Re: Philippe Aigrain, 1950-2021
I met Philippe quite a few times in the 00s, when we both worked on issues of copyright and the digital commons. We became friends easily. A man of profound humanity and intellect, curious and generous. He was in it for the long-term. Now cut short. How very sad. Felix On 27.07.21 15:49, J.C. DE MARTIN wrote: I leave briefly lurkedom to mourn a dear friend, a great person, a wonderful intellectual and an effective activist. This is our center's obituary (in Italian): https://nexa.polito.it/philippe-aigrain-ricordo This is La Quadrature's in memoriam: https://www.laquadrature.net/2021/07/15/in-memoriam-philippe-aigrain-1949-2021/ juan carlos juan carlos de martin nexa center for internet & society polytechnic of turin On 27/07/21 15:30, patrice riemens wrote: Philippe Aigrain, the French world known champion of the digital commons died two weeks ago in a mountain accident. He was 71: https://www.liberation.fr/societe/philippe-aigrain-le-sens-du-commun-20210712_WSLMCXM33BFAVFHZVGUTAT6LAE/ (not paywalled, for once, and afaik) I learn about his death from Geert Lovink who send me this article from Le Monde Diplo: Original to: https://mondediplo.com/2005/11/13commons The internet and common goods Own or share? by Philippe Aigrain Enforcing intellectual property law in the digital age means fighting ever more effective and powerful new modes of creation made possible in part by collaborative development through the internet. Is there any limit to property? Current developments might suggest not, as property rights are steadily extended. Property rights, in the form of patents, copyright and, to a lesser extent, brands, apply to ever wider fields and are protected by ever stronger laws, police powers and technological tools. Resistance to the patenting of medicines, software, plant varieties and cell strains has been active and determined. But it is up against a concerted offensive by multinational companies, patent offices, specialised legal consultants, the United States government and the European Union, all working together to reinforce and extend property rights. New technologies are helping to make copyright law more strictly enforceable, preventing the use of copyright material even for legitimate ends (1). When it comes to violating intellectual property rights, everyone is guilty until proven innocent, from users of peer-to-peer file-sharing networks to farmers whose crops have accidentally become mixed with genetically modified varieties for which they do not hold licences (2). Jean-René Fourtou, the CEO of Vivendi Universal and chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce, addressed directors representing pharmaceutical, media and software multinationals at the United Nations in October 2004. He announced a global war on intellectual property piracy, calling on business leaders to unite and form a massive lobby working to influence governments (3). This will be a pre-emptive war that lumps independent producers and users in with industrial counterfeiters and organised crime, imagining a single enemy that will be defeated via tightly and ingeniously enforced property mechanisms. There has been resistance to this offensive. Campaigns for access to medicines in developing countries have had some success, as have those against the patenting of software or living organisms. Increasingly, patent applications for GM crops or biotechnology products are rejected. But resistance is fragmented; campaigns only rarely succeed in pulling together as parts of a single cause. On the technological side, there is a strong pull away from ownership of published works or recorded media. New forms of collaborative innovation, whereby ideas and expertise are freely shared, are proving more productive than traditional ways of working. Once dismissed as the work of an eccentric fringe of naive scientists who didn’t understand the harsh reality of economics, these cooperative approaches are now being taken more seriously. They have the particular advantage of orienting innovation towards the general interest and the preservation of cultural diversity, rather than being tied to profit incentives. Academic research has convincingly established the superiority of what Yochai Benkler calls “commons-based peer production” (4) in a wide range of information technology development. In this model, every stage in the development of a product is freely accessible to all, and anyone who wants to use or modify it may do so as they see fit. The product is in this sense a common good, and is often protected against patenting by any individual or group. The development of diametrically opposed visions vying for pre-eminence will have profound implications for the future not only of technology, but also of the world’s economies and social systems. Two scenarios are proposed. One vision’s most fervent supporters are a small group of large mult
Re: Philippe Aigrain, 1950-2021
I leave briefly lurkedom to mourn a dear friend, a great person, a wonderful intellectual and an effective activist. This is our center's obituary (in Italian): https://nexa.polito.it/philippe-aigrain-ricordo This is La Quadrature's in memoriam: https://www.laquadrature.net/2021/07/15/in-memoriam-philippe-aigrain-1949-2021/ juan carlos juan carlos de martin nexa center for internet & society polytechnic of turin On 27/07/21 15:30, patrice riemens wrote: Philippe Aigrain, the French world known champion of the digital commons died two weeks ago in a mountain accident. He was 71: https://www.liberation.fr/societe/philippe-aigrain-le-sens-du-commun-20210712_WSLMCXM33BFAVFHZVGUTAT6LAE/ (not paywalled, for once, and afaik) I learn about his death from Geert Lovink who send me this article from Le Monde Diplo: Original to: https://mondediplo.com/2005/11/13commons The internet and common goods Own or share? by Philippe Aigrain Enforcing intellectual property law in the digital age means fighting ever more effective and powerful new modes of creation made possible in part by collaborative development through the internet. Is there any limit to property? Current developments might suggest not, as property rights are steadily extended. Property rights, in the form of patents, copyright and, to a lesser extent, brands, apply to ever wider fields and are protected by ever stronger laws, police powers and technological tools. Resistance to the patenting of medicines, software, plant varieties and cell strains has been active and determined. But it is up against a concerted offensive by multinational companies, patent offices, specialised legal consultants, the United States government and the European Union, all working together to reinforce and extend property rights. New technologies are helping to make copyright law more strictly enforceable, preventing the use of copyright material even for legitimate ends (1). When it comes to violating intellectual property rights, everyone is guilty until proven innocent, from users of peer-to-peer file-sharing networks to farmers whose crops have accidentally become mixed with genetically modified varieties for which they do not hold licences (2). Jean-René Fourtou, the CEO of Vivendi Universal and chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce, addressed directors representing pharmaceutical, media and software multinationals at the United Nations in October 2004. He announced a global war on intellectual property piracy, calling on business leaders to unite and form a massive lobby working to influence governments (3). This will be a pre-emptive war that lumps independent producers and users in with industrial counterfeiters and organised crime, imagining a single enemy that will be defeated via tightly and ingeniously enforced property mechanisms. There has been resistance to this offensive. Campaigns for access to medicines in developing countries have had some success, as have those against the patenting of software or living organisms. Increasingly, patent applications for GM crops or biotechnology products are rejected. But resistance is fragmented; campaigns only rarely succeed in pulling together as parts of a single cause. On the technological side, there is a strong pull away from ownership of published works or recorded media. New forms of collaborative innovation, whereby ideas and expertise are freely shared, are proving more productive than traditional ways of working. Once dismissed as the work of an eccentric fringe of naive scientists who didn’t understand the harsh reality of economics, these cooperative approaches are now being taken more seriously. They have the particular advantage of orienting innovation towards the general interest and the preservation of cultural diversity, rather than being tied to profit incentives. Academic research has convincingly established the superiority of what Yochai Benkler calls “commons-based peer production” (4) in a wide range of information technology development. In this model, every stage in the development of a product is freely accessible to all, and anyone who wants to use or modify it may do so as they see fit. The product is in this sense a common good, and is often protected against patenting by any individual or group. The development of diametrically opposed visions vying for pre-eminence will have profound implications for the future not only of technology, but also of the world’s economies and social systems. Two scenarios are proposed. One vision’s most fervent supporters are a small group of large multinationals, represented by Fourtou’s UN audience. Their position was summed up by Bill Gates, who dismissed those wishing to restrict intellectual property rights as “modern-day communists” (5). More moderately, the defence of intellectual property is based on a conviction that it is the oil, “black gold”, of the 21st century. Cr
Philippe Aigrain, 1950-2021
Philippe Aigrain, the French world known champion of the digital commons died two weeks ago in a mountain accident. He was 71: https://www.liberation.fr/societe/philippe-aigrain-le-sens-du-commun-20210712_WSLMCXM33BFAVFHZVGUTAT6LAE/ (not paywalled, for once, and afaik) I learn about his death from Geert Lovink who send me this article from Le Monde Diplo: Original to: https://mondediplo.com/2005/11/13commons The internet and common goods Own or share? by Philippe Aigrain Enforcing intellectual property law in the digital age means fighting ever more effective and powerful new modes of creation made possible in part by collaborative development through the internet. Is there any limit to property? Current developments might suggest not, as property rights are steadily extended. Property rights, in the form of patents, copyright and, to a lesser extent, brands, apply to ever wider fields and are protected by ever stronger laws, police powers and technological tools. Resistance to the patenting of medicines, software, plant varieties and cell strains has been active and determined. But it is up against a concerted offensive by multinational companies, patent offices, specialised legal consultants, the United States government and the European Union, all working together to reinforce and extend property rights. New technologies are helping to make copyright law more strictly enforceable, preventing the use of copyright material even for legitimate ends (1). When it comes to violating intellectual property rights, everyone is guilty until proven innocent, from users of peer-to-peer file-sharing networks to farmers whose crops have accidentally become mixed with genetically modified varieties for which they do not hold licences (2). Jean-René Fourtou, the CEO of Vivendi Universal and chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce, addressed directors representing pharmaceutical, media and software multinationals at the United Nations in October 2004. He announced a global war on intellectual property piracy, calling on business leaders to unite and form a massive lobby working to influence governments (3). This will be a pre-emptive war that lumps independent producers and users in with industrial counterfeiters and organised crime, imagining a single enemy that will be defeated via tightly and ingeniously enforced property mechanisms. There has been resistance to this offensive. Campaigns for access to medicines in developing countries have had some success, as have those against the patenting of software or living organisms. Increasingly, patent applications for GM crops or biotechnology products are rejected. But resistance is fragmented; campaigns only rarely succeed in pulling together as parts of a single cause. On the technological side, there is a strong pull away from ownership of published works or recorded media. New forms of collaborative innovation, whereby ideas and expertise are freely shared, are proving more productive than traditional ways of working. Once dismissed as the work of an eccentric fringe of naive scientists who didn’t understand the harsh reality of economics, these cooperative approaches are now being taken more seriously. They have the particular advantage of orienting innovation towards the general interest and the preservation of cultural diversity, rather than being tied to profit incentives. Academic research has convincingly established the superiority of what Yochai Benkler calls “commons-based peer production” (4) in a wide range of information technology development. In this model, every stage in the development of a product is freely accessible to all, and anyone who wants to use or modify it may do so as they see fit. The product is in this sense a common good, and is often protected against patenting by any individual or group. The development of diametrically opposed visions vying for pre-eminence will have profound implications for the future not only of technology, but also of the world’s economies and social systems. Two scenarios are proposed. One vision’s most fervent supporters are a small group of large multinationals, represented by Fourtou’s UN audience. Their position was summed up by Bill Gates, who dismissed those wishing to restrict intellectual property rights as “modern-day communists” (5). More moderately, the defence of intellectual property is based on a conviction that it is the oil, “black gold”, of the 21st century. Critics such as Jeremy Rifkin (6) regard that defensive vision as a plausible nightmare which is to be avoided. And the defensive vision has flaws that cannot be ignored. IT networks do not lend themselves to requisitioning or to restrictions on access and usage; such restrictions are a hindrance to their development. A number of important projects (see Open sources, below) have shown how powerful the alternative vision of cooperative development can be whe
