In a noted 2002 paper on the darknet, 4 Microsoft employees wrote the following: "Peer-to-peer file sharing assumes that a significant fraction of users adhere to the somewhat post-capitalist idea of sacrificing their own resources for the 'common good' of the network." I think "post-capitalism" is a great way to describe the mindset of the Free Culture Movement, even if one of its leaders prefers to call himself a "Dot Communist."

I find myself reflecting on this post-capitalist notion, and my colleague Jim's reference to the open source movement as a Church, in reading the remarkable passion over the last week relating to Larry Lessig linking Creative Commons to a marketing firm. This unholy "sellout" caused a firestorm of controversy, and Lessig has backed off most apologetically, leaving me to wonder if he truly is the Messiah of his movement or a captive of it.

At issue was Lessig's decision to accept an overture from a word-of-mouth marketing company called BzzAgent. As best I can understand this company, they have volunteers who agree to talk up friends about stuff they like (while letting the friends know they're enrolled in BzzAgent) and that earns them points, like credit-card miles, that they can exchange for, say, early trials of new products (but no cash). Call it capitalism on the smallest of scales.

As Lessig pointed out, it was a pro bono arrangement -- Creative Commons didn't pay for advertising nor did it receive anything financially for BzzAgent's efforts. Apparently these buzzing agents work mostly offline, and Lessig found that attractive, given his self-described "field soldiers" (as one poster to Lessig called himself and others in the movement) are online. But those field soldiers went ballistic.

Corante's Suw Charman wrote this on the Corante blog:

But for Creative Commons to start using BzzAgents is, not to put too fine a point on it, a betrayal of the work done by grassroots activists who are genuinely concerned about the state of copyright today. The people who have been working hard on promoting CC, who are contributing CC material to the ever growing commons, who are writing about copyright reform, putting together seminars and events, these are CC's 'buzz agents', and they do all this work for free, because they believe on a fundamental level that it is important.

BzzAgent's Dave Balter responded on his blog, calling posts by Charman and others a "vicious circle of lies." Balter then apologized, more than once, but using the "L" word was Balter's fatal mistake, it would seem by reading Lessig's summary of the debate. By calling Charman a liar, even indirectly, his other arguments were dismissed.

Lessig's mea culpa blog, in which he promises to break with those reckless quasi-capitalists at BzzAgent, puts it as follows:

Forth [sic], and for all the extremely powerful reasons these discussions have mustered, we were wrong to use this tool to spread our message. This is not, again, because BzzAgent is evil. It is not because it shouldn't be used to spread any message. It is not because understanding achieved through networks of humans is worse than the understanding produced through a survey. It is instead because this way of spreading our message weakens the power of our message.

Creative Commons, as you've reminded us, is a movement.

The humbling of the Free Culture Movement's spiritual guide resonated with his followers. Some of the responses.

Matt Price: I think you made the right decision. Thanks for listening.

William Loughborough: You are moving ever closer to the "method" that must be used because it's not that some "marketing method" is "evil" but that centralized hierarchies typified by the very oxymoronic phrase "intellectual property rights" stand in the way of universal connection: everyone/everything/everywhere/always connected!

Suw Charman: Excellent news, Larry! I am delighted to see you and your colleagues at CC grasp the nettle and make this decision. We all make mistakes, but the challenge is always to learn from them and to turn errors into wisdom. The silver lining in this furore for CC is that you have now embarked on a course of action which I believe will prove to be more effective, stronger, and will have more of a long-term benefit for all involved than the relationship with BzzAgents could ever have given you.

Amen, sister! Heaven forbid a worthwhile effort like CC -- which after all empowers artists to control the use and distribution of their own content, assuming their express wishes are respected -- should be championed by anyone not promoting it purely out of post-capitalist self-sacrifice.

Apparently I'm not the only one who fails to understand why Lessig and CC supporters are willing to embrace such an extreme form of evangelical purity. Take this post to Lessig's blog from "George":

I believe in CC and use CC copyrights for my creative work. I also believe in the authentic and transparent nature of BzzAgent's business.

In the end, I find this sad. Sad, because we chose to fight instead of cooperate for the greater good and benefit of CC. Sad, because we chose so often to be elitist in our opinions and to ignore the benefits, rather than working together to help CC grow. Sad, because we are so quick to destroy just because we can.

Free Culture Movement types aren't inclined to listen to me, but I wonder if anyone will listen to George. I do know this: Loughborough, further on in the post I quote from above, praises Lessig for his continuing "radicalization." This radicalization, sincere or not, has gained Lessig an increasingly large following. It also, however, seems to give him increasingly less wiggle room. This must be extremely frustrating for a university professor. His tenure at Stanford gives him the freedom to say pretty much whatever he wants, but his CC soldiers apparently have proven far less tolerant.

posted by Patrick Ross @ 2:19 PM | Free Culture Movement

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