Free your mind and your ass will follow
Yesterday morning, amongst the usual suspects in my inbox (fan mail, hate mail, marriage proposals, invitations to laundromat openings), was something that stood out from the crowd. It was, like all good things, to the point:
FYI: This website design looks a lot like your own:
If you trouble yourself to check it out , and you are familiar with the Westciv site, you could only agree.
I’ve dealt with content theft before, without thinking about it too much, and certainly without comparing my response to some of my deepest values. I’ve pretty much always taken a bit of an “extreme prejudice” approach: “take it down, or I will make you”. They’ve always obliged. I’ve felt like a grown-up. The world moved on.
Maybe it was the side of the bed I got out of, maybe it was the dream I’d had, (something about forgetting to vote in a federal election: probably says more about my current disengagement with mainstream politics, but who knows?) but on this occasion some long suppressed part of me leapt up and said “why don’t you try something new”.
I pretty much lack the imagination to come up with something new by myself at 6.30am, so I consulted my Oblique Strategy widget. It gave me “Take away the important parts”. Hmmmmm. What was important to me? And what would be left when I took it away? I really needed a coffee.
I was getting desperate. On the one hand something was telling me to seize this opportunity to change my life forever, on the other hand I just wanted a coffee, like, now. So I took the scoundrel’s path: “What would Jesus do?”. But I’ve never been too good at channelling Jesus, so I forwarded it on to the next best thing, my good friend Russ, and went off for a coffee.
Always eager to waste my day with synchronous communication, Russ didn’t respond to my email but instead called a little later. I’ll leave aside the “the 49 mile scenic drive up his ass he gave me into faux western Buddhism” (thx Merlin) but the gist of what Russ had to say caused the cascade of a whole lot of thoughts that had been churning around in my head since Sunday, when I listened to this.
It’s a great little piece by a guy called Nate Harrison that tells the story of the Amen Break, a 6 second sample from a B-side 1969 recording that was used extensively in Hip Hop (Straight Outa Compton - who’d have thunk it?), and was almost endemic in drum and bass. He talks of an entire subculture, based on 6 seconds from 1969, and reminds us that culture is impossible without a rich public domain.
As I listened to Nate speak it really touched something inside me. I guess it was just an idea that came into my life at the right time, but I’ve had a long and enjoyable affair with post modernism since first year at university. Don’t get me wrong, we hated each other at first. I remember my friend Jillian, who was studying at the old City Art, causing deep offence to her straight laced law school flatmate (me!) with the idea that there was “nothing new under the sun”. I was furious! Disbelieving! But then somehow I must have gone through the seven stages, because by the time 3 Feet High and Rising came out my delight in its self reference (”This is a recording!”) knew no bounds. So the contemporary idea of remix culture, as applied to web culture, has a lot of appeal to me.
Let’s get back to what Russ had to say, which I instantly recognised as an answer to the Obscure Strategy.
“Why don’t you just let it go?”
It really crystallised a dilemma I had been avoiding for years. On the one hand I protect everything I create as if it were my child, on the other I preach about creative commons, remix culture and the whole Web2.0 thang.
What will happen if I don’t pursue these people? Most likely, nothing. Their little photo sharing app is unlikely to be able to compete with the 1000 pound gorilla of that marketplace, and most likely they’ll go the way of all flesh, their remixed web design with them.
But what could happen? I heard something nice on a podcast of a conversation between Vinod Khosla and John Battelle from Web 2.0 2005 yesterday afternoon that I think is connected. To paraphrase, Vinod said “value will come from the ability to maintain and attract audiences rather than the ability to hold onto content”.
Now, in the old days, value came from maintaining and attracting audiences through holding onto content. What’s changed is how much more difficult it is to hold onto your content, and how much of your creative energy as an organisation you’re going to use up by holding on. But if you let go, and use that same energy for maximising the benefit that flows to you through the reuse of your content by anyone for anything…… Well, I don’t know what will happen, but it’s a fair bet that you’ll spend less time writing cheques for lawyers and more time being involved in interesting and exciting projects.
So, right now, although I haven’t actually told John this yet, I’m going to do nothing. Well, actually, I’m not going to do literally nothing, hopefully I’m going to do something interesting and exciting. Just give me a couple of minutes to consult my Oblique Strategies and I’ll be able to tell you what it is.
