Shortened, and not identical version, of the interview which appeared recently in Spanish periodicals (see page ten of Periodico):

Interviewer was Amador Fdez-Savater.

Text:

1. What are the P2P dynamics or processes? What do they give us in order to think: 1) another way of producing, 2) another way of (self)governing; 3) another way of protecting (common) property?

There are different ways to look at this. One is in terms of a revolution of productivity: Next to the classic coercive ways of producing human work (slavery and serfdom), and those based on self-interest (exchange in capitalism), we now have a way to match tasks to passionate volunteers, who self-allocate their own productive resources. There are obviously limitations to its applications (as there are to the other forms), but since everything we do and make can and needs to be designed and can be designed over networks, it has very broad applications in how we organize production. Another way of looking at it, is that we can now globally scale small group dynamics, in an information-rich ‘stigmergic’ environment based on mutual signaling and coordination, thereby obviating the need for both markets and hierarchical allocation in certain instances. Peer to peer is the possibility for the permissionless self-aggregation of productive agents around common goals and objects, and peer production, governance and property arises as a third mode of creating value next to the private market and public government modalities.

2. Advocates of copyright reduce criticism to the stereotype of a bunch of irresponsible consumers who want “everything for free”, not respecting the right of culture workers to live off their work like other workers… how would you dismantle this stereotype?

In classic copyright, only an infinite amount of the revenue goes to the artist (http://community.livejournal.com/appropedia/15631.html), usually in a winner takes all mode. Just as libraries have increased reading and book buying, the (file)sharing of music greatly increases the possibility to enjoy and use music, and therefore also creates new ways of funding artists. There is actually a direct relationship between the amount of sharing, and the amount of music buying! Since this is coupled with a significant amount of disintermediation, we can actually eliminate a lot of revenues that used to go to middlemen, and give them directly to creative artists. It is not the music loving public that opposes collective licensing in favour of artists (http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/towards-a-new-social-contract-for-filesharing-and-artists-incomes/2010/03/24), but the industry, which is protecting its monopoly profits that it obtains through the lack of sharing of the revenues with the artists.

3. What business and income models are possible for those who don’t want to restrict freedom of copies or criminalize knowledge sharing? What actual practical cases could you cite as examples?

In my own research, I have identified 3 main business models. In the crowdsourced model, the platform owner act as a broker, and both they and the artists get a cut in cases of an actual sale. In the sharing model, people share the music or content for free, the platform lives from advertising, and may share revenue with the artists. Most interesting is the commons model, in which the artists or new curators create some market-based added value on top of the free resource, and share some of the benefits to sustain the commons. Individual artists have used a great variety of solutions, all based on the fact that they accept sharing, but can create added value on top of it. Yet it also seems to me that while the old repressive and monopolistic model is broken, the new one is generating too much uncertainty and precarity, hence a collective social solution is needed, such as the collective licensing model. In this model, filesharing is legalized, users pay a very small fee in the form of a tax, and the overall revenue is shared according to the usage of the creative material, which being legal, can also be measured more easily. Since you ask for example, have a look at the following tag, http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/Open-Music-Business-Models, for a variety of them. You can also check Magnatune and Jamendo as more evolved commons-based systems of revenue sharing. I’ll leave with two statements I’ve read, though can’ t recall the origin:

1) we have monetized the means of production of culture, but not the means of monetization of culture ; 2) demonetizing culture in a capitalist society leaves the artists without income.

The answer is to find income-generating schemes that guarantee free cultural expression, free sharing, and the means of creating a livelyhood.

4. What is the difference between “share” and “commons”? Is the same difference between P2P and gift economy?

I would say a commons is a ‘common’ resource, it belongs to the whole, not to the individuals, and it is either universally available (digital commons), or regulated for fair access (physical commons). In sharing modalities, the property is not necessarily common, you can share individual property in a common pool, (RelayRides) or a private company (ZipCar), may pool the resource and rent it out. There are many sharing schemes that do not involve a commonly held commons, yet are useful because sharing brings down the costs of using resources substantially. P2P is regulated by a general exchange between users and the commons as totality, there is no requirement for tit for tat between individuals, you are giving a brick to the whole (though in many cases you are not required to do even that, such as in digital commons), and getting the use of the whole in exchange. In a gift economy, the gift is directed to a specific party, generating a obligation of return by that party, though that return can be very loosely defined. Anthropologists call it generalized exchange vs. specific exchange, and Alan Page Fiske speaks of communal shareholding vs. equality matching, to indicate the difference.

5. What is the difference between public and common?

My personal view is that public property concerns the total common good of society, but is in the hands of the state and public authorities; the risk of public property is that it can, through authoritiarian or even through representative politics, become a tool of a minority which controls and excludes participation of many; Common property in contrasts, belongs to a civil-society related commons, and is more of a blend of individual and collective property. Concerning non-rival goods, exclusion is almost always totally unnecessary, while regarding rival physical goods, all commoners should have a say in their particular commons. Of course, in the case of the latter, exclusionary allocation is always a possibility as well.

6. In what sense is the private sector a “parasite” of social creativity?

I would personally not use that loaded concept, and if I ever did, I would regret it. I would rather stress mutual dependence. Peer to peer dynamics presently depend of the surplus (and crisis) of the existing model of society; but on the other hand, business and government would find it increasingly harder to function without the social innovation resulting from the input of civil society, and the associated processes of peer production, co-creation, co-design and all other forms of open participation. However, I think what must be stressed is that the relation is presently unequal. The market benefits enormously from free labour and social innovation, but there is no mechanism so that revenues and benefits can be shared with those that actually created the value. More and more businesses live from participation, but leave co-participants in the cold and precarity. On the other hand, revenue and benefit-sharing must be done in such a way, that it doesn’t crowd out the free participation and input of individuals. To protect peer to peer dynamics and participatory input, pure market dynamics are not appropriate as it would destroy these dynamics. If only some participants get a revenue from a collective project, that tends to demotivate the others. What I advocate is benefit-sharing from entrepreneurs profiting from a commons, i.e. help in keeping the commons sustainable as a collective project, while reserving revenue-sharing for market activities.

7. Are all markets capitalist? Is there a difference between market and capitalism?

I see the market as simply one of the options for dealing with rival goods; and there are others; and it is not particularly appropriate; and even often counterproductive for dealing with non-rival goods. Note that markets; democracy and hierarchy are means to deal with the allocation of scarcity; and are not really needed for abundant non-rival goods. Nevertheless; as long as some goods will be scarce, market mechanisms can be used, and they have preceded capitalism by several thousand years. Capitalism on the other hand is a system based on the infinite accumulation of capital; and on the use of labour as a market good; it could only exist by expropriating the majority of the people of the means to their own productive resources. It’s main problem now is that infinite growth is incompatible with the continued existence of the biosphere and therefore of humanity. It is destined to disappear, but we can preserve the markets from that fate so long as people want entrepreneurship and to trade freely.

8. Can the P2P alternative be applied to the field of material production?

In the narrow sense of the word, i.e. open and free input, participatory process and commons oriented output, it can only deal with non-rival goods. But; any good that needs to be materially produced, needs to be designed, and shared design is the next frontier, now emerging very strongly, for peer production. But open design communities design differently; and strengthen the trend towards lower treshold capital goods, thereby opening the possibility of a lot more peer to peer aggregation of capital goods. The two can be aligned in a new logic of production that is substantially different from the current system. I also think that shared design projects should aim to align with corporate forms that are in harmony with their own value system; and this would give birth to a social economy based on open designs and cooperative modes of ownership.

9. Sometimes it is easy to get the impression of deja vu when reading your texts, as if I re-reading old marxist handbooks that explained how the opposition between productive forces (technology) and production relations (ownership/property) made history go forward, how the old is always impregnated with the new and we only have to help it being born (“the calm transition”, “the highway towards the P2P system”). Is there really such a sharp cut between the old and the new? What’s left in that vision of the need for fight and conflict?

When a system based on infinite growth hits natural and physical limits, it is only natural to expect a phase transition. I think the right image or analogy is the change from the slave based empire to feudalism; or from the latter to capitalism. This was not just a continuation, but a total system based on radically different values and logics. P2P should therefore not be seen as just a continuation of what we have, even if it is adapted by current social forces, because of this inherent logic of substantial new value systems. I think that the times and possibilities for a calm transition are gradually being exhausted; as it does not seem to be the case that the present elites are capable of steering the necessary structural change; even after the sudden system shock of 2008. If Obama had been a Roosevelt instead of a Herbert Hoover; there could have been a convincing scenario for gradual and steered change, but I think that historical opportunity has subsided. Conflict is not a choice; but something imposed when an old structure is impervious to adaptation.

10. “To the Finland station” is a text with a very utopian tone. In what sense are important to you utopian stories of other possible worlds?

I explicitly position the p2p work as non-utopian and based on careful observation of current trends, but adding the element of conscious human forces that aim for synergies and integration. The new world will be different, and I believe a substantial improvement; spirituallly if not materially, but it will not be an utopia or a perfect society; simply a sustainable society recognising natural limits and limiting artificial impediments on human innovation, in the context of improved social justice. Of course; it may get substantially worse before it gets better. This being said; I have nothing against utopian thinking; if it inspires positive human action; on the condition that it is conscious of itself and does not attempt to deny reality in favour of its dreams, which then could become nightmares.