It Was the Best of Times
Well, what can I say, it was the best of times. It was a time when some of us came to believe that community and a quest for creative freedom, not the least a quest for personal and collective betterment, were to be found on the fringes of a topic as dry as copyright law. Well, maybe not dry to lawyers. Among lawyers, I think copyright is considered at least a little bit sexy. To those who were part of Commons International (CCi) though, to many of us at least, it was much more than that. It’s one of those things, where you just had to be there.
You see, you had to be some special kind of nerd to appreciate it all. And indeed, we were all nerds of some type. I mean that in the best way possible: people who are passionate about very particular things and will go out of their way to learn about them and eventually contribute something of their own and then excitedly share it with anyone that will listen. People who are immersed in their little big projects to the extent that they may at times forget about the world around them, but whose ideas and actions may one day change that world for the better. Or so I thought.
See, that was a time when some of us still (somewhat doggedly) believed that nerds would make the world better. Whether fighting for an alternative to restrictive copyright laws (whether one saw it as subverting copyright, complementing it, improving upon it, or reifying its hold over creative work), or whether in it for the parties… we were young and inspired, and had every reason to be optimistic. About ourselves, our careers, the small wins in freeing up data, software, and culture. Optimistic about the world at large. More than a decade later, my optimism has subsided considerably. I am not sure that this is the result of wisdom conferred by years of trial and error (so much error), or resignation to a world that seems to have strayed so far from what I thought it would be. What I wished it would be.
It is now 2026, and the greatest threat to copyright’s rule seems to come from technology that I did not think I’d live to see. Technology with such voracious appetite for precious, limited natural resources and the fruits of human labor, now digitized and easy for the taking; technology that can consume incredible amounts of both and churn out an even more incredible amount of semi-convincing… everything! Where does copyright fit into all this? Are we entering a state of quasi-endangerment? To be replaced by digital homunculi working tirelessly out of well-guarded data centers, producing generic scripts, images, music, deportation targets, war plans, and perchance an accidental masterpiece?
Is it perhaps the nature of information technology to colonize, as it were, every new space it creates? Are those who speak of progress and freedom of speech destined to become tyrants when given a chance at power? Information technology, for all its liberating and democratizing potential, has also always been a technology of control. That much I know. What will be our defense against this? Is copyright now increasingly going to be the means by which we may at least defend our creative output from the voracious machines and their masters? What other defenses are we going to need? These and other questions are always on my mind.
Perhaps we are going to require special protection status. A reservation of sorts for those whose labor is rendered obsolete by thinking computers. An artisan fair for those who prefer the hallucinations of a human to those of a machine. A farmer’s market for knowledge work. A renewed appreciation for all the little faults and kinks that make us human. Little server farms of our own, to run models of memory and models of resistance. Likely we will need all that and more, if one also thinks about the global political situation: the smell of gunpowder in the air, the buzz of weaponized drones in the sky, the voices of militant populists multiplying on every screen. How do we restore some much-needed balance when knives are out?
I don’t know, I don’t have the answers. All I know is I miss that time. Back when we were young, when it felt like the internet was a space for progress, a means of reaching across cultures and borders, a space for learning and genuine inquiry, memes and all. I miss the naivete that social media would disrupt dictatorships and wouldn’t do the same to liberal democracies. I miss when copyright was the big baddy — to some at least — and people were finding creative ways around it. I miss the parties. I miss the half-baked ideas that were brimming with potential. Most of all, I miss the naivete. And now, as I write these lines, I so wish I could go back.
PS. This got rather gloomy, perhaps. It was not my intention. Perhaps it is natural when reminiscing to sense a longing for what once was. Even more so, the dreams we once made. Not everyone shared in the idealism, but I think most peeps allowed themselves to be that little bit infected by it. Regardless, life goes on, and the seeds that many in and around CCi sowed are still bearing fruit. I personally made friendships and started collaborations that continue to this day, in ways I could have never anticipated. Every once in a while I will see the same debates over copyright revisited by what I assume must be netizens much younger than me. Do we even say netizens anymore? I don’t know. The pace of change is dizzying and though I still read a lot about tech, the internet, and current affairs, I find it hard to keep up. For what it’s worth, if you are reading this, know that I am forever grateful to have taken part in CCi. And hope to once again find the sense of purpose and community that CCi gave so generously. Here’s hoping for a brighter and kinder future.