Here are two good pieces that address the broader ethical implications and political consequences of nanotech and open source:

Revolution in a Box: the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology also has a good discussion on whether open source is feasible for nanotech production, and how it may provide for a more or less ethical brakes in nanotech.

Convergence brings together various luminaries, academics, and acitivists who participate in various social movements, that while distinct, all concern the law of intellectual propert. Here these folks provide us with some thoughts on some of the broader implications of open source in shifitng the global politics of IP. (more…)

A couple of weeks ago, at the CCA we had the pleasure of having a guest speaker: David Post. A law professor (and so much more if you read his bio) from Temple University, he writes on issues related to freedom and cyberspace. He is now working on a book, tentatively titled Jefferson’s Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace (check out some sections here. )

As he explained, the book uses a Jeffersonian framework (apparently Jefferson was quite interested in how to make the republican nation “scale” and he used the natural world as his guide), to think about the nature of the Internet and questions of scaling. At some point during our discussion, he referred to Jefferson as “the patron saint of hackers.” I, of course, got incredibly exicted when he said that (mostly because it was so right on and so darn eloquent too), but also because it captures how liberal ideals, live on, in radically different contexts. Of course most hackers and geeks have not read Notes on the state of Viriginia (Jefferson’s only book) nor do most house a small corner candlelight shrine of Jefferson atop of their Linux box (though perhaps they should).

But some of his most well known ideas, continue to have salience (you know, the famous, That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. “)

The fact that Jefferson acts a potent present-day icon demonstrates one example of how long-standing liberal values become practically articulated and revisioned. Of course they change, and the reasons for which TJ may act as a signpost often has more to do with present day conditions, than those of the past, but his example, and his ghost existence all over the web, is one way to think of both the cultural life of liberalism as well as the continuities, as well as transformations, with liberalism of times past.

Greg Lastowka , another fellow at the CCA, is also interested in cyberlaw, freedom, and all that good jazz and he recently passed along an article, Would Jefferson have googled? reporting on a speech by U of Michigan president Sue C. where she argues for the importance of Google Print.

All of this talk of liberalism and culture, reminds me that I should post a class syllabus I have recently developed “The Cultural Life of Liberalism” that is a first attempt to broaden the ways in which anthropologists approach liberalism as a cultural formation (outside of questions of multiculturalism, which has been covered quite exquisitely). Hopefully it will be up in the next few days and I can receive some feeback.

Yesterday Peter Jaszi who was at the forefront of the critique of authorship project in the early 1990s, came to visit at the Center for Cultural Analysis. During his seminar presentation as well as public talk on his project he brought up some very interesting points about the limits of the Creative Commons project when discussing copyright activism aimed at building a strong fair use foundation for documentary film makers.

His critique of the Creative Commons was the following: In affirming the creation of a commons through individual choice and voluntary gifting, it trivializing the importance of public rights and access that are built in to the copyright system. The danger is that we will end up with two different systems in which the commons material will only arise from those creators willing to relinquish some of the exlusive rights of copyrights. This is quite valid and perceptive. But in many ways, given the seemingly unstoppable movement of copyright law toward greater protections, I think the only way to put a stop to it was through the creation of an alternative model. In this case, legislation and policy was not going to do the trick.

That said, now that there is a robust alternative, now that the hegemony of IP assumptions have been punctured, it does seem more imperative than ever to foment a copyright culture that respects, much more than it does now, the idea of public access and goods.

This is where in fact Jaszi is channeling his energy. He is one of the folks behind the Best Practices in Fair Use at the Center for Social Media. It is a project aimed at cultivating an ethic for greater access and set of best practices among documentary filmmakers who are being strangled financially because of licensing fees for music and other materials.

According to his talk last night, in the last decade there has been a “fair use renaissance” honoring the principle. This project fosters this awakening in the realm of documentary film by creating a set of best practices that are presented to courts who apparently are quite interested in what communities of practices do in regard to their craft. On top of it, they are using this material in film schools which seems so essential. So much of our professional ethics derive from educational socialization so this is vital component to this project.