Its solution is not juridical but political, down to the roots of our system.
Absolute individual authorship of intellectual creativity - and its resulting culturally reprocessed products - simply does not exist. Patents for individual creations are ultimately ungrounded in terms of conclusive originality, and their claim for economic profit is thus ethically objectionable. In fact, cultural and scientific products are in their development culturally universal and should instead be regarded – even by law - a matter of collective property and for the public use. Even if I agree that credit for innovative or artistic authorship should always be respected and that author’s name and source should always be quoted, this authorship per se should not entail profit. Intellectual authorship is not necessarily to be equated with profitable ownership.The societal conflict around IT downloading is not in the essence generational but ideological. Its solution is not juridical but political, down to the roots of our system.
My medal "För nit och redlighet i Rikets tjänst":
A good idea for the Nation to thank artists with Honor instead of copyrights?
I discuss it down below
As Prologue
Years ago, after I had published some debate articles in Dagens Nyheter (DN-debatt), administrative personal of DN emailed and called me relentlessly for the purpose of getting my bank account number in order to pay my “fees” as author of the published debate articles, as it was routine. I refused in principle. The all idea of getting paid sounded a bid grotesque. It was not only the issue of “author fees” which I mention below. I had discussed in those articles health topics which seriously affected a deceived public. I had denounced pseudo scientists, researchers and therapists who in my opinion were after to profit at the expenses of a confused public through the agitation of a mode diagnose which did not have scientific ground. I just did my academic and professional duty. Would I accept to profit myself out of the unethical process I was criticizing? Although DN gently manifested understanding for my objections they could not administratively get along with my line and at the end we settle with a payment I was in my turn to deliver to an altruistic, non commercial project. Accordingly, for later contributions in DN-debatt I have not been offered fees.
I wish - by recalling the illustration above - to express simply and introductorily where I personally stand on the issue of so called private ownership of intellectual production. Further, I never, ever, have received a penny for the scientific articles, or books, or book chapters I have authored. For me it has been fair enough for those duties with my salary as public servant, as all Swedish professors in fact are, or are supposed to be.
A clear ilustration that those duties (to debate in the areas of our expertise- even in the media - if necessary) are just an extension of our normal academic/professional endeavour, and therefore we should not get extra private "copyright" fees for that, is found in the institutional affiliations given by the debate authors (e.g. Professor of xx at the university of YY) in the media. All what is not the same than the use of the authors' professional or academic titles, for these are instead personal bound.
With regard to my artistic production, is there for anyone to use or reproduce as long it is not done for profitable aims.
I
Cultural products and scientific innovations are in their development culturally universal and should instead be regarded collective property
Folkpartiet (the once upon a time liberal party in Sweden) asked me to create a painting which would represent the ostensible Swedish creativity and inventiveness. Accordingly, the painting would be used in the cover of a Folkpartiet’s publication dedicated to the theme of national inventiveness.
As known, the Swedish gallery of famous inventions can boast no less than 50 worldwide known artefacts besides to dynamite, the invention reputed to Alfred Nobel. Some examples often mentioned are the shifting-spanner tool (“skiftnyckeln”, called also the “Swedish key” in Denmark or the “Little Swede” in Russia), the bulb, the propeller, etc. etc. The notion of notorious creativity as a national trade mark has been enhanced in Sweden by the prosperity achieved in the last years by domestic or multinational companies in the music business and which have given out songs created or interpreted by Swedish artists.
However, a closer view into the genesis of those discoveries, or of art and musical creations, would reveal that previous inventions made by others, previous art works and styles, etc. are invariably embedded in the process leading to the final product. And for this product would the author, the inventor or the artist, seek a patent, a copyright or any other form of “author’s right”. As if this final product would be his or her solely achievment.
A discovery is in fact the sinthesis of a dialectical chain of discoveries conducted often parallel in different social formations, places, or differents epochs in the history of man and experimental knowledge.
For instance, Alfred Nobel would not have been able to describe the properties of dynamite – and its patent claim -without the previous discovery of pyroglycerine effectuated by the Italian scientist Ascanio Sobrero in 1847, or the even previous described guncotton by the professor of Turin University Jules Pelouze. Further, the scientific language used by those authors is of even elderly development and in which very many have contributed. Not to mention Johan Petter Johansson’s “skiftnyckeln” patent of 1891, created on the basis of Richard Clyburn’s invention of 1842 (reason for which in most of the countries the “Swedish key” is known in fact as “The English key”).
In the same fashion, the Swedish composer of a purported new pop song would use a certain genre, a rhythm- say for example hip pop - or an certain instrumentation, etc., which were essentially developed by others, elsewhere. How essential – versus accidental - are those previous elements for the “new creation”? The answer is simple, they are sufficiently essential as to the point that if they were not present in the “new composition” or “interpretation”, this could not be identified as such – say for instance as a hip pop hit -by their public.
Being the above for me just a simple matter of natural dialectics, a logical truth, I had no problem in having the idea of painting a tree (see below) - as in the form of a brain – composed by an intricate system of connected tubes. Besides – and this is my point – those trees were absolutely connected in their roots with the roots of other trees scattered all over the visible segment of earth.
Click on picture to enlarge
Needles to say that Folkpartiet did not accept the message of my painting, possibly regarded already then – it occurred many years ago – as not enough nationalistic or perhaps plainly anti-chauvinist. The fact is that the journalist responsible for that publication of the Swedish Folkparti did withdraw the request of my cultural work after he saw the completed painting.
For my contention clearly was – and still is – that:
There not such a thing as purely “Swedish” discoveries or creators, or “English” discoveries, or “Italian” discoveries or creators, inventors, and etcetera. What we do have is a worldwide process of creativity in which language, arts, mathematics, natural sciences, social skills etc, which occurs and has occurred historically in other moments of our generations, previous generations, or in the atavism of our species. There is not such a phenomenon of new absolute creators. What we have is new contributors, even if some celebres ones, amid the dialectical process representing the cultural enrichment of mankind.
II
Whos' copyright?
So, how entitled are we, single contributors in recreating a human culture or scientific knowledge, for claiming absolute “own” rights? And how entitled are the private corporations to 
exercise profit, or even to impose private taxation for the public using the accumulative cultural or scientific collective creative process of all society?
All artists, all scientists, all professors and investigators of this and every other country, in sum, all of creators and innovators, we are all in the bottom benign parasites of the public effort. For each opus we paint and exhibit, for each article containing investigation-findings that we publish in peer-reviewed international journals, for each successful musical partiture there are hundreds of thousands working hours devoted by simple artisans, construction workers edifying “elite” buildings, bus drivers that transport them, humble cleaning personnel, agricultural workers that feed us, etc.
Not to mention that a huge part - if not totally - of the financing for the cultural enterprise of individuals is done with public means in terms of grants and the like. Even the poor and social neglected artist is getting means from the collective taxpayer. Even the most conspicuous newspaper receives financial support from the simple tax payer.
Culture is on the one hand the sum of all what in a society it is produced as objective or intellectual work. But on the other hand all of us so called “intellectuals”, “scientists”, or “artists”, enable our creative labour on the shoulders of the public at large. We owe them, society, in the very first place.
This led my conclusion on that private or corporative patents of intellectual and cultural/artistic work should be abolished.
Corollary, all the intellectual and cultural production that society produces should be facilitated for the use of the public.
III
Artists and innovators working as honorable public servants. National thanks to artists. Honor instead of copyrights?
My opinion in this topic is as old as Leo Tolstoy’s heritage. Cultural workers, writers, artisans etc. are to be paid by the society in which they live, and serve (free from Tolstoy’s “What is Art”). All which entail a profound change at the superstructure of society, there where culture shares bed with ideology.
This is why I introductorily mentioned the example of being 
public servant. I know that it can work fine, for every profession. An intellectual worker – professor, researcher, inventor, etc. – gets his/her salary from public means, such the State. Even a medal for 30 years of public service (Swedish medal of class 7th "För nit och redlighet i Rikets tjänst") - representing a recognition from society - would be awarded for the artist at the service of his/her nation, as truly serving the public interest, instead of serving multinational corporations of the profit-minded and many times greedy exploiters of the cultural talent of their society. In the public service system, there would be a duty of creativity to perform pursuing both ethics and improved quality. Society secure a proper selection of candidates for this tasks by a severe appointing procedure, valid nationwide (in Sweden, Högskoleverket förordning). At the same time we enjoy a supreme freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, or academic freedom, all which is guaranteed by the State legislation. My contention is that the same model is feasible and can be implemented in the case of cultural workers.
Public means as the main system in financing the cultural workers is not detrimental to creativity. Quite at the contrary. It would give them the cultural peace and the material respite very many of them need to be competitive and using the best of their talent. After all "Sharing is caring" and "a downloaded author is a happy author", as quoted by Anna Troberg.
DN-editorial of yesterday 22nd of February (Bortom bukten) discusses the need of market-oriented solutions, in the first place, and of State inspired solutions, in the second place, to manage with the situation of – among other – access of the public to the artistic production of the entertainment business, without detrimental of the artists’ interests. DN's manifested endeavour for constructive solutions is encouraging, however, the problem is in my opinion equivocally stated. For artists, public and society should share a common interest. It is mankind, not marketing.
IV
Beyond The Pirate Bay, or What else is in trial
In The Pirate Bay trial several issues have emerged on the side of imputations in persona. The topics treated in the media and in the blogosphere range from a generation-conflict related themes to a tendencies or fears for anomic behaviour or disrespect with regard to the juridical system from the part of segments of the population, particularly the young. Sociologists Håkan Hydén, Stefan Larsson and Måns Svensson, report in DN-debatt (23/12) their attitude study concerning downloading of files among the population aged 15-25. The results would show that 75 percent among their sample (response Nr = 1100) do not regard legal-prohibitions aspects of downloading as a cause for not indulge in such downloading. Instead of see this as sign of societal anomaly from the part of a possible obsolete or inadequate law, the authors main concern, as they manifest in their concluding remarks, is the perils the above would pose for the functional market!
The article is also commented in Svenska Dagbladet (Forskare kräver ny syn på fildelning, 23/2), where as the study conclusion is given that the gap between the public and big power is greatly on the increase.
For my part my concern has focused on the ideological issues that have or may arise around the praxis of corporative or profit-individual appropriation of collective, global culture.
One other aspect related to the reaction of the entertainment big business and multinational companies – as now publicly shown in alliance with the Swedish political establishment - is whether new measures as the FRA-lagen (the Swedish cable spy legislation), IPRED (legislation against free downloading of certain cultural materials) may severe change the internet behaviours of the public user.
In a previous article in this blog (Ett potentiellt terroristparadis, 24/09, 2008), I referred to the apparently deterrent aim the FRA-lag has against the scrutinizing of political power and of the military-industrial establishment of Sweden. People would get afraid to seek information in the Internet for fear of being listed as or associated with terrorist activity or "anti-Sweden" behaviour. All which is a hard blow against democracy:
"Själv tycker jag att den eventuella tillämpningen av FRA-lagen, även om inte är dess primära syfte, genom att skrämma bort folk bort från sina datorer och övriga kommunikationsmedel, eller genom att idka självcensur, ska resultera i att många i förlängningen drar sig för att granska stadsmakten i framtiden. Statsmakten och myndighetsutövare kan i ett sådant fall bli desto mer arrogant, och skrämma sina medborgare till en arg falsk lydnad. Alltså, ett sann potentiellt terroristparadis."
A similar warning is manifested by Isobel Hadley-Kamptz (Våra digitala liv är hotade, Expressen 21/2 2009. An interesant comments from "b9AcE" here) with regard to an eventual risk of using certain linking in Internet. The author mentions for instance that in Germany the public may have become reluctant to use on-line psychological or therapeutic services, fearing that their personal traits would be registered by the German version of the FRA-lag.
Isobel Hadley-Kamptz indirectly also warns for the democratic implications of these kind of legislation. The high coercively impact implicit in these laws, their outmost severe penalties, would deter people of even discussing other related issues such as copyright, author’s right, reproduction of material, etc.
The interesting insight of Isobel Hadley-Kamptz concludes with a parallel she draws between our movement of 1968, the massive workers urban revolt and uprising lead by radical students, mainly of the New Left. The author states (my translation):
"Perhaps we live our ’68. But ’68 was also the year when Richard Milhouse Nixon become president by means of channelling the little man’s hate against the one who was equipped for the future better than him. History rehearses itself again, in very many ways.”
("Kanske lever vi vårt -68. Men -68 var också året när Richard Milhouse Nixon blev president genom att kanalisera den lille mannens hat mot dem som var bättre rustade än han för framtiden. Historien går igen på alldeles för många sätt")
In the horizon of the trial in the Swedish court against The Pirate Bay, are we mainly witnessing a sort of generational conflict with technical implications? If so, is this a new ’68 momentum? For our uprising of 1968 was in the main deep politically minded, distinct ideologically rooted, and above all aimed to change the structures and system of power on the root of society.
The bottom line is that modern societal and technological development urgently demand profound changes in the copyright system, in the praxis of excessive profit from the part of the big companies, in the system of repetitive tax from the part of the state regarding intellectual, cultural or educational products, in the juridical conception and lawmaking that protect the profits of industrial interest against an already economic battered individual consumer, etc. All these changes would be perhaps feasible only if the current political structures of society and the aim of its ideology are drastically changed.
Marcello Ferrada-Noli, 23/2, 2009
andra om Copyright, IPRED, FRA, FRA lagen, upphövsrätt, The Pirate Bay, Downloadning (fildelning). Intressant?
I detta sammanhang kommer i stället piratpartiets orförande Erik Falkvinge och upplyser om ett verkligen skrämmande scenario beträffande vad allt innebära skall. I den sista sektionen (Veckans argumentation) av sitt nyhetsbrev som publicerades i nätet i dag (27/2) - rubricerat Välkomna ombord - redovisas steg efter steg de horribla fascistiska metoder som skall komma att användas enligt Falkvinge i lagens namn. Erik Falkvinge slutfattar:
I detta sammanhang kommer i stället piratpartiets orförande Erik Falkvinge och upplyser om ett verkligen skrämmande scenario beträffande vad allt innebära skall. I den sista sektionen (Veckans argumentation) av sitt nyhetsbrev som publicerades i nätet i dag (27/2) - rubricerat Välkomna ombord - redovisas steg efter steg de horribla fascistiska metoder som skall komma att användas enligt Falkvinge i lagens namn. Erik Falkvinge slutfattar:
Den här (till vänster) är bilden med min av den 23/2 publicerade trä med sina multiple ben och tusen huvud
