brecht in Sekulic 2015
legal regulations. After
some time, he was joined by "[m]any free software developers [who] do not
consider intellectual property instruments as the pivotal stimulus for a
marketplace of ideas and knowledge. Instead, they see them as a form of
restriction so fundamental (or poorly executed) that they need to be
counteracted through alternative legal agreements that treat knowledge,
inventions, and other creative expressions not as property but rather as
speech to be freely shared, circulated, and modified" (Coleman 2012: 26).
The digital sphere can give a valid example of how renegotiating regulation
can transform a resource from scarce to abundant. When the change from
analogue signal to packet switching begun to take effect, the distribution of
finite territory and the way the radio frequency spectrum was managed got
renegotiated and the amount of slots of space to be allocated grew by an order
of magnitude while the absolute size of the spectrum stayed the same. This
shift enabled Brecht's dream of a two-sided radio to become reality, thus
enabling what he had suggested: "change this apparatus over from distribution
to communication".1
According to Lawrence Lessig, what regulates behavior in cyberspace is an
interdependence of four constraints: market, law, architecture and norms
(Lessig 2012: 121-25). Analogously, space can be put in place of cyberspace,
as the regulation of space is the sum of these four constraints. These four
constraints are in a dynamic relationship in which the balance can be tilted
towards one, depending on how much each of these categories puts pressure on
the other three. Changes in any one reflect the regulation of the whole.
"Architecture" in Lessig's theory should be understood broadly as the "built
environment" that regulates behaviour in (cyber)space. In the last few decades
we have experienced the domination of the market reconfiguring the basis of
norms, law and architecture. In order to counteract this, the other three
constraints nee
. GNU Press.
Stallman, Richard and Joshua Gay (2003): "The Right to Read". _Upgrade_ IV,
no. 3, 26-8.
Stavrides, Stavros (2012) "Squares in movement". _South Atlantic Quarterly_
111, no. 3, 585-96.
Stavrides, Stavros (2013): "Contested urban rhythms: From the industrial city
to the post-industrial urban archipelago". _The Sociological Review_ 61,
34-50.
Stavrides, Stavros, and Massimo De Angelis (2010): "On the commons: A public
interview with Massimo De Angelis and Stavros Stavrides". _e-flux_ 17, 1-17,
[www.e-flux.com/journal/on-the-commons-a-public-interview-with-massimo-de-
angelis-and-stavros-stavrides/](http://www.e-flux.com/journal/on-the-commons-a
-public-interview-with-massimo-de-angelis-and-stavros-stavrides/).
1
"[...] radio is one-sided when it should be two-. It is purely an apparatus
for distribution, for mere sharing out. So here is a positive suggestion:
change this apparatus over from distribution to communication". See "The radio
as a communications apparatus", Brecht 2000.
Published 4 November 2015
Original in English
First published by derive 61 (2015)
Contributed by dérive © Dubravka Sekulic / dérive / Eurozine
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