraries (collections of basic functions used in the code) in “opensourced” sofware. Not only does it oblige users to buy those libraries, if they want to use the product, but also keeps them from using Free Software, as both can’t be combined.

But in spite of the commercial success of Open Source/Free Software, the big question remains the same: is it possible to earn a living without Copyright?
Our research produced the following possibilities for the hacker:
-the most important and widespread way to earn money for a Free Software community contribuitor seems to bee a job in the industry. Typically, most of the hackers work on Free Software as some kind of hobby in their spare time.
- all kinds of software compilations can be of comercail significance, everything from a home-printed CD to the neat box on sale in a shop, which contains not only ready-to-install Linux but also manuals etc.
-many companies make money by offering services, primarily support, which is  quite common on the software market.
-attempts exist to find other ways of paying those, who actually do all the work, namely the hackers. But foundations for example, which collect donations from users, do not pay out in most cases, because of the administrative costs, while at the same time it is difficult to get hold of all the contributing hackers.It seems another sensible idea to involve publishing houses. Hackers send in their code and the publisher offers it on the web as a source code as well as a shop-ready package. The revenue from the packages then can be distributed to the no longer anonymous authors.
-Indiviedual solutions do also exist. One copyright holder is actually known to have adapted his Free Software application for customers needs and he made money by selling such a customization.

For the artist (musician) it seems harder to secure an income:
- as usual the priority is to become famous. The definition of ‘famous’ might have changed. It is not so much about beeing a superstar now than about getting a reputation for producing good quality music.
-some songs get included in compilations (like for example the MTV compilation)
-there are also companies looking for talented, but low-budget composers to produce a trailer, accoustic logo or the soundtrack for a commercial 
-finally, one should not forget about the artists copyright representative associations (like BMI, GEMA, SACEM, SUVA, etc.), who distribute the fees which they receive from radio and TV stations etc. among the artists

In summary, it seems that there is no big money to be made with copyleft. It is more about an “give-and-take” philosophy. People have fun producing their own stuff, they improve their skills and if, what they come up with, is good quality, they get recognition for it. Sometimes people donate money out of solidarity (like for example shareware. Such an approach seems to be widespread on the alternative music market, as the people there like to buy original CDs), but it’s no genuine alternative to conventional economy.


Philosophy

Although the movement has a socialistic and anarchistic touch, it is not about fighting down capitalism. From time to time capitalism needs some readjustment like every other manmade system and with the way globalized economy is developping nowadays this seems to be a good moment. Right now many strategies are beeing developped to outsmart the old principle of offer and request. This principle is based on the customers needs, after all and nfortunately these are beeing neglected ultimately.
The hacker community also demonstrates an interesting adjustment of work ethics. Competition is beeing reduced to the advantage of community work. Distributed working is practised. Individual commitment to quality replaces financial motivation. In short, it seems to be a modern approach towards handling opportunities which the new technologies offer.


And what about art?

We think that this is a very significant movement which artists should participate in and contribute to its evolution. It seems that they lag behind the musicians and hackers, and that is why we want to help to get the discussion started. There are two main issues to be examined:

A Free License could be imediatly applied on many media right now. There is allready a discussion going on about possiblities of selling digital art. In particular in relation to web-art it seems impossible to define the concept of “original”. Generally, this applies to all media which can be reproduced or copied. And this includes not only code, but also music, text, photography, film/video, non webbased multimedia work, performance and theater. 
A second, maybe even more interesting aspect concerns the creative process. We have allready seen the impact of the possibility to copy or sample artistic work and such concepts are being constantly developed on. There is a trend among artists to examine working methods and their influences on the creative process: collective works of art, shared authorship, no authorship at all. It should also be examined what the signivicance of concepts can be for interactive art.

Here we present some examples of artistic work on a copyleft base:


Life_sharing by http://www.0100101110101101.org/
(The text is a quotation of http://www.walkerart.org/gallery9/lifesharing/)
 
(...)
It’s time to focus the efforts on contents, instead of "containers": even
net.art must begin to talk about the problems and contradictions brought
about by the huge spreading of the internet, contradictions that are
getting bigger and bigger.
two topics seem to be particularly controversial, because they cast
light over contradictions still far from being solved, which may even
never be solved:
1. public vs. private: this is one of the oldest problems on the
internet; must the unstoppable intrusion of the media into our lives be
regarded as "more freedom" for citizens, or rather "more control" by the
authorities?
2. open vs. close: one of the currently more controversial topics is the
huge success, cultural and economical, of such ideas and practices
as open source software in competition with old and obsolete paradigms
as copyright and intellectual property.
http://www.0100101110101101.org's goal is to create a "work" which will
not only identify and underline these contradictions, but even propose a
possible practical solution; the result of these efforts is
life_sharing.
life_sharing is an anagram of "file sharing". life_sharing is a computer
sharing its hard-disk with the whole world, making all its contents
accessible via internet. "all" doesn't mean a directory of the hard-disk
but the whole content of the computer: programs, system (all the
software used will be open source), desktop, archives, tools, ongoing
projects, mailboxes and so on. from the moment life_sharing starts,
every internet user will have free access twenty-four hours a day,
365 days a year to http://www.0100101110101101.org's computer: they
could rummage through archives, search for texts or files they're
interested in, check the software, watch the "live" evolution of
projects and even read http://www.0100101110101101.org's private mail. (...)


OMA http://meta.orang.org/OMA/
(The text is a quotation of their homepage)

(...)
The "open radio archive network group" (orang.orang.org) and the "open video archive" (ova.zkm.de) are now extended with a new layer: OMA, the "open meta archive" released under the GPL, is a context management system to categorize and publish rich media documents including text, photo, audio and video in Realmedia, Quicktime and MP3. it includes SQL support, XML export, newsgroups, and, of course, automatic generation of static HTML pages. (...)

Putting information into an archive, is to serve someone' s needs to access these informations. By providing an all-in-one surface to different media, OMA provides a solution to create new archived contexts from existing server-based mono- or few-media archives and publish them. (...)


Micromusic http://www.micromusic.net/office.php3
(The text is a quotation of their homepage)

low-tech music for high-tech people? 
   
micromusic.net is an underground sound community, a digital lifestyle platform for screen-kidz, joystick-lovers and audioNurds. a web entertainment park for talented & creative sound_trackerz, for all low-tech producers with a high-tech way of living. it is a homebase for all frustrated audio_seekers and _sniffers.
   
our vision: a websites for spoiled ears, eyes and brains with a perfect micro_Entertainment interface....
   
micromusic delivers web_screen_Muzic for you and your friendZ.. and we always keep focused on one thing: the highly addictiv computer game soundz. spending time in front of your screen can be pure pleasure.
   
and: all music material on micromusic.net is free to download and for excessive use. you upload the music, we spread the sound! reach the surface and become a microsuperstar!

fuck ProTools! start tracking! 

( micromusic crew/ spring 2000 )



Licenses

We would suggest to use the Free Art License, which seems to be very well adapted to the artists needs. It can be found under:

http://artlibre.org/licence/lalgb.html

But there are also other suggestions, if you like to compare them:

http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt

http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/tonyhb/fml.html

http://www.opensource.org/licenses/artistic-license.html

There is also artwork published directly under the Software GPL:

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.txt