Files: http://cloud.constantvzw.org/index.php/s/fowp8HHySdkLyGz
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/courtcases.activities

Edited report: http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/courtcasesfromthefuture.report

Felix Stalder: "This is why projects like aaaaarg, ubu, monoskop and the others are so crucial at the moment, because they point to a different future, different not only from today's monopolies but also from tomorrows."


N O T E S  F R O M  T H E  M E E T I N G

Saturday 20

4 topics, 2 hrs

11:45-12:30 round one
(15m feedback)
12:45-13:30 round two
(15m feedback)

13:45 end, pizza

For each group think about: Art, Legal, Institutional, Strategy, Outreach, Research, Tools, Fundraising, Planning, Misc




Friday 19

Clemens, Femke, Rosemary, Bodo, Ted, Marcell, Felix, Gary, Bjoern, Mira, Max, Anna, Lotte, Dennis ('experimental methods'), Tom, Marcell, Mario, Milica, Marek

11:00

Tom: Thank you all etc.

Jean Baptiste Joly (director Solitude): "The vision of the institution is to foster a debate, even if does not provide liability."
Lotte: references re-defining authorship conference.

Marcell: We don't have a security prococol, but some things can not be published or are sensitive, especially with regards to the running court cases; we need to build trust. 

Marcell: Free content, Free software at Mamma originally. In Croatia a success. Inside of that movement, realised that reform did not work; avant-garde was missing as a reference. Disappointing. "Piracy track" was more attractive, happening in parallel (Rasmus Fleischer, Alan Toner, Sebastian Luetgert...). At Jan van Eyck started to make a network around the idea of "Public Library" (Monoskop, UBU, ...). Public Library as a thinking device. Libgen was important. It seemed trivial at the time. Proposal: Universal Access to Knowledge, a catalog. Figure of amateur librarian was attractive too. The project was recognized because it was exhibited in WKV, Reina Sofia. A community.

UBU, aaaaarg, memoryoftheworld, Monoskop pooled together to respond to legal threats/harassment together. What are the possibilities? Aaargh is pelading Fair use (it means we needed to split our defensive). It is a deadlock; it effects education.

We need to work together, against 'just' heroic gestures. It should be a collective action. Create a "we"?

Academia still has the confidence that they stand for something; Leuphana supports the phd on this, also higher management "this is why we are in academia".

You are here as representatives of institutions. How do we address/invite other institutions. It seems possible, urgent.
Another format: the power of the narrative. The story, the concept, the play is resonating. "Enactment" and why it is a problem. 

Tom: We have done conferences, exhibitions, presentations. Art (academia as well?) creates a symbolic box. How can we make it relate to the political. This means, we need to go beyond "smart operator mode". It will be a bit out of our hands; we carry articulation but might be out of our hands.
(enactment still an art method?)

Solidarity with people that have made public statements about the need for changing the paradigm.
Only by going public, we can break through the pattern.

Dennis, in response to document: 
1. Intuitively approach to handle this legally, it is not a good approach. The case is not good; we don't have the resources. The ethical and tech case is really strong. "Elsevier steals, not us".
2. Library, and publishers. But what about authors and readers. Aligned interests in there; everyone aligns across shared interests. We need to get them abourd, we should not splinter that block.
3. Libraries and publishing is the end stage. Writing etc. has more issues: use of Google, MS words. We can have an effect on this. Not just the end of the process.
4. Speculation, response to piracy is not rational. We need to present more research
5. Global south. Connecting to post-colonial theory. Elsevier reflects colonies. Need for unpacking colonial history of technology.

Marcell: legal approach is not that we will win the case. It is about how we lose. What gets attention? How do we make ourselves a political subject? Disappointment with CC: helping the world is not about creating the solutions it seems.  (what about pre-emptive courtcase?)

Gary: Are we sure we are going to lose? We should not be optimistic.

Felix: As long as the law has not caught up ... Copyright activism ... the law: nothing happens; reformations make it worse. It is good to make this discussion more complicated, sand in the machine. Inside the law, critique is hard. You have to find a position outside of it. How to make the case as ambiguous, slow as you can. Make the price as high as possible. Publishers are either small crazies or global corporate concerns.

Clemens: There is a work to say "this is not piracy" ... "it should not be illegal to share knowledge". Switching mindset of administrations.

Ted: this depends on where you are. Speculative thinking. The experiences are different depending where you are (German vs. US for example). 
Growing opacity of IT solutions. IT departments are not taken as part of the academic context. They feel not responsible. Art context - symbolic buffer. Same for universities. So need to look for nearest ones. Proposal: something basic and try a SSL issued. It is hard! Lines are crossed. (ref point 3 Dennis?)

Gary: You can get things done by going outside. Academia cannot afford to publicly say they do not support academic freedom.

Clemens: infrastructure intouchable

Felix: Set up a mirror for UBU (tech dept was ok, did not go through legal department)

Milica: Schizofrenia of academic institutions, that on the one hand support Public Library as a research project, but fight against when it comes to copyright; Use this 'split' to involve institutions and complicate the case.  To raise a public discussion.  Forensis instead of an enactment;  a forum in order to produce publicness and complex argumentation. Making the complexity public (and work in our favour)

Clemens: point 5 is interesting for this. Only advantage of neo-liberal unis is that the complications are easy to find.

Milica: Discursive tool

Marcell: stories of hacking systems. In every institution, I meet the sysadmin to tell them I am not a threat. 

Bodo: Do you want to be left alone (of course you can). Or use the spectacular failure to make the trouble public. Coming out of the closet, an emancipation movement. How we can turn this rhizomatic, individual approach into some solidarity network. We are always part of institutions.

Felix: it is not either or

Ted: Biographical security. Don't take for granted that we have security because passivity is needed.

Bodo: remember Aron Swartz

Dennis: Liability in US is much harsher. This shit will fuck me up! For the time I am employed, I will do what I can. Institutions protect students for pirating films. Showing how much students (tutors?) do book piracy is important. 

Marcell: People don't want to be responsible (cannot take responsibility).

Alan: Injunction in Ireland. Is used for stopping incrementing behavior. No courtcase. Fear of things getting too much attention. The case will be lost, but we can lose in different ways. Google won Fair Use case. So what are the criteria? Commercial purpose? How big is the vision here? Is it a general resistance to copyright in general? Do we dare to go outside text etc. knowledge? Do we defend moviesharing? How to deal with your plaintive. Sean and Marcell are sympathic defenders, what they need is a terribly plaintive (not a man and a cat)

[details of case against Sean Dockray, how Marcell and Sean case are separated from each other]

Marcell: Fighting for Fair Use takes a while (?) it is weak; basically will mean to shut down first. There is no ground to fight. Sean hesitated whether to sign Custodians letter, out of fear to lose the case against him. The case is useful as a research case. "a vexacious litigant".

Dennis: this case .. it is small. Elsevier is about 6 million battle. We don't have that kind of money, so we need to do pre-emptive tactic. 

Ted: a patent on patent-trolling.

Marcell: Making the discussion public and relevant

Felix: Separate between defensive (Fair Use = limited) and offensive. Law is stacked against you. Be sure you are not in the US, that slows it down (science-hub in Russia). Use the ethical argument of the enlightenment. Involve non-western arguments. 

xxxxx

[lunch: Milica - it is not about normalizing piracy. It is about making clear that these practices of exchange should be in the public] 

14:30

Marcell: What is the possible scope. "Amateur librarian" as a curriculum. We want to hear about plans.

Dennis: Piracy lab. Adhoc group. Let's talk about piracy with numbers. (publication in computational culture)
"sx archipelago". A beautiful journal! Retooling editorial process, using free software. Workshops, vim, github (!?) Publishing pipeline starts with authoring. Markdown, pandoc. Convince the editorial board that this is interesting. There will be an article about this in the journal. Wanting to leave Duke, because no sources in Carribean. 

Ted: Double fault. Destruction of paper archives. Destruction of the analog. Dimension of ...

FS explains Mondotheque, OSP

Bodo: defensive and offensive strategies. Working with libraries and librarians. Imagining their own future. Institution of knowledge, infrastructure. Who defends. Ethically grounded support for shadow libraries. The missing piece: an organised voice on how to denormalize the privatization of public knowledge. Institution to help other institution.

Marcell: Robert Darnton, could he be of help? Who is not here? Intellectuals that try to push the boundaries. But would they call for civil disobedience? Do we need a range of "defenders" or "offenders".

Bodo: For example. "it is unsustainable". I am trying to produce evidence, based on data, evidence. For courtcases, if necessary. BookOS sent him their logfiles, so in this way I can show what regions are underserved. Evidence is a really nice tool to show that they are failing. We need to bring many stories, practices together.

Bodo: What is the level of risk we personally want to risk? The level of sacrifice. 

Gary: Robert Darnton might have politics I don't agree to. 

Felix: All arguments are good. Even the economic ones. 

Ted: Look at trade agreements ... 

Felix: The general, common ground is: access to knowledge.

Dennis: the argument is straightforward. We need to create a community around it. Connect the principles, theory to practice. Academics find this hard. We are making those choices every day. It requires a lot of education. We need A library, A publisher, A ...
A proof of concept of how it can be done. A prominent, focused case. A thick coalition. The business, ethics, resources model.

Felix: we have not the skills for this

Gary: xx got a lot of money to do exactly that. They had everyone in the room, but it is now too late. 

Bodo: A fairtrade stamp? An accreditation?

Marek: Workshops don't work, but you do need to do them. Focus on where you are good at. It is a small group, a big problem.

Marcell: Free software people are more optimistic; that the tech solution will build culture. Maybe we need to think outside the center. We don't have power. We will need to steal, and that is fine. It is not a consumer boycot.

Dennis: I think there is interest in modest but visible experimental projects.

Ted: Are we going to do Stallmans work again? And accreditation? Is interesting to think of it like ... organic? It needs a lot of infrastructure?

Bodo: Is aaaargh an ethical business? This "label" could help to take away that doubt (??)

Marcell: Ref: Freedom defined. Need to define the object at that point in time. But now we are talking about ethical behaviour. "I use aaargh too". This was the plan with the custodians letter. ("Caring is sharing".) With Public Library project: making the difference through metadata

Dennis: We need to create an instution, a vehicle that you can join. Advisory board etc. A non-profit instution that can apply for funding.

Clemens: It is not a technical issue. It makes more sense to support an association, not Marcell Mars. Transparency. An association, to prevent that Marcell and Sean are picked.

Marcell: There is trust that we can do something together. An institution needs a constitution. Risk of compromise. I think it is better to think of it as research, allowing more levels of commitment. A vaguer form of organisation. It can be in-between institution.

Milica: Research is risky too

Ted: If institution is defensive only, not sexy. If it is offensive, it is more interesting. It can be a way to tease of the "what"

Marek: It is all about how - not what. What are the resources, long term and short term commitments.

Dennis: would like to keep things loose. A short term goal is to prove that a journal can be done in FLOSS. Long term: archive.org for humanities. 

Ted: A platform that poisoning ... Gary: Critical commons?
Alan: It is licensing trouble. 

Lotte: A defragmentation of ways, a database of ways, tools etc. We as an institution otherwise are forever using Twitter

Felix: There is something like an endorsement of certain cultural researchers, actors. We know that they will be in trouble soon, we know that we can maybe make a case on the legimitacy of their case. How can we build a coalition around it. The argument: Everyone was using UBU; accepted as a critical resource, teaching infrastructure. Written on their internal newsletter.

Tom: it is a different thing to do it on your own, in solidarity.

"The free library coalition"
"The public library coalition"
"The shadow library coalition"
"The society for the removal of obstacles to knowledge"

Shadow = Free, Libre, Open Source.

Bodo: Ten points to agree on, or not.

1.       Everyone should have unrestricted access to both future and past fruits of science and research.
2.       Authors, researchers should be able to provide access to their own work in any way they deem necessary.
3.       Learning communities should be able to create and curate their own collections of knowledge.
4.       Public and research libraries should be able to fulfill the duties of archiving and access provision in the age of digital publications without limitations.
5.       Any measure that provides access to otherwise inaccessible knowledge is acceptable, irrespective of its legality
6.       The legitimate interest of each and every stakeholder in academic publishing should be duly noted and taken into account.
7.       Having said that, access provision to knowledge should not be subject to profit motives.
8.       Publicly funded knowledge should be available without any restriction.
9.       Any past and present privatization effort of scholarly knowledge is unacceptable and thus void and null.
10.   We believe that these points constitute a coherent ethical framework to assess past and future efforts to distribute scholarly knowledge. If this ethical frame is in conflict with existing legal frameworks, those laws needs to change.

[presents ten points, discussion whether it is a good idea to discuss ten points. 
Rough consensus and running code]

Bodo: 150 million people are in education, research globally.

Mario: xxxx

Marcell: What if ... And it is not about what is the cheapest way to be together. 

Alan: We still need a platform. A flag of convenience. It is not like getting married. A cheap ring.

Milica: I am interested in defining the schizophrenic space of institutions. To speak about, to try to find a format of a public library as part of IZK . A lithmus test. To organise a public forensis meeting, where arguments are gathered for this case. To go and be in the light. I am most interested in tools to be developed, worked with by students. Public library as a material.

Marcell: How we can work together, and how we can do that. How do we build the narrative? How to enact the courtcase? 
Ted: What is at stake is ... think about training nurses. 

Question: Who to address, and at what level. What is the territory we can move on and from. Felix thinks politics are not a good aim. 

Issues, topics for the brainstorm tomorrow (max 4 groups):

For each group, to think about:






Plans and/or personal goals:



Commotion / complication / trouble / non-binary.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/forensis
Flooding the system

Defensive / pre-emptive / anticipating.


Planning meeting 19-21/02 2015, Akademie Schloss Solitude

Courtcases from the near future


Aaaaargh lawsuit


In solidarity with Library Genesis and Sci-Hub

http://custodians.online/
http://monoskop.org/log/?p=15700
https://textb.org/r/letter/

Other links

http://textz.com/txt/Franz_Kafka_-_Intellectual_Property.txt
http://www.quotes-and-appropriation.de/speaker/tomislav-medak/