Chapter 8
Sharing Culture
Beth Nolan

“the third fork of the commons river”
 Language, art, science, and the contributions we make in life
 Culture is a joint production of individuals and society that is inexhaustible
 A poem can be used over and over without harm to it

“Paying Our Pipers”
 Artists and scientist have often been supported by wealthy private patrons in the past. However, this is no longer sufficient.
 Statute of Queen England 1710: gave authors title to their works, instead of printers.
Rights were awarded for 14 years with option to renew once for 14 more years. After that, the work went into the public domain and all could use without paying.

 A similar arrangement existed in the U.S. up until about 30 years ago when entertainment companies such as Walt Disney, began to tip it from public to private domain. Copyright terms were extended by Congress.
 The consequences have been: 1. marginilization of the public domain with corporations taking from the commons and not giving anything back, and 2. the alteration of our experience of culture, from participants to consumers.

 Solution?
 Scaling up models already in existence such as the San Francisco Grants for the Arts Program and the Music
Performance Trust Fund.
 Charging a royalty on sales

“Thneeds” and Advertising
 Children in America see, on average, 100,000
TV ads by age 5
 “Every ad has an opportunity cost, a cost we experience but advertisers don’t pay
 Solution? Turn off tv, delete spam, toss junk mail, and economy-wide volume control like an advertising cap-and-trade system

Airwaves
 A medium for sharing information and ideas
 Communications Act of 1934: free exclusive local frequencies given to private broadcasters but the broadcasters would serve the public. Thus, in theory, the airwaves remain public property, with the
Federal Communications Commission acting as trustee.
 Commons vs. Private airwaves

Internet
 “The internet is a human-made commons that, for all intent and purposes, can be used without limit.”
 The problem of access and affordability that has created a digital divide – a financial barrier to universal access
 Using digital signals to bridge the gap to the internet through the public airwaves is now possible. The information highway could be free and corporations could profit

Patently Unscientific
 The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980: let universities get patents on taxpayer-funded research and license those patents to corporations. This opened up the floodgates to the now corporate takeover of science and information
 Solution? Apply more stringent standards for issuing patents and provide more public funds for research

We need to stop creating scarcity where it does not exist and instead, embrace the commons of culture