You cannot own free speech

So anyway. I was watching that John Perry Barlow on the internets the other day – and was so impressed that I’ve made a (slightly ropey) video with just him in it.

He manages to crystalise a whole raft of core-concepts that the rest of us are still figuring out.

Back in the day, The Enlightenment was a process of figuring out what we think… the tectonic paradigm shifts of the day… “The Unthinkable” struggling to be born… and then becoming The Inevitable. The Unstoppable. We need to do this again. We need to re-enlighten. It took a while last time… it’ll take a while this time… and people like JPB and Douglas Rushkoff et all help. A lot. We’re getting there… giving light to the unthinkable so it can become the unstoppable.

I think this is one of the main functions of the Pirate Party as well – it’s not so much a selection of local political movements, as a global conversation, out of which precipitates “Our Position”… so when The Forces of Old and Evil say “we need to control the internet to protect our property”… we can give a cogent and unified response.

—

I’ve paraphrased/adapted/warped/misconstrued etc. If you’re reading this John, hope you don’t mind. I’ve done my best :)

1) Creative Expression is not a form of property – the notion that it is, assumes the presence of a container that no longer exists.

2) Imposing old broadcast-era business standards on the future does not incentivise creators.

3) Imposing old broadcast-era business standards on the web, will break the web.

4) The control-structures demanded by the old broadcast-era businesses, are identical to those demanded by police-states.

5) We do not agree to the assumed need for:

a) IP law (at all) or
b) increasingly draconian methods of imposing it on the internet

6) The people who are arguing for IP law are NOT creators, but the institutions that exploit them.

7) Optimising for scarcity in an economy where value comes from familiarity and attention, is insane.

8) The IP industries are not big or important enough to break the web.

9) IP is a profoundly, architecturally counter-productive means of mediating the relationship between creators and fans – which is inherently memetic.

10) Creators who actually create, are better off today than they’ve ever been – and the reason is not IP restrictions, it’s the web.