Libre culture

Libre culture refers to a sub-culture of the broader free culture movement most closely aligned with the principles of the libre software movement. Libre communities favour use of libre software to ensure that anyone can participate in collaborative production of cultural works, and libre file formats to ensure that anyone may experience the products of their work.

Libre works, or libre resources, are published under terms which encompass the four core freedoms first defined in the free software definition and comply with the Definition of Free Cultural Works. That is, users of the work are free to access, read, listen to, watch, or otherwise experience the resource; to learn with, copy, perform, adapt and use it for any purpose; and to contribute and share enhancements or derived works.

Some sectors of the libre culture community promote copyleft as a means of growing the commons and protecting the freedom of users and producers of derived works and mixes in future. These groups also tend to use terminology which they believe will not compromise their message.^[1][2]

History

Expansion of U.S. copyright law (Assuming authors create their works at age 35 and live for seventy years)

The history of libre culture is linked to that of the libre software movement, libre knowledge and the free culture movement. These in turn have been driven by the history of copyright law which has generally become more restrictive over time.

Libre music

In 1994,^[3] Ram Samudrala published the Free Music Philosophy. Mirroring the free software movement, it called for artists to allow their songs and compositions to be distributed with fewer copyright restrictions. The subsequent free music movement was reported on by diverse media outlets including Billboard,^[4] Forbes,^[5] Levi's Original Music Magazine,^[6] The Free Radical,^[7] Wired^[8][9] and The New York Times,^[10] and largely became a reality in the early 21st century.^[11]

The term "libre music", or "free music" when 'free as in freedom' is clear from the context, refers to music or representations thereof released under libre licences which grant listeners and musicians the freedom to listen to, perform, mix (or otherwise use) the music, to copy, modify and share it in accordance with the applicable licence(s).

"Libre" has found its way into the naming of tools and projects concerned with enabling musicians (and listeners) to exercise these freedoms, and into the terminology used by some members of these communities.

Libre.fm, for example, is a music community web site which enables and encourages artists to share their music under libre licences; the site runs on libre software (GNU FM). The Mutopia Project is a volunteer-run effort to create a library of free content sheet music.

Libre Music Production (LMP) is a community-driven online resource whose goal is to "aid making music with libre software"; community knowledge about how to do this is shared under a libre licence (Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International).

Libre art and free culture

The term “free culture” has been in use at least since the 2003 World Summit on Information Society^[12] where it was used in a presentation on the "Licence art libre" (or "Free Art Licence"), the first libre license for artistic creation at large, initiated by the Copyleft attitude team in France in 2000.

Libre works of art are sometimes referred to as "librart" by "libre artists" or ethical artists.

Free culture was later developed in a 2004 book by Lawrence Lessig.^[13] The book and Lessig's related activities are at the root of the broader free culture movement.

The free culture movement

In reaction to the United States Congress passing the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in 1998, academic and political activist Lawrence Lessig travelled the country giving hundreds of speeches at college campuses expounding the view that copyright is an obstacle to cultural production, knowledge sharing and technological innovation. In addition, Lessig published several books,^[14] presented at various conferences and international events,^[15][16] and founded the Creative Commons in 2001. These activities sparked the free culture movement and, with the release of the first set of Creative Commons copyright licences in December 2002, provided a foundation for its sustainability and impact.^[17]

One of the more active manifestations of this movement, Students for Free Culture, advocate use of libre licences (i.e. licences which are compatible with the definition of free cultural works), and are active in discussions discouraging the use of non-libre licences such as Creative Commons licenses with restrictions on commercial use or on composing derived works.^[18]

Creative Commons

Creative Commons logo

Lawrence Lessig, founder of the Creative Commons, maintains that freedom means different things to different people and through the Creative Commons developed a range of licences enabling creators (e.g. academics, artists, authors, readers, educators, learners, musicians, etc.) to indicate the uses and freedoms they would like to allow.^[19]

Two of the active Creative Commons licences, Attribution and Attribution-ShareAlike, are libre licences marked as ‘approved for free cultural works’. The retired ShareAlike 1.0 Generic and the Creative Commons Zero deed are also libre. The four remaining main licences are non-libre on account of restrictions on commercial use^[20] or on making derived works.

Facets

Knowledge and education

The term Libre knowledge refers to libre knowledge and educational resources and associated sub-culture of the free culture movement aligned with the principles of libre software. Proponents emphasise freedom over the pragmatics highlighted by most "open" initiatives, and recommend copyleft libre licensing for most knowledge and learning resources as a means of growing libre knowledge commons.^[2]

Stallman wrote the basic essay about Free/Libre Science Publishing on his website between 2012-2013.^[21]

Arts

Libre art (librart in short) is the collection of libre artworks by libre artists or ethical artists published in libre repositories such Wikimedia Commons.

Libre artists (aka librartists or ethical artists) emerged in the western world (Europe and Americas) alongside the free culture movement and its various events (e.g. iSummits and iCommons events). The Licence Art Libre was developed in France. Spain hosts the Oxcars, a public showcase that puts the spotlight on cultural creation and distribution carried out under the paradigms of shared culture. Poland's CopyCamp event features libre culture with Nina Paley, Cory Doctorow, Birgitta Jónsdóttir and Visegrád Countries, and there is a growing global community.

See also

References