If you’re in the habit of dropping by the Cape Town offices of finance app 22Seven of a Tuesday evening, you’d have witnessed something out of the ordinary last night: a group of net freedom nerds gathering to watch the South African premier of The Internet’s Own Boy, a documentary about the life of Aaron Schwartz.
Schwartz was a prolific software developer and internet activist who, by the time he committed suicide at the age of just 26, had been instrumental in creating the technology behind RSS content syndication, helped develop and promote the Creative Commons licence – an alternative to copyright designed for the web – and co-founded crowd sourcing link aggregator Reddit.
The event wasn’t just about celebrating the life and times of an internet hero. It was being held to launch a new project, called re:share, to encourage open approaches to software development and publication of information through licences like Creative Commons in sub-Saharan Africa.
Why? We caught up with Creative Commons Public Lead and co-founder of re:share Kelsey Weins to find out.
What is re:share?
We’re a foundation designed to disrupt and support access to information in sub saharan africa. We’re looking to connect the tech with the well of knowledge to create things that are digitally appealing, accessible and sustainable for future generations. – Do you think the issues of licensing and copyright are well understood by those working in media and software development in sub-Saharan Africa? I think licensing and copyright are largely misunderstood by the media and software development globally. We’ve partnered with EndCode to help support open policies across Southern Africa.
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Most African IP policies are outdated and not sufficient to support the current paradigm facing African countries. We hope to build openly conscious digital communities using activations, long-term projects, like the Kirstenbosch Botanical Society, to help people understand the benefits of open. We’re working with Kistenbosch Botanical Society to help build a complete collection of information about the flora and fauna of the Cape. The Cape Flora region is a UNESCO heritage sites and the details of this unique floral regions are poorly represented online. We’re hoping that by leveraging the collective knowledge and legacy of the Botanical Society we can preserve it for generations to come.
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Many innovators here worry about open licenses taking away their ability to protect IP and make money from their work, and are nervous of people stealing their ideas if they publish openly. How do open licenses benefit creative coders and artists etc?
It’s a natural fear to want to protect what’s yours. But I promise you the worst thing you can do is to lock it down. Our world is changing rapidly the old business models of charging for content just doesn’t fly with the kids. So we need new ideas on income streams. Opening up doesn’t mean open everything! I’m a big supporter of people making money. Now Apple isn’t known for their openness but they have an Open Source licence that lets developers view source code.
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Successful artists include Cory Doctorow, a science fiction writer who has used the CC BY-NC-SA and BY-NC-ND licences for his books. Releasing his books under CC licences has helped Doctorow promote himself, expand his readership and increase his book sales. His CC-licensed books have consistently outperformed his publisher’s expectations, with Little Brother spending four weeks on the New York Times best seller list.
And in music, the Nine Inch Nails Ghosts I-IV album generated revenues of $1.6 million in its first week of sales even though it was released under a CC BY-NC-SA license and a quarter of the album’s tracks were available as free downloads. NIN’s Trent Reznor has relied on the “connect with fans + reason to buy” model, giving fans the ability to remix and redistribute the work, while generating revenue through sales of a reasonably-priced CD, deluxe edition packages, and concert ticket sales.
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Looking at the film launch, do you find that when you talk to people about the kinds of issues Schwartz was an activist in – open publishing and the right to privacy are often viewed as somehow less important in an African context? When people are worried about security and sanitation, why is it important that they also consider issues around internet freedom?
Currently research is done in Africa on Africans by The Global North universities. That research and findings are then locked in expensive journals that African researchers and universities cannot afford. So research being done on us that can help us we can’t have access to? We’re talking about life saving research, access to poverty alleviation projects etc. Access to knowledge is a human right.
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The film does an excellent job in explaining the open movement. While the film is set in America the challenges are comparable. South Africa faces an increasingly more closed government. The film explains the dangers in being complacent right now Internet.org (a charity funded by Facebook and others), which is giving away internet access in Rwanda and Zambia. The catch? Students have to access their school accounts through Facebook.
What are we giving away to gain free access? Are we OK with free internet at any cost?
The film is licensed under a CC licence and I would encourage everyone to watch it. What was most interesting to me was to reactions from the crowd last night who aren’t as familiar with the Open Movement. If you’re not an open advocate by the start you will be by then of the film and Cory Doctorow is guaranteed to make you cry in his last scene.
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And just to prove how ace Creative Commons licensing is, you can watch the entire 108 minutes of The Internet’s Own Boy without leaving this page.
