Coleman, 2009

CODE IS SPEECH: Legal Tinkering, Expertise, and Protest among Free and Open Source Software Developers

Gabriella Coleman

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Link to Relevant CA Essay Lists: Culture/Theory, Globalization, Performance, Science and Technology Studies

EDITORS' OVERVIEW

In the August, 2009 issue of Cultural Anthropology, Gabriella Coleman examines how Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) developers have reconfigured the ethical, legal, and cultural meanings of source code and speech to defend their constructive autonomy. Drawing upon Robert Cover's concept of "jurisgenisis," Coleman demonstrates how F/OSS developers explore and expand the meaning of liberal freedom as they produce new legal tools and analyses along with new software. 

Coleman focuses on how source code came to be framed as constitutionally protected free speech by F/OSS developers following the arrests of Jon Johansen and Dmitry Sklyarov, both of whom developed software which violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Coleman finds that F/OSS developers use similar skills to concurrently tinker with both technology and the law, allowing for the transformation of technologists into informal legal scholars. 

Through the protests surrounding Jon Johansen and Dmitry Sklyarov, Coleman argues that heightened visibility was brought to the social processes which surround the development of F/OSS, leading to a proliferation of statements connecting code to speech, rather than private property. In doing so, Coleman provides a better understanding of why and when technology-based political movements emerge and historicize what Chris Kelty describes as a "recursive public." 

Cultural Anthropology has published a number of essays on the practices and politics of informationalism. See particularly Brian Axel's "Anthropology and the New Technologies of Communication" (2006), Christopher Kelty's "Geeks, Social Imaginaries, and Recursive Publics" (2005), and René T. A. Lysloff's "Musical Community on the Internet: An On-line Ethnography" (2003).  Also see Anthropology of/in Circulation: The Future of Open Access and Scholarly Societies, a conversation in Cultural Anthropology amongst open access advocates, accessible online at: http://blog.culanth.org/incirculation/

Cultural Anthropology has also published a number of essays on the politics of law. See Damani Partridge's "We Were Dancing in the Club, Not on the Berlin Wall:  Black Bodies, Street Bureaucrats, and Exclusionary Incorporation into the New Europe" (2008), Heather Paxon's "Post-Pasteurian Cultures: The Microbiopolitics of Raw-Milk Cheese in the United States" (2008), Ilana Feldman's "Difficult Distinctions: Refugee Law, Humanitarian Practice, and Political Identification in Gaza" (2007), and Sarah Jain's "'Dangerous Instrumentality': The Bystander as Subject in Automobility" (2004).

LINKS FROM THE ESSAY

The Full DeCSS Haiku

GNU Manifesto

Digital Milennium Copyright Act (DMCA)

So Sue Me: Jon Johansen's Blog

US Export Control Laws on Encryption Ruled Unconstitutional

Slashdot Comments: Jon Johansen Indicted by the MPA(A)

Pigdog Journal DeCSS Distribution Center

Linux Weekly News: July 27, 2000

MPAA v. 2600: Brief of Amici Curiae in Support of Appellants and Reversal of the Judgment Below

MEDIA LINKS

The Gallery of DeCSS Descramblers

The History of the DeCSS Haiku

Hacker Practice: Moral Genres and the Cultural Articulation of Liberalism by E. Gabriella Coleman and Alex Golub

DeCSS and (My) Radicalization

Lawrence Lessig - Code Version 2.0

OTHER ORGANIZATION LINKS

Free Software Foundation

Mozilla

GNU

Debian

Creative Commons

DVD Copy Control Association

Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)

RELATED SCHOLARLY WORK

Axel, Brian (2006) - Anthropology and the New Technologies of Communication. Cultural Anthropology 21(3): 354-384.

Feldman, Ilana (2007) - Difficult Distinctions: Refugee Law, Humanitarian Practice, and Political Identification in Gaza. Cultural Anthropology 22(1): 129-169.

Jain, Sarah (2004) - "Dangerous Instrumentality": The Bystander as Subject in Automobility. Cultural Anthropology 19(1): 61-94.

Kelty, Christopher (2005) - Geeks, Social Imaginaries, and Recursive Publics. Cultural Anthropology 20(2): 185-214.

Lysloff, René T. A. (2003) - Musical Community on the Internet: An On-line Ethnography. Cultural Anthropology 18(2): 233-263.

Partridge, Damani (2008) - We Were Dancing in the Club, Not on the Berlin Wall:  Black Bodies, Street Bureaucrats, and Exclusionary Incorporation into the New Europe. Cultural Anthropology 23(4): 660-687.

Paxon, Heather (2008) - Post-Pasteurian Cultures: The Microbiopolitics of Raw-Milk Cheese in the United States. Cultural Anthropology 23(1): 15-47.

QUESTIONS FOR CLASSROOM DISCUSSION

1. What are some of the broader meanings of 'free as in speech, not beer'?
2. What is a 'recursive public'?
3. Should software code be protected as speech?  Why or why not?
4. Do intellectual property laws largely protect or prevent innovation?  How and why?
5. Do the lengthy requirements for entering the Debian development community serve to create a stronger community, or one of exclusivity?

IMAGE CREDITS

http://eyeball-series.org/hacker/hacker-eyeball2.htm
http://www.fsf.org/
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2002/01/49638