Creators, users and abusers

Someone left me a rather passionate comment defending Mago de Oz. I suppose this matter will get settled among the parties involved. In any case, it’s the last time I publish an anonymous comment; it would be nice if people at least left their name.

Anyway, what catches my attention is how some people mix things up. In a debate someone says:

“Fernando Ubiergo has always been closer to the ideology of the SGAE than to that of free culture”

What does this plagiarism case have to do with defending free culture?

Isn’t free culture an ideology too?

When it comes to the creative process I see 3 kinds of actors: creators, users and abusers.

I say user on purpose, because from user to abuser is a single step, and the wordplay seems more fitting to me, as will become clear further on.

We have all, at some point, abused the advantages technology gives us to disregard intellectual property rights. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. But the fact that everybody does it doesn’t make it any less wrong.

We have to be careful. We are in, or heading toward, a society where what’s valuable will be information, creativity, the intangible; some bold souls already talk about cognitive capitalism.

Personally I see creators as more valuable, because they are the ones with the ideas, the inspiration; in short, the ones who contribute the most value to society. Users are all of us who benefit from the fruit of the creators. We creators are users too.

The ones who bother me are the abusers. The parasites, who take advantage of good ideas, like free culture, to twist them in their favor. One of the dangers of misunderstanding what free culture means, if the concept means anything at all, is trying to put the rights of creators on a par with those of users. That equation seems wrong to me, to say the least.

Still, we have to look for a balance. Because creators can also turn into abusers, especially when they feel threatened, or are manipulated by other abusers.

For example, music labels and distributors have formed an abusive alliance with the copyright societies. The copyright societies don’t understand the new realities that emerging technologies bring, but on top of that they are scared by their partners, who only want to protect their income.

Let’s not get confused. What’s wrong is wrong, like shamelessly copying without acknowledging the value of the original work. That is just as wrong as preventing culture from developing out of our own selfishness.

The architect who asks to be paid every time someone takes a photograph of his work is as much an abuser as the most shameless plagiarist.

What’s the way forward?

I don’t know, but I don’t think it involves putting creators on the same level as users.