This blogpost is in Dutch, because the article it refers to is also in Dutch.

Xandra Schutte, hoofdredacteur van De Groene Amsterdammer, zal dagvoorzitter zijn op de Incubate Pirate Conference op 17 september. Schutte is sinds 2008 werkzaam bij De Groene Amsterdammer. Eerder werkte ze als hoofdredacteur bij Vrij Nederland en als uitgever bij Uitgeverij Meulenhoff.

Eind 2009 publiceerde De Groene Amsterdammer een artikel over (internet)piraterij, dat we middels deze weg nogmaals onder de aandacht willen brengen. Het artikel gaat naast het downloaden uit ‘illegale’ bron vooral over de achtergrond van deze vorm van piraterij. Hierbij komen o.a. de onderwerpen Vrije en open gemeenschapscultuur, Privatisering van land, Openbare ruimte en Coöperatieve creatie aan bod. Het artikel laat zien dat er meer schuilgaat achter het up- en downloaden; dat het bijvoorbeeld ook gezien kan worden als een boodschap tegen de cultuurindustrie als het gaat om het uitbuiten en privatiseren van eeuwenoude gemeenschapscultuur.

Het artikel is getiteld “De Hydra is terug: Het veelkoppige monster van de internetpiraterij” en is hier in zijn geheel te lezen. Lees hieronder een fragment uit het artikel:

“Het Romeinse recht onderscheidde verschillende eigendomsvormen, waaronder res publica (staatseigendom), res privata (privé-eigendom) en res communes (eigendom van niemand, de commons). De geschiedenis leert dat als de laatste niet tegen de eerste twee wordt verdedigd zij onherroepelijk het onderspit delft. ‘Dingen in het gemeen bezeten, worden van elkeen vergeten’, luidt niet voor niets een oud gezegde.
De eerste, klassieke aanval op de commons was onderdeel van het door Marx beschreven proces van ‘oorspronkelijke’ of ‘primitieve accumulatie’, dat de weg vrij maakte voor het ontstaan van het industriële kapitalisme. In de moderne maatschappij is de strijd om de commons terug van weggeweest. Het neoliberalisme poogt de winstmarges op te vijzelen en nieuwe markten aan te boren door een praktijk die omschreven kan worden als ‘accumulatie door onteigening’. De term is van David Harvey. Het onteigenen van gemeenschappelijk bezit is volgens de bekende geograaf niet iets eenmaligs, behorend tot het verleden, maar een praktijk van alledag. Dus wordt gemeengoed als de lucht, bossen, het klimaat of drinkwater meer dan ooit bedreigd door verstatelijking of privatisering. De openbare ruimte staat onder druk van zowel overheidsregelgeving als commercialisering. En het gaat verder. Vrije tijd wordt duur betaalde leisure. Ook het leven zelf blijft niet gevrijwaard van commerciële belangstelling. Genetisch erfgoed van mens, dier en natuur wordt gepatenteerd en geprivatiseerd. Dat medicijnen die het verschil uitmaken tussen leven en dood eigendom zijn van farmaceutische bedrijven wordt reeds lang als normaal ervaren. Met de kredietcrisis is duidelijk geworden dat zelfs het laatste gemeengoed, de toekomst, niet gespaard wordt voor ‘commodificering’. De schulden die staten nu maken, leggen beslag op de publieke middelen van volgende generaties. Niet voor niets sprak Marx al over de publieke schuld als ‘een van de krachtigste hefbomen van de oorspronkelijke accumulatie’.”

At the Incubate Pirate Conference on September 17, Xavier Le Roy invites Mårten Spångberg to discuss copyright from the perspective of performance arts: how to deal with re-usage, re-interpretation and re-enactment? Xavier and Mårten will discuss three different subjects within the context of piracy: dance/ownership, theatre/war-machine, and invention/art.

Mårten Spångberg (1968) lives and works in Stockholm as essayist, performance critic, dramaturg and choreographer. For the discussion at the Pirate Conference, Mårten wrote an article as an introduction to his views on piracy:

Piracy And Desire, Lack Is Strategic

One can think of two kinds of breaks with the confinements proposed by the law. Prison break, a breach with a conventional and continuous imprisonment without exception results in the subject always looking over his shoulder waiting for the law to catch up. The subject will inevitably return to his original imprisonment where he also will feel relief. The prison break operates on the basis of breaking through and leaving a trace, whereas a clean break implies a shift of discourse, i.e. the prison guard will not even know that the subject has disappeared out of the field of vision. The result is identical, but after a clean break the subject will continuously look over his shoulder hoping that at least somebody will appear. A clean break implies sovereignty, a lonely place without anybody to gossip with.

Piracy can be considered as simple prison break, a crossing of a conventional restriction in order to get away with some or other thing, or simply obtaining value. It can also be understood as a clean break, especially considering digital media where a copy is not destabilizing value. Is it however possible to instead consider piracy not only as strategic endeavor, but rather as operations either on structural or tactical levels? We would like to understand piracy as concept, as a heterogeneous huddle of incompatible connections raising questions that cannot be answered within our present predicament or as a cluster of mutating lines carrying the potentiality of ungrounding established capacities of dualist-based discourse.

The language apparatuses that define present political contexts have over the past twenty-five years lost its deterritorializing agency, i.e. any political emergence or social movement can but be canonized due the dominant discourse of Western representational democracy, hence the multiplicity has made itself invincible. As long as tomorrow is designated by yesterday’s idioms, difference can only operate on levels of degree, in particular in a reality where capitalism has become omnipresent.

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Hi there. Here is a nice update on our Pirate Conference on September 17: the time schedule for this day is now official and you can view it below or download it in a pdf file. This will be a most interesting day with subjects/developments within copyright and piracy being covered from different backgrounds. We’re very curious about your opinion on the program, let us know in the comments.

In other related news: we’ll have Flat Fee Coffee available at the Pirate Conference for all of you. For 7 euros, you can get as much coffee as you want during this day, and you’ll also receive a free Incubate mug to take home with you!

While you’re at it, take look at the backchannel that Freshheads made for the Pirate Conference. You can send updates using Twitter with hashtag #ipc10 for this. The backchannel will be beamed in the main room of Midi Theater.

If you will be attending the Pirate Conference, we would advise you to buy a Pay What You Want ticket in pre sale, because we expect the event to be sold out. See you September 17!

(for a bigger jpg version of the time schedule, click here. To download a pdf file, click here)

We’ve just confirmed Jiggy Djé to share his thoughts on copyright/piracy and the re-usage of culture at the Incubate Pirate Conference. Jiggy Djé will take seat in the panel following Matt Mason’s keynote speech on piracy in the arts. Other members of the panel are: Matt Mason, Martijn Arnoldus (Creative Commons Netherlands), Sander van de Wiel (Pictoright), and DJ /rupture. Atze de Vrieze (VPRO 3voor12) will moderate the panel.

Jiggy Djé is a Dutch rapper that started making hip hop in 1997. Together with DAC (De Amersfoortse Coöperatie) he released two albums: diDACtici in 2002 and Professioneel Chillen in 2005. In 2006, he won the public price at the Heineken Grand Prix, the oldest and most renowned Dutch music prize. The same year, Jiggy Djé released his debut album and founded his own record label; both titled Noah’s Ark. He signed artists like Hef, Önder and SpaceKees to this label. Follow Jiggy Djé on Twitter.

Tickets for the Pirate Conference can be bought trough the Pay What You Want principle. Through incubate.org and incubate-innovation.org visitors can indicate how many tickets they want to buy and what total amount of money they would like to pay for them. The payment can then be made via Paypal or bank transfer. The Pay What You Want principle is not applicable to the normal day tickets and passepartouts of Incubate. Incubate tickets can be bought through the Incubate website.

We’re really proud to announce that Hank Shocklee will share his views on copyright and piracy with all of us at the Incubate Pirate Conference. Hank Shocklee is Music Producer, founder of Public Enemy & The Bomb Squad. The Bomb Squad is a hip hop production team, mostly known for their groundbreaking work on Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. This album, released in 1988 (before the record labels and lawyers really started paying attention to sampling), is known for its dense, sample-heavy production, often utilizing dozens of samples on just one track. The Bomb Squad are also known for their ability to incorporate harsh, unmelodic sounds and samples into their songs, generally enhancing them. Because of this highly influential sound and productionmethod Hank Shocklee is viewed by some as the Phil Spector of hip-hop.

A worldwide role model for pushing the envelope and breaking new artistic boundaries, Hank Shocklee is looked upon as the leader of the pack. Whether via his production legacy which continuously ranks at the top of the ‘best of’ lists or throughout the academic circuit, Hank’s ideologies and techniques are studied amongst a wide cross section of people that include music fans, aspiring artists, audio technology developers, universities and media policy makers.

As a DJ, producer, composer and record company executive, Shocklee has managed to work with and develop a large variety of artists and musicians across many genres all while keeping a very innovative approach and a distinction for high quality productions. Shocklee has been a force behind some of the most significant music and film projects of the last two decades including Public Enemy, Ice Cube, Mary J. Blige, LL Cool J, Slick Rick, Anthony Hamilton, Ridley Scott’s American Gangster, Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, Ernest Dickerson’s Juice and countless others.

At the Pirate Conference, Hank Shocklee will be interviewed by Job de Wit (freelance pop/hip hop/house journalist) about his method of production, his view on (the future of) copyright, and sampling and the recycling of material to build a new work and a new context.

That same evening, The Bomb Squad will perform in the regular music program of the Incubate festival.

Tickets for the Pirate Conference can be bought trough the Pay What You Want principle. Through incubate.org and incubate-innovation.org visitors can indicate how many tickets they want to buy and what total amount of money they would like to pay for them. The payment can then be made via Paypal or bank transfer. Also visit incubate.org and incubate-innovation.org for more information on the program of the Incubate Pirate Conference.

The Pay What You Want principle is not applicable to the normal day tickets and passepartouts of Incubate. Incubate tickets can be bought through the Incubate website.

The Institute of Network Cultures Blog posted a very interesting interview with Paul Keller, one of the founders of Creative Commons Netherlands. This is a very interesting read in preparation to our Pirate Conference on September 17. At the conference, Martijn Arnoldus (another member of the Creative Commons Netherlands project) will also take part in the panel following the keynote speech by Matt Mason.

Copyright law usually makes the distinction between private and public. Private is what I show in my own house, legally defined as people I have personal bonds with, in a close community. A public performance requires permission from the copyright holder, while with a private doesn’t. The internet has of course dramatically enlarged the range of our public. If I look at my flickr collection of pictures, hundreds of thousands of people have looked at them, while it it is still essentially the same collection that started its life in a shoe box on my shelf that maybe 5 people looked at back in the days. You can argue that the private has become global, and as a consequence this public-private distinction doesn’t work well for triggering copyright anymore.

Copyright currently justifies a simple binary transaction. I have cultural goods, you have money, and we do a proper exchange, or otherwise I’m in violation of copyright. Given that everybody can make copies of pretty much anything, this is clearly not the smartest system for organizing knowledge transfer or the distribution of cultural goods.

Read the full interview at the website of the Institute of Network Cultures.