175 lines
9.6 KiB
HTML
175 lines
9.6 KiB
HTML
<p>As anyone who is familiar with my works (and their licenses) would
|
|
know, I am very much a supporter of what's known as Free
|
|
Culture<sup><a href="#r1" >[1]</a></sup> and Free
|
|
Software<sup><a href="#r2" >[2]</a></sup>. Although for the rest of this
|
|
article I will be referring to both culture and software simply as
|
|
"Culture", since for the purpose of this article I see no point in
|
|
distinguishing between the two. I later found that the reason for this -
|
|
which I only understood intuitively - is that Culture is what we may
|
|
call a <i>Common Good</i>. Yet, at the same time I found this difficult
|
|
to reconcile with a recognition of Intellectual Property, to the extent
|
|
that for many years I simply rejected it. Yet I believe that this truly
|
|
is not contradictory, and in light of Church teaching regarding the
|
|
Universal Destination of Goods, we can fully understand how they
|
|
function together and use it to reinforce the case for Free Culture.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>To begin, it's necessary to define a few things, foremost of which is
|
|
a <i>Common Good</i>. It's a term that we use a lot today, especially in
|
|
the realm of politics, but in such a vague manner that if one were to
|
|
ask what it means many of us would struggle to define it. Oxford
|
|
Dictionary defines it as "[t]he benefit or interests of all". Yet even
|
|
this is vague, at least when taken from the subjectivist mentality of
|
|
our era: one person's "interests" may be at odds with those of another.
|
|
Rather, especially since we're talking in terms of Culture as a form of
|
|
Intellectual Property, and therefore ownership, we're speaking of a more
|
|
economic or <i>substantive</i> definition. In this sense, what would
|
|
differentiate a Common Good from any other kind of Good is that the
|
|
intrinsic value of the share of each owner does not diminish when owned
|
|
by more people. This means that a Common Good is by its very nature a
|
|
Spiritual/Non-Material Good and <i>vice versa</i>. If someone owns a
|
|
whole cake, but chooses to share that cake with another person, the cake
|
|
must necessarily be divided (evenly or unevenly) such that both can own
|
|
a part of the cake, and therefore the value of the first person's share
|
|
must necessarily diminish. Meanwhile, if we were to speak of something
|
|
like knowledge, one can share knowledge that they have with another
|
|
person, yet not because of that do they now own less of that knowledge,
|
|
rather they continue to possess the entirety of that knowledge.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Perhaps an easier term to wrap our heads around that we're more
|
|
familiar with is that of <i>Intellectual Property</i>. Oxford Dictionary
|
|
defines it as "[i]ntangible property that is the result of creativity
|
|
[...]." For the purpose of this article, this is a rather appropriate
|
|
definition, as we're referring to a concept of ownership over the rights
|
|
to a given Spiritual/Non-Material Good.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>From these two definitions we can begin to see how Culture is itself
|
|
both a Common Good and a form of Intellectual Property. Provided, it
|
|
must be specified that it is not the <i>instantiation</i> of a Cultural
|
|
Good that we are speaking of, but rather the idea which would compose
|
|
its <i>Formal Cause</i>. E.g. it is not the statue which an artists
|
|
makes that constitutes a Common Good, but rather it is the form that
|
|
defines it which is a Common Good. But from this recognition of Culture
|
|
as both a Common Good and a form of Intellectual Property, it would seem
|
|
that a dilemma arises: does not the nature of a Common Good directly
|
|
contradict that of Intellectual Property? It would seem this way, as a
|
|
Common Good tends towards broader ownership - and indeed it is good for
|
|
a Common Good to be owned as broadly as possible - yet Intellectual
|
|
Property hinders this broader ownership by limiting the ability to share
|
|
the Culture in question.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Here it is useful to attend to the Church's principle of the
|
|
<i>Universal Destination of Goods</i>:</p>
|
|
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
"God intended the earth with everything contained in it for the use
|
|
of all human beings and peoples. Thus, under the leadership of
|
|
justice and in the company of charity, created goods should be in
|
|
abundance for all in like manner. Whatever the forms of property
|
|
may be, as adapted to the legitimate institutions of peoples,
|
|
according to diverse and changeable circumstances, attention must
|
|
always be paid to this universal destination of earthly goods. In
|
|
using them, therefore, man should regard the external things that he
|
|
legitimately possesses not only as his own but also as common in the
|
|
sense that they should be able to benefit not only him but also
|
|
others."<br />
|
|
- <i>Gaudium et Spes</i> § 69
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
|
|
<p>In this sense, we are not solely speaking of Material Goods, but as
|
|
Pope Saint Paul VI points out, it applies to "[w]hatever the forms of
|
|
property may be." In this context, we see that "man should regard the
|
|
external things that he <b>legitimately possesses</b> not only as his
|
|
own but also as common in the sense that they should be able to benefit
|
|
not only him but also others." In other words, with regards to Culture
|
|
we can understand that it is legitimately possessed by its creator, and
|
|
is his Intellectual Property. Yet the creator has a responsibility in
|
|
using that which he owns for the benefit of "not only him but also
|
|
others." As such, a creator may choose using his own prudential
|
|
judgement to limit the access to his Intellectual Property to provide
|
|
for himself (by monopolizing on the creation of instances of his
|
|
creation to sell them) or even to help others. It may not always be
|
|
prudent to share a Common Good so broadly (as occurs with national
|
|
intelligence or personal information). But he must always consider that
|
|
his ownership must be beneficial not only to him, but to others as
|
|
well.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Finally, I believe it's important to discuss the role of the State
|
|
with regards to the Common Good, specifically in regards to Culture, and
|
|
truthfully I believe that this does not differ much from its role with
|
|
regards to Material Property. I do not wish to extend myself too far on
|
|
this topic, since the role of the State within society is a topic best
|
|
developed in its own article. Yet I do believe we can understand the
|
|
very basics of the role of the State in regards to its natural function
|
|
regarding Culture.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Fundamentally, the role of the State is to aid and guide its subjects
|
|
in fully realizing the <i>nature</i> of their being. The most
|
|
fundamental requisites of this being basic necessities (e.g. food,
|
|
water, shelter), but also extending further into Man's intellectual and
|
|
spiritual nature. So with regards to Culture, it is good for Man to
|
|
possess a broad and fundamental culture, which we would deem to be basic
|
|
education, and it is within the role of the State to enable this as it
|
|
sees most practical (by private or public means). Yet, the State must
|
|
only implicate itself in this regard if the selfishness of some causes
|
|
for certain fundamental Culture to be kept from others, or simply that
|
|
lower levels of society are unable to do so on their own. At this point,
|
|
the State has the authority to act by means of expedient to justly
|
|
purchase or (in the most extreme of situations) expropriate a creator of
|
|
his Intellectual Property. E.g. if there is a given institution which
|
|
has discovered a vaccine for a pandemic which is affecting the subjects
|
|
of the State at large, yet this institution is unable to produce the
|
|
amount needed, the State has the expedient to purchase from that
|
|
institution their Intellectual Property on how to create the vaccine and
|
|
share this with others so as to ensure a greater and more adequate
|
|
production.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Yet although the role of the State is well defined, what of the role
|
|
of us as creators? How can we decide whether we should maintain the
|
|
rights to our creations in full, or concede certain rights to our
|
|
Intellectual Property? Truthfully this is a prudential judgement that
|
|
each of us will have to make depending on the circumstances. But going
|
|
back to the quote from <i>Gaudium et Spes</i>, I believe we are given a
|
|
decent guide: we should consider the use of our property not only for
|
|
our own benefit, but also for that of others. Obviously, one must take
|
|
care of oneself, and therefore if the most practical manner of making a
|
|
living is by maintaining the right to one's property, one should do so.
|
|
Yet if one does not require of this, or the property would do greater
|
|
good if we were to license it in a manner allowing broader ownership,
|
|
this constitutes an act of charity. The act is even greater if the
|
|
property is not only beneficial to others, but needed.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Needless to say, there is no shortage of licenses with different
|
|
conditions, both for software and culture. For software projects one can
|
|
simply take a look at GitHub's <i>Choose a License</i>
|
|
page<sup><a href="#r3" >[3]</a></sup>, or for culture one may simply
|
|
choose from one of the many <i>Creative Commons</i>
|
|
licenses<sup><a href="#r4" >[4]</a></sup>. So it is not as though one
|
|
must either maintain all the rights to their works or give them all up.
|
|
Rather, one should adapt the license of their work to the circumstances
|
|
regarding the purpose of the work and what will best benefit oneself and
|
|
others.</p>
|
|
|
|
<label id="r1" >[1]</label>
|
|
<a
|
|
href="http://wiki.freeculture.org/Free_Culture_Definition"
|
|
target="_blank" >
|
|
http://wiki.freeculture.org/Free_Culture_Definition</a>
|
|
<br />
|
|
<label id="r2" >[2]</label>
|
|
<a
|
|
href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html"
|
|
target="_blank" >
|
|
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html</a>
|
|
<br />
|
|
<label id="r3" >[3]</label>
|
|
<a
|
|
href="https://choosealicense.com/"
|
|
target="_blank" >
|
|
https://choosealicense.com/</a>
|
|
<br />
|
|
<label id="r4" >[4]</label>
|
|
<a
|
|
href="https://creativecommons.org/choose/"
|
|
target="_blank" >
|
|
https://creativecommons.org/choose/</a>
|